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"The
Secret Behind Million-Dollar Ads"
by
David Garfinkel
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 away anyone who's even a little interested would read
your ad. 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%.
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