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By David Garfinkel
© 2002 David Garfinkel
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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 candidtates, 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!
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