The 5 Stages of Advert Strategy Development - What I learned from Eugene Schwartz

[jamesburchill]

Eugene Schwartz was arguably a genius - he was also controversial. His advice and recommendations (to this day) still run contrary to many of the guru's and their pearls of wisdom.

Frankly I love his style.

When I finally secured a copy of Breakthrough Advertising and eagerly read it, I was amazed - and assured. For I had secretly sensed that most formulaic approaches to crafting marketing messages was essentially a pile of horse pucky...

Mr Schwartz agreed.

I still refer to his book - and a handful of other powerhouse classics when I need inspiration. In fact I always refer to his 5 stages approach of strategy development.

One criticism was that his book did not distill the 5 stages into a drop-dead simple matrix whereby I could drag my finger down the page, mentally checking off the parts that matched my problem, arriving at a point whereby I could exclaim "Aha!" and then proceed to craft something suitable ;-)

So I took his information and created the chart myself (and it's attached to this post as my gift to you.)

The attached chart is not sexy. It's a simple table with the key indicators Mr Schwartz outlined, and then there's a place beneath where I explain what Eugene recommended. Frankly, I use this all the time now. It saved my butt on numerous occasions when I needed some clarity.

Remember, this 2-pager is not a silver bullet - it just helps you get your direction and strategy straight. The rest is up to you...