Research library Required reading
Required reading.
The research library is the evidence. This shelf is where we learned the craft: 11 books and writers we still go back to, what each one taught us, and where it shows up in Power Law Performance.
Summaries are ours. Words in quotation marks are the author's own, with the chapter or page. Each page links to the publisher or the author, and to a free copy where the work is in the public domain.
Where it started
The idea that a response can be measured, and that an ad is a salesman whose results can be counted.
Copy that sells
How the people who wrote for a living turned attention into a sale, and tested their way there.
- Eugene M. Schwartz · 1966 Breakthrough Advertising Copy Doesn't Create Desire. It Points It.
- David Ogilvy · 1983 Ogilvy on Advertising Advertising Is Information. Research Is How You Read It.
- Joseph Sugarman · 2007 The Adweek Copywriting Handbook Every Line Has One Job: Get the Next One Read.
- Michael Masterson & John Forde · 2011 Great Leads How Much Does the Reader Already Know?
Why people say yes
The shortcuts and stories buyers use to decide, and what that means for the signals we send.
Reading the numbers
Customers as a database, and the outliers that the averages hide.
One work from the library, every week.
The Power Law Performance newsletter: the research and the craft put to work on revenue teams, and the signals that sort value from volume.