Copywriting for Authors 01 - Analyzed Solutions

WHY ONLY ANALYZED SOLUTIONS WORK: The headline and the ad following it are designed to open up an entirely new market for that product. The object is helping people fulfill their desires...

Eugene Schwartz lays out the premise and breakthrough of his classic “Breakthrough Advertising” within the few pages of its introduction:

“I've written this book – not from the mail order perspective alone – but from the universal problem of all copy writing: How to write a headline – and an ad that follows it – that will open up an entirely new market for its product.

“An ad that will give a new product immediate profit; that will give an old product a brand-new slant; that will give a competitively-battered product a new weapon – not only to protect itself against its imitators but to actually damage or destroy the loyalty of their following.

“These objectives cannot be achieved by following somebody else's formula – no matter how successful it was for them. they demand creativity they demand a brand-new headline; a brand new approach to the market: a literal advertising 'breakthrough.' Hence the title of this book.

“This, then, is a practical book – of practical rules that produce, and exploit, creativity – and that are meant to pay off on the very first ad.

“In copy writing there are the hopes and fears and desires of millions upon millions of men and women, all over the world. And the copy writer does not create the desire of millions of women all over America to lose weight; but he can channel that desire onto a particular product, and make its owner a millionaire.”

The key point Schwartz makes here is the same one which is driving Internet Marketing as a subject down into a very deep hole:

• There are millions if not billions of variations of the basic human desires.

• As forces of human nature, no two desires are exactly alike.

• While it is simpler to think of these in terms of a few, realize that for every niche – no matter how small – these each have subtle variations which have to be discovered and channeled onto your product.

• But only one specific mass desire can be channeled in any ad for a single product.

Schwartz explains:

“And the same advertising appeal, that builds an industry in reducing (weight loss), collapses completely when applied to health foods, even though both advertisements may reach exactly the same audience.

“Why? Because no formula works twice. Each and every formula is simply the written solution to a particular problem that occurred in the past. Change even one part of that problem, and you need an entirely different formula. That's why... rewriting somebody else's headlines won't make you a copy writer.

“What will work? Innovation, of course. Continuous, repeated innovation. A steady stream of new ideas – fresh new solutions to new problems. Created – not by the impossible route of memory – but by analysis.

“And what is analysis? Analysis is the art of asking the right questions and letting the problem dictate the right answers. It is the technique of the break-through. And it can be learned – just as surely as grammar, mathematics or spelling.

“The first part of this book is about analysis, applied to the profession of copy writing. Its basic thesis is this:

“Every new market – every new product – every new advertisement is a fresh new problem that never existed before on the face of this earth.

“Past advertising successes – no matter how brilliant – can provide no answers for this new problem. They can only furnish jump-off points, yardstick questions, approximate solutions to lead you into the right direction.

“The correct solution, the right headline, the perfect ad lies buried in the problem itself. It has never been written before. It cannot be produced by rote, carbon-copying or mutations.

“But it can be sprung to the surface – automatically – by asking the right questions.”

This is simply copycatting – making versions of the successful ad for a different product, often in a different market. This doesn't work, as Schwartz explains:

They become Echo Ads - ads that remind people of some other product. they pay no attention to unique product-market-timing relationship that exists at the moment. Therefore they lose all the strengths that are wrapped up in that relationship. They are the kind of ads that clients write, rather than copy writers.

. . . .

What you are looking for in this product and this market is the one element that makes them unique. The idea you want – the headline you want – the breakthrough you want – are all wrapped up inside that product and that market. Nowhere else.

And no outside ride – no outside formula will give them to you. You are facing a product-market-timing relationship that never happened before – it is unique. And the solution you need is just as unique.

Most Internet Marketing simply tells you how to build a sales page by using “swipe files”. What they don't tell you is that these sales pages only ever really worked on a certain audience of customers for one specific product. Borrowing them for another product, especially in a different niche, just makes them less and less effective with every re-use.

According to Schwartz, they only ever really worked effectively just once.

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Next: Find out what you’re analyzing - the mass desires of your potential customer. It’s how you can help them get what they want, not what you want them to buy…

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Missed Any Lessons?

How This Can Help You

This course and book are being evolved here. Each week (with some later revisions) I’ll bring out a lesson from the course. Meanwhile, I’m cobbling together the main text I’m pulling from - and will make it available in beta (see below) while I edit it in the background.

Meanwhile, comment below or email/DM me with any questions you have. Or get this full beta-edition book, soon available below.

And you can always buy me a coffee…

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