Satisfying Desire: Notes From The Most Sophisticated Marketing Book That’s No Longer Published
“Breakthrough Advertising” by Eugene Schwartz is arguably the most sophisticated book on marketing that was ever written. Unfortunately, it’s publication stopped a few decades ago and copies go anywhere from $189 to $900 online.
Eugene Schwartz was a legendary copywriter. His specialty was direct-mail campaigns, and before he passed away in 1995, he had written 10 books including “Breakthrough Advertising”.
Schwartz had to write copy so powerful that it would get someone to take action and buy a product. If he failed, his family didn’t eat. So he was a true master of his craft as he dedicated his life’s work to perfect this skill.
I decided to help some of my peers by summarizing a section of my notes from this book and translating it to marketing today.
When writing copy, a marketer’s job isn’t to create desire; it’s to channel and direct it.
When done well you can create mass desire, which is the public spread of a private want.
How do you channel mass desire onto your product through copy? A marketer uses 3 tools:
- Knowledge of peoples hopes, dreams, desires, and emotions
- Your product
- The advertising message which connects the two
Here’s how we break those pieces down in three steps:
1. Choose the most powerful desire that can be applied to your product
Every mass desire has 3 dimensions:
- Urgency, intensity, the degree of demand to be satisfied. (e.g. constant joint pain compared to a minor muscle ache). Not every desire is created equal.
- Staying power, the chance of repetition, the inability to become satiated. eg. raw hunger compared to a craving for gourmet foods
- The scope of the number of people who share this desire. The number of people who would pay $10 for an accessory that saves electricity, compared to one that merely prevents future repair bills. Loss aversion is key here.
Every product appeals to one or more of these desires. However, only one can predominate.
2. Acknowledge that desire, reinforce it, and/or offer the means to satisfy it (in a single statement in the headline of your ad)
Every person is really two people; the person they are today and the person they want to become. Your headline touches your prospect at the awareness he has today.
If the target customer is aware of the product and realized it can satisfy his desire, your headline starts with the product.
If he isn’t, and only of the desire itself, your headline starts with the desire.
If he isn’t aware of what he really seeks and is only concerned with a general problem, your headline starts with that problem and turns it into a specific need.
3. Take the features and benefits that are built into your product and you show your prospect how these performances inevitably satisfy that desire
Every product you try to sell is actually 2 products:
1. A physical product. The fabric, plastic, scent, writing etc. What it IS.
2. The product in action, the series of benefits it provides for a consumer. What it DOES FOR THEM.
It’s important to understand that the physical product doesn’t sell. The important part of a product is what it does.
I selected Nike twice for good reason; they’re masters at emotional advertising and branding.
There are more Nike sneakers in my closet than any other brand. I don’t remember a single time picking a Nike shoe because of features. I do remember picking a Nike shoe because of how it made me feel.
Once the desire is captured, the physical product is good for:
1. Justifying your price
2. Proving it can do what you’re saying
3. Assuring that performance will continue through the years
4. Sharpening the reader’s mental picture of that performance
A great exercise to do is studying your product and list the number of different performances it contains. Group these against the mass desires that each of them satisfies.
The marketer’s job is to then find the one dominant performance that applies to the most powerful desire you chose, and put that in your headline.
All customers have a worldview in their heads and have made up their minds about your product before even knowing about it. The goal you want to aim for is to find those who possess a desire that your product satisfies.
Give people today a vehicle to travel to the idea of who they can be tomorrow.
Omar M. Khateeb is medical device marketer with a focus on surgical robotics.
His interests reside in sales psychology, neuromarketing, and self-development practices.
Check out his virtual bookshelf here to find your next great read, and connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or SnapChat.
