More great stuff from Perry Marshall, the Google AdWords expert (his free AdWords e-course is very good).
Phil Alexander, who’s on my company advisory board, has one of the largest collections of hard-to-find marketing and advertising books in the world. People routinely pay Phil hundreds of dollars to find exceedingly rare, out-of-print books.
Phil observes: The people who are most interested in these hoary texts are virtually without exception the best, brightest and highest paid in any profession.
Phil and I recently attended a seminar in Orlando, and he had an old book from the 1920’s. There were two people who walked by, picked up the book and studied it with great interest. They were John Carlton and Scott Haines – two of the most successful, and highest paid, advertising copywriters in the country.
Coincidence?
Not on your life. They’re rabid consumers of everything they can get their hands on. They’ll both tell you that the very best books on advertising were written nearly 100 years ago.
Truly groundbreaking discoveries are incredibly rare. And their discoverers usually aren’t coming up with new techniques – they’re identifying previously unknown principles.
Take Claude Hopkins, author of “Scientific Advertising,” written in 1918. Hopkins was the inventor of coupons, and he’s one of the titans of advertising. And he’s ignored by most people in the ad business today. But you can take that book and apply it to Internet advertising right now and you’ll be standing on solid rock.
I include his book with my Marketing System Toolkit (http://perrymarshall.com/inabox.htm) because it’s written from “first principles.” Bona fide experts in a given field always approach things differently from everyone else. And they have an unusual ability to separate fact from fiction, to discern the difference between trends, fads and underlying truths.
If you need a new idea, read an old book.
And if you’re looking for an old advertising book for some new ideas, Phil’s your man: [email protected].
To Your Success,
Perry Marshall
http://www.perrymarshall.com/renaissance