Best Headline Ever?
My girlfriend and I were sitting around the emergency room yesterday (she sprained her ankle while getting out of bed. It wasn’t my fault, I swear) when I came up with the world’s greatest headline.
Ready to hear it?
OK:
“Baby Born Pregnant”
Now, unfortunately this headline isn’t for an ACTUAL event (I can only hope someday it will be) but it’s a great headline for a couple of reasons.
1. It’s got massive, built in CURIOSITY. When you see a headline like “Baby Born Pregnant” your mind immediately puts the breaks on whatever else you were thinking about, shouts WTF at the top of its little brain lungs and FORCES you to stop and find out more about what’s going on.
2. It’s got INCONGRUITY. It’s got that unexpected little TWIST that makes you pause for a moment and actually pay attention. It literally makes your brain HURT to think about it.
3. It creates an IMAGE in the mind of your prospects that they just can’t shut out.
4. And finally what makes this a great headline is that it sells the ARTICLE or the SALES LETTER it’s attached to and GETS YOU TO READ . . . it doesn’t try to make the whole sale all by itself.
This is actually a big point that newbie marketers miss all the time.
They try to SELL in their headline when that’s really not the job of your headline at all.
In fact, the ONLY job of your headline is to GRAB the attention of your target market and FORCE them to read the first line of your letter (or watch the first few minutes of your video.)
Your first line sells your second line, your second line sells your third and ALL the way down until it’s finally time to show your cards and reveal the AMAZING deal you’re offering if they can only get off their butts and act now.
When you think about it, realizing that headlines don’t “Sell” the product actually frees you up to have a lot more fun with you marketing.
So remember the lesson of “Baby Born Pregnant.”
