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The
Secret Behind Million-Dollar Ads Want a little
secret to turn your advertising into an irresistible magnet
for customers? Dale Carnegie
knew the secret, and that’s one reason his book, How
to Win Friends and Influence People, has sold more than 15
million copies. In fact,
British Airways recently named it, “The Business Book of
the 20th Century.” It’s a
great book. But if Dale
had titled it “How to Remember People’s Names and Curb
Your Incessant Urge to Argue,” do you think it would have
sold as well? Probably
not. There’s great
power in good titles. What you may
not realize is the words “How to Win Friends and Influence
People” are not only the title of the book.
Those words were also the headline of a mail-order
ad, which sold the book. The
ad ran successfully for many years and sold hundreds of thousands
of copies. So what does
this have to do with turning your advertising into an irresistible
customer magnet? Here’s
what. Behind the title
and headline is a “secret code” that makes it
powerful. Dale knew it.
Great advertising copywriters know it.
And now, you’re going to know it, too. The “secret
code” is actually a generic formula that gets attention
and creates desire in your prospect’s mind.
Every winning headline has a unique generic formula hidden
inside. Here’s
the formula in Dale Carnegie’s book title and headline:
How to _____
and _____. Let’s
see the formula at work. Say
you are an executive recruiter, and you help companies find new
executives. In reality,
your biggest problem is finding the executive candidates in the
first place. So, to increase
your group of candidates, you decide to run an ad in your local
business journal. Here’s
how you could use this formula to write a headline for your ad:
How to Get a Better Job and
Make More Money
…and
right after reading that headline, anyone who’s even a little
interested would want to read your ad immediately. Then, if your
copy (text) is even halfway decent, you’d get plenty of
calls. Or, let’s
say you run a martial arts school.
Here’s how you could apply the formula in an advertising
headline to get you new students: How to Stay Fit and Protect
Yourself
Do you see
how powerful that is? You’ve
just zeroed-in on people who are likely to be interested in learning
martial arts. The brutal
reality of advertising: An
ad with a good headline and even mediocre copy
will get you a response and generate sales.
But with a poor headline, even the most brilliant copy
will get you little or no response.
Why? Because without
a good headline to get their attention, most people won’t
read any further. The good news
is, once you have identified a good headline that works in one
industry or market, you can adapt it (like we did with the Dale
Carnegie headline, above) for your own business.
Great headlines work as subject lines in emails, titles
on Web pages, and of course as headlines in print ads and sales
letters. Great headlines
will literally transform your sales. How does this
work in today’s economy? Recently a
client asked me to help him introduce a new service to Internet
Service Providers. (Note:
To understand what you are about to read, you should know that
ISPs call their suppliers “backbone providers.”)
I wrote a direct mail letter and my client sent it out
to ISPs. Because my client
was revealing new information his prospects hadn’t heard
before, we used the following “teaser headline” on
the front of the envelope: What Your Backbone Provider
Isn’t Telling You
Was this
an entirely original headline?
No. I had seen
a similar “teaser headline” on a successful mailing
to promote an investment newsletter: What Your Broker Isn’t
Telling You About High-Tech Stocks
So I merely
identified the “secret code” in the original winning
headline, and applied it to my client’s market, ISPs. The response
to the mailing was overwhelming!
Nearly 10% of the entire ISP industry responded to our
letter – and my client has added eight figures of
new annual revenues as a result of the business that developed.
I’m telling
you this not to brag, but to point out the awesome power of good
headlines. While many
people spend hours and hours trying to come up with “the
perfect headline” for their ads, there is an easier way.
Find proven headlines that already work for another business
in another industry, and adapt them to your business.
Then prepare for a flood of new customers!
David
Garfinkel has been described as “the world’s greatest
copywriting coach.” He’s
a successful results-oriented copywriter and the author of “Advertising
Headlines That Make You Rich,” which shows you how proven money-making headlines customized for your
business can increase your profits by 1700%. |