Breakthrough Advertising

Decades old, this book continues to be one of the most important resources for creating and delivering effective messages in marketing. Eugene Schwartz is one of the godfathers of direct advertising whose insights about understanding your customer’s state of awareness have been invaluable to countless marketers and copywriters. The examples he shares may be dated, but the advice remains relevant.

This book is dense, like a textbook. It’s one you’ll have to read 3-4x before it really sinks in. But once you understand the principles in this book, you’ll become dangerous behind a keyboard. The chapters on "Market Awareness" and "Market Sophistication" will help you never write a losing ad again. You’ll finally understand why some ads fall flat, why messaging mismatches happen, and how to channel desire so writing copy becomes effortless. This book gave me the insights I needed to write a $5,200,000 launch campaign back in 2016. I’d say it’s worth a read.

This is one of my all-time favorites by a wizard of direct response. It discusses the psychology of advertising and the stages your product or service goes through in consumers’ minds. It talks a great deal about headlines, examines how to fire up your copy, and contains some of the hardest-hitting direct-response ads I’ve ever seen. Read this only if you’re serious about writing great ad copy--it’s not for beginners or those just dabbling in the art.