A great marketing lesson from Gene Schwartz

Dear Marketing Maven,

The most common cause of marketing failure is trying to create desire where none exists.

As the legendary copywriter Gene Schwartz explains in his great book, Breakthrough Advertising, “Desire is the creation of the target market itself. Copy cannot create desire for a product. It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires that already exist in the hearts of millions of people and focus those already-existing desires onto a particular product.”

To do this, Gene’s book recommends that we keep a watchful eye on any hot spots of consumer desire we notice in all major media, i.e., the most popular TV shows, movies, magazines, and best-selling books. Today, of course, we’d include websites, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc., especially those within our own market.

So let’s Maxim-ize this thought to make it easy to remember whenever you’re looking to create or sell a product…

Maxim #20:
If you want a best-seller, study best-sellers

Let me give you an example…

Many years ago, I read the best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It changed my life because it taught me how to set and achieve goals much more methodically.

As a copywriter, I also loved the title. These four simple words, Think and Grow Rich, combine a widely held desire (getting rich) with an intriguing one-word mechanism to bring it about: think.

Published way back in 1937, when America was mired in the Great Depression, Hill’s Think and Grow Rich became an instant best-seller, mainly because of its title.

Since then, Think and Grow Rich has become the "grandaddy of all personal development books." It has sold an estimated 100 million+ copies worldwide. It remains a perennial best-seller, continuously reprinted in deluxe editions, customized for different specialized groups, and translated into dozens of languages.

Ever since I read the book, I set a goal to someday harness its best-selling magic for one of my clients.

Many years later, the opportunity arose. I was retained to create a promotion for Richard C. Young, the brilliant, highly successful investment advisor who publishes a monthly newsletter on how and where to invest for a wealthy, worry-free retirement.

In every issue of his newsletter, Young counsels his readers to flee from the enticing, often complicated get-rich-quick schemes promoted by many of his competitors. Instead, he advises that his followers employ a simple, much safer strategy that harnesses the mighty wealth-building power of compound interest — combined with the world’s best dividend-paying stocks — to more safely build very substantial wealth over time.

Napoleon Hill’s book and Richard Young’s monthly newsletter are radically different products for totally different markets. Hill’s book says nothing about investing strategies, and Young’s newsletter offers nothing like Hill’s psychological exercises for achieving career goals. Moreover, Hill’s book was written more than 60 years earlier than my promotion. Nevertheless, both aim to channel the heat of the same proven fire of desire —getting rich.

The promotion I wrote was a monster hit — a best-seller among newsletter promotions for years. As you’ll see when you click the link below to read the promotion (especially the headline), its success was directly attributable to my love of one of the best-selling book titles of all time, Think and Grow Rich.

What this teaches…

If you’re a marketer or copywriter who wants to create a best-seller in your market, remember always:

Maxim #20:
If you want a best-seller, study best-sellers

A super-successful newsletter promotion for investment advisor Richard C. Young

Sincere wishes for a good life and (always!) higher response,

Gary Bencivenga

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