How to Write Ad Copy That Works

Masters of Marketing Secrets: A Course in Classic Copywriting

There are many books on marketing and copywriting out there which teach you the words to what you are doing – this book teaches you the tune and harmony.

The story to this series of books about the Masters of Marketing and their secrets started with my trying to work out how a “successful” marketer made his millions.

One his earlier-edition books I did find some hints in a since-removed chapter. Interestingly, this told of a style of learning which had been promoted by Gary Halbert – so I looked up that page again and found that Halbert said to study a certain set of books.

One of these, Eugene Schwartz' Breakthrough Advertising, itself had a list of the classic marketers which Schwartz had studied.

Both Halbert and Schwartz pointed to the giants whose shoulders they stood on to see further. The interesting point is that these early pioneers of advertising were the ones who evolved the industry into a practical art form, based on tested procedures and techniques which proved to work.

As you are reading this, you are obviously interested in how Marketing actually works and what is actually effective. You already have been through the wringer with all these online marketers who use the same copy-paste template of a sales page, with mailing lists which send you unwanted traffic several times a week and insist that you are stupid enough to believe their hype, over and over and over.

The Masters of Marketing Secrets series brings you these classics so that you can make up your own mind. All that has been done with these books is to give you modern versions of them which have been (mostly) cleaned up of typo's and poor editing – and also made available in ebook and paperback so you can study them at your leisure.

J. George Frederick lived in those times and wrote about the people and principles of advertising they discovered. His book has been handed around for years, and as you study the other books in this series it starts pulling the pieces together for you.

(from the Forward)

How did Copywriting and Advertising become what it is today?

What are the key secrets which all but today's Masters have known and used to sell product and services.

Not so oddly, they've been hidden in plain site all along.

J. George Frederick collected the experts of his time - the Golden Age of Copywriting - to tell the key points any copywriter needs to know and apply to succeed.

And as humans haven't evolved so much since history began, so the tools of persuasion are the same as they were discovered nearly a century ago.

Now they are available for you. Now you can use them to gain any amount of sales for you or your client.

You only have to study them first. This book is a good first step in your studies - which will continue the rest of your life.

This volume gives the history and transition of advertising into a consumer-oriented, sales-producing industry - from a promotion system which relied more on features of the product rather than benefits for the buyer. In this book, you see the transition happening, and understand it's evolution.

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Justus George Frederick (1882-1964) was reporter on a newspaper, became department store advertising man and wrote articles on advertising for Printers’ Ink. ‘Went west to become a member of the Lord & Thomas staff during “reason why” propaganda, and edited magazine Judicious Advertising. Came to New York, joined Ben Hampton Agency and later was copy chief for Ward & Gow, subway advertising.

He then became managing editor of Printers’ Ink, when George P. Rowell sold the magazine and the new owners began to develop it. In 1910 he resigned to form the Business Bourse, International, a commercial research organization. For several years, he was editor in chief of Advertising and Selling Magazine.