Do you know the name Victor Schwab? If not, you’re missing out on a huge wealth of information that can change the way you write ad copy – and make money.

Born in 1898, Victor Schwab started out as a shorthand secretary and went on to be dubbed “the greatest mail order copywriter of all time.” He worked for Ruthrauff & Ryan’s Maxwell Sackheim, and while under Sackheim’s employ, he so improved Sackheim’s sales copy that he was promoted from shorthand secretary to copywriter, and his career took off from there. Along with a partner, he would eventually take the agency over entirely and rename it to Schwab and Beatty.

But even if you’re not familiar with his actual name, you’re likely familiar with some of his work. Remember the book “How To Win Friends and Influence People“? It was Schwab’s marketing work that helped it become such a big bestseller lo these many years ago.

All of that is interesting, sure, but I have a specific purpose for talking about Mr. Schwab today, and it’s to not only introduce him to affiliate marketers that might otherwise be unfamiliar, but also to show you three major things he did that can have a major impact on your copywriting skills. Mr. Schwab himself is long gone (he passed away in 1980), but what he had to teach us then is still relevant today. When all is said and done, the man was a copy research pioneer and much of what we know to do today, we owe to him, many of us without even realizing it. For example, he developed a coded coupon system for his mail order marketing efforts that was basically the grandfather of the split testing and tracking we do on websites today.

So here’s what I want to show you:

In 1941, Schwab penned a series of articles for Printers’ Ink called “How to Write a Good Advertisement,” where he introduced his formula for writing excellent copy. Consisting of 5 steps, it goes like this:

1.) Get Attention
2.) Show People an Advantage
3.) Prove It
4.) Persuade People to Grasp That Advantage
5.) Ask for Action

He would later go on to develop that article series into a whole book by the same title, where he explains how to design winning layouts, increase your responses, and a whole lot more.

Additionally, he also took out a huge 2 page ad to advertise his own ad agency once. The ad was called “100 Good Advertising Headlines – and why they were so profitable,” and in it, he outlines (you guessed it) 100 advertising headlines that he handpicked as being the most instructive headlines ever written. But he didn’t just print the headlines in the ad…he also explained WHY each one worked. And this is a resource that even today, decades later, is still invaluable. And that makes it – and Schwab’s book – a must-read for any affiliate looking to both understand why some copy just works and improve his or her own writing skills.

So pick up the book. Check out the 2 page advertisement. And memorize that formula so you can recall it next time you get stuck writing an ad. Your copywriting – and your bottom line – will thank you for it.