By now, hopefully, you are absolutely convinced
that the headline by far is the most important
element in your copy.
Once you come up with a great headline, the rest
of the copy is relatively easy. You simply expand
upon and prove the headline promise.
As a long-suffering reader, you will recall I’ve
written ad nauseam that without a powerful
headline your copy will simply not work at all.
Today I’ll discuss the headline formula I use the
most. Why? Because of its unparalleled and
successful track record.
I call this formula:
How To (Blank)
Here are some examples of successful headlines:
* * * * * * * * * *
How to Solve All Your Money Problems Forever!
* * * * * * * * * *
How to Make $87,000 Per Year as a Magazine
Writer!
* * * * * * * * * *
How to Easily Get All the Credit You Could Ever
Want!
* * * * * * * * * *
How to Increase Your Profit in Any Economic
Climate
* * * * * * * * *
How to Triple Sales to Your Existing Customers
* * * * * * * * *
How to Fight Cancer and Win
* * * * * * * * *
How to Form Your Own Corporation Without a
Lawyer for Under $75
* * * * * * * * *
You may recognize the last three headlines above,
which serve as ad headlines as well as book titles.
Please note: A book title is really the headline
for a book. Unless a book title is at least as good
as a headline in an ad, the book will almost always
be a dismal failure.
One of the reasons that 95% of the time books do
not even sell out their first printing is most book
titles are completely ineffective.
Indeed I have turned several failed books into best
sellers just by changing the title. This includes two
of my own.
According to Books in Print, right now there are
over 7,000 book titles in America that start off with
the words “How To.” Reason? You guessed it. They
work!
Nothing engages and involves the reader as well as
the words “How To.”
The “How To” fill-in-the-blank formula is
amazingly simple. And it will get you on your way
to writing fantastic headlines.
The “How To” headline formula is this: How To (Get,
Have, Acquire, Own, Profit From, etc.) the (Biggest
Benefit Your Product Delivers)
Just take any or all of the samples I’ve provided and
adapt them for your own use.
Fill in the blanks with appropriate descriptions,
expressions, action words or benefits that apply to
you.
Once you taste success with this amazing headline
formula, please share it with me and your fellow
subscribers. You will also be unleashing the
incredible power of the Law of Reciprocity in your
life.
Your correspondent,
Ted Nicholas
—————
“This article appears courtesy of THE SUCCESS
MARGIN, the Internet’s most valuable success and
marketing e-zine. For a complimentary
subscription, visit http://www.tednicholas.com/
Filed under Ted Nicholas, copywriting by on Apr 5th, 2010. Comment. 
Do you realise you are one of a very small, distinguished, lazy minority?
Did that sound a bit paradoxical – or as if I was buttering you up – or both?
It was both – and I’ll tell you why, with some helpful suggestions.
A few naturally suspicious souls (marketing does that to you, doesn’t it?) have asked if I really just sit down and write these helpful ideas just off the cuff.
Some think I wrote them all before I began. Well, I actually wrote two, and kept going. Now I have 23 more ideas already lined up for you, but not written.
Would you like to know where they come from? Only one source – and anyone can tap it just as easily as I do.
Let me explain what I mean.
I am editing this in the kitchen of a pleasant house in Montclair, New Jersey. I often come here to see my 11-year old daughter Chantal.
(Don’t panic: I’m not going to be a doting parent and show you the photographs, but I will tell you a relevant story.)
Last year Chantal sang with her choir in Carnegie Hall, New York, about which there is a very old joke.
A man asks a New Yorker, “Can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?”
The New Yorker replied, “Study!”
Well, the difference between the winners and losers in marketing is mostly just that. Study.
And the only reason I can give you these ideas is the same reason you’re reading them. I study – I’m not that talented. I have a library of thousands of examples – good and bad – and I add to them constantly.
Are you intelligently lazy?
Because you’re reading this, I know you study too – which is why I put you in that small, distinguished minority.
But you may have wondered why I put you in a lazy minority.
Well, when I started in advertising I was amazed to see that most people relied on flair, luck, good looks, intuition, what they liked – anything except a study of what worked and what didn’t.
“What glorious good luck,” I said to myself. “I’ve found a business where people are too stupid to study. How can I fail?”
But what’s even more amazing is that today, decades later, nothing has changed. It’s probably even worse!
I must have asked thousands of people at conferences and seminars what marketing books they’ve read – and the overwhelming majority have read few or even none.
I’m just staggered.
Not because they’re lazy. Most of them are diligently beavering away. And often on things that are a waste of time.
And they spend far too much time on the urgent, rather than the important; on the latest fashionable fad, as a substitute for grounded knowledge.
The truth is that you and I are the real lazy ones – which is the paradox I mentioned.
Isn’t it sheer madness to spend arduous years learning as you go along – like these amateurs do? You can easily pick up what you need in a few weekends from people who’ve invested lifetimes and billions learning what you need to know?
That is being smart, professional and intelligently lazy.
And it’s why my helpful hint is the reading list contained in the box. I’m sure you’ve read some of those books, but not all.
Recommended Reading ListE-mail Marketing Made Easy, Malcolm Auld Secrets of Successful Direct Mail, Richard V Benson Commonsense Direct Marketing, Drayton Bird How to Write a Sales Letter that sells! Drayton Bird Tested Advertising Methods, John Caples Eicoff on Broadcast Direct Marketing, Al Eicoff Scientific Advertising, Claude Hopkins Profitable Direct Marketing, Jim Kobs Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy Maxi Marketing, Stan Rapp and Tom Collins The Great Brain Robbery, Murray Raphel How to Advertise, Ken Roman and Jane Maas Writing that Works, Ken Roman and Joel Raphelson How to write a good advertisement, Victor Schwab Successful Direct Marketing Methods, Bob Stone The Solid Gold Mailbox, Walter Weintz The End of Marketing as We Know It, Sergio Zyman |
One of those books – Scientific Advertising – I’ve already offered free in this series. (Note from Rezbi: Stick your name and email into the box at top right and I’ll whizz it over to you in a few minutes).
But you might like to know that David Ogilvy told me over dinner one night in a castle near Frankfurt that “Everything I know I learned from John Caples.”
Best,
Drayton
P.S. This is number 20 of Drayton Bird’s 101 free helpful marketing ideas. You can sign up on the link below for the rest.
—————————————–
Website: www.draytonbird.com / www.eadim.com
Click here to get 101 free helpful marketing ideas. Marketers from all over the world think they’re a pot of gold.
The Drayton Bird Blog – please do not visit if you are easily offended.
Filed under Uncategorized by on Mar 18th, 2010. Comment.
No one reads your advert just for the sake of reading it. If you want your reader to continue to read your advertising, give him a reason to do so. Otherwise he will take one look and switch off. You’d be surprised by the numbers of ads which actually do just that.
When you write a sales letter, don’t make it so blatantly obvious you’re selling something. And certainly do NOT make it dull.
You cannot bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it. David Ogilvy
What you want to ensure is to write your advert in such a way as to ensure your reader’s attention is grabbed… and kept. This is what increases the value of your advert: The fact that people actually remain interested in it from the headline to the subhead; from the subhead to the first paragraph; from the first paragraph to the next. And so on.
As you can see from the paragraph, the sales message begins with the headline. If your headline can grab your reader’s attention by the eyeballs, and keep hold of it, 80 to 90 percent of the job of the ad is accomplished.
… the headline is 50 to 75 percent of the advert. John Caples
David Ogilvy went even further. He said:
On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.
When you take into account the fact your headline is competing with other headlines, especially if your advert is in a print magazine or newspaper, you can see why it’s even more important to get it right.
One way to ensure you have a successful headline is to ensure it contains some news element. You could announce a new product; a new way of doing something which already exists or a new way of making use of it; a new way of saving money. Or basically anything with news which pulls at the heartstrings of your reader: An emotional desire.
Whatever it is you say you need to make a big promise. As far as your reader is concerned it has to be worth his while taking the time to stop everything else and reading your message.
Leave your comments and let me know what you think.
Best,
Rezbi
Filed under copywriting by on Nov 1st, 2009. 4 Comments.
… it’s hard to drain the swamp”
If you find what I’m about to suggest pathetically obvious, I’m sorry. Many of the things I’ll put to you are.
And the reason is simple. Although we may know things, far too often we don’t do them.
So here’s something one of my clients does. They send out the same (not very brilliant) e-mail week after week after week.
Let me guess what you’re thinking. Is it something like this?
Isn’t that far too often? And anyhow, if they sent out a variety of imaginative ones they’d do better.
Well, they do it for two reasons.
1. Because it works. And it works because you never know when prospects will buy, so you have to keep plugging away.
2. Because it’s better than nothing. And they’re so busy fighting alligators that they’d probably send out nothing if they weren’t careful
I constantly see clients who spend weeks, even months, squandering priceless days and weeks over small details that will make little or no difference – when they should just get on with it.
As the French writer Voltaire, put it over 250 years ago, The best is the enemy of the good.
| Three years ago my partner and I went to see two firms in the same city on the same day.
One spent six months having meetings about the copy we suggested – in fact I have no idea if it ever went out. The other got the mailing we proposed out within a week, and were our biggest client within three months. Today they are the leading firm in their field. This has little to do with us. But it has everything to do with two things. 1. They communicate more than their competitors. Once they have a prospect they keep everlastingly at that prospect. I once asked their marketing director how long they keep mailing and e-mailing people. “Until they give in,” he replied. 2. They don’t sit around wasting hot air on whether something will work or not. They get on with it. |
The American expert Richard V. Benson said, “There are two answers to every problem. Answer #1: Test everything. Answer #2: Refer to answer #1.”
People test to find out whether one message will work better than another. But there is another, even simpler reason. It is to eliminate useless discussion. Why waste time? Let the customers decide for you!
I’ll wager that if you communicate more often than your competitors, you will outdo them. Keep at it till it doesn’t pay … then give it a rest and try again.
There is a direct relationship between profit and communication. The more you tell the more you sell.
If you spend 5 minutes a day thinking of reasons to talk to your prospects and customers – things that might benefit or interest them (not you) – you will find it the best ROI you ever had.
By the way, let me know if you have particular questions or problems. There’s hardly any kind of business or marketing discipline we haven’t had experience of.
Drayton
P.S. This is the first of Drayton Bird’s 101 free helpful marketing ideas. You can sign up on the link below for the rest.
—————————————–
Website: http://www.draytonbird.com / www.eadim.com
Click here to get 101 free helpful marketing ideas. Marketers from all over the world think they’re a pot of gold.
The Drayton Bird Blog – please do not visit if you are easily offended.
Filed under marketing by on Oct 29th, 2009. Comment.
There is only one reason for advertising a product or service — to make sales.
Not to win awards or applause, or the approval of the luvvie crowd.
And the way to do that is to find out what your prospect’s problem is, and then give him the solution to that problem.
Best,
Rezbi
P.S. Don’t forget, there’s something very special Drayton’s been cooking up and anyone in marketing, or any kind of business, will absolutely need this type of info. Sign up and get on my list by filling in the form on top right and I’ll keep you updated.
Filed under advertising, copywriting by on Oct 7th, 2009. Comment.
