Claude C. Hopkins - My life in advertising (1927)

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Ads are planned and written with some utterly wrong conception. They are written to please their seller. The interest of the buyer is forgotten

Claude C. Hopkins
The purpose of a headline is to pick out people you can interest. You wish to talk to someone in a crowd. So the first thing you say is, "hey there, Bill Jones" to get the right persons attention.so it is in n advertisement

Claude C. Hopkins
The weight of an argument may often be multiplied by making it specific

Claude C. Hopkins
No generality has any weight whatever. It is like saying "how do you do?" When you have no intention of inquiring about ones health. But specific claims when made in print are taken at their value

Claude C. Hopkins
The compass of accurate knowledge directs the shortest, safest, cheapest course to any destination

Claude C. Hopkins
Don't, to gain general and useless attention, sacrifice the attention that you want

Claude C. Hopkins
Literary qualifications have no more to do with it than oratory has with salesmanship. One must be able to express himself briefly, clearly, and convincingly, just as a salesman must.

Claude C. Hopkins
On most lines, making a sale without making a convert does not count for much. Sales made by conviction - by advertising - are likely to bring permanent customers. People who buy through casual recommendations often do not stick

Claude C. Hopkins
Fine writing is a distinct disadvantage. So is unique literary style. They take attention from the subject

Claude C. Hopkins
Advertising is prima facie evidence that the man who pays believes that advertising is good. It has brought great results to others, it must be good for him. So he takes it like some secret tonic which others have endorsed. If the business thrives, the tonic gets the credit. Otherwise, the failure is due to fate.

Claude C. Hopkins
The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales.

Claude C. Hopkins
The only readers we get are people whom our subject interests. No one reads ads for amusement, long or short... Give them enough to take action

Claude C. Hopkins
Scientific advertising has altered many old plans and conceptions. It has proved many long established methods to be folly

Claude C. Hopkins
Human nature is perpetual. In most respects it is the same today as in the time of Caesar. So the principles of psychology are fixed and enduring

Claude C. Hopkins
In the old days, advertisers ventured on their own opinions. The few guess right, the many wrong. Those were the time of advertising disaster

Claude C. Hopkins
Advertising is utterly unprofitable, and I could prove it to you in one week. End an ad with an offer to pay five dollars to anyone who writes you that he read the ad through. The scarcity of replies will amaze you.

Claude C. Hopkins
Most national advertising is done without justification. It is merely presumed to pay. A little test might show a way to multiply returns

Claude C. Hopkins
Impressive claims are made far more impressive by making them exact

Claude C. Hopkins
The man who wins out and survives does so only because of superior science and strategy.

Claude C. Hopkins