Revolting copywriting secrets from two hated & reviled newspaper moguls
Published: Sun, 06/20/21
One of them is a completely fictional man.
The other was as real as the newspapers people read each day — both literally & figuratively.
Let’s start with the fictional one:
Charles Foster Kane.
“Citizen Kane” is by far one of my all-time favorite movies.
It’s also the favorite movie of a lot of other people, too.
Yet, believe it or not, when it was released hardly anyone watched it. It was considered too glum and sophisticated for the average person. Whatever the case, what is not too deep or too sophisticated for the student of marketing and copywriting is a quote from the movie about headlines, that applies as much to a business wanting to make more sales as it does a newspaper wanting to increase ad revenue.
Here is the quote:
“If the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough”
In the news business it’s ALL about the headline.
If the headline is good, the article gets read, which creates more readers, which creates more circulation, which creates more demand for advertising, which creates more revenue for the paper. On the other hand, if the headline is boring the article gets ignored, which loses readers, which cuts down on circulation, which creates less demand for advertising, which guts the paper’s revenues.
All great newspaper moguls know this.
And, so do all great copywriters, too — as the same principle applies to sales copy:
Make your headline big enough, and it’ll make your SALES & PROFITS big enough.
That’s why great ad men have always spent so much of their time just on the headline. The late, great Gene Schwartz once said if a brand new copy cub were to write a powerful enough headline… then that “newbie” would beat the pants off the seasoned & more skilled pro just because the headline is so much better - regardless of how “world class” the rest of the ad is.
All other things equal as far as marketing, he with the best headline wins.
Moving on:
The other (real life) media mogul I want to talk about is the late William Randolph Hearst — who Citizen Kane was more-than-just-partly based on. Like Charles Foster Kane’s fictional story, Hearst’s real life story is just as much a “what NOT to do” lesson as it is a “what to do” lesson.
And, incidentally, so were his headlines, too.
Take this headline, for example:
“Exterminate Entire German Species, Urges Kipling”
Yeesh.
The German heritage in me bristled at that one...
On a side note:
It’s amusing to see people whine and moan about today’s news being too slanted, biased, offensive, divisive, and “mean spirited”… when FOX, CNN, MSN, The New York Times, Info Wars, Breitbart, Drudge, Daily Mail, New York Post, etc… ain’t got nuttin’ on Hearst.
Anyway, point is, in sales copy it’s all about the headline.
And in my Copy Slacker book, I teach the 11 best kinds of headline structures I ever done used — along with examples — for the highest pulling sales copy I’ve ever run, spanning some of the most “rabid” and overheated-with-competition markets on the internet. Including Golf, Self-Defense, MLM, Biz Opp, Dating, Prostate Problems, Software as a service, Internet Marketing, and Weight Loss. I daresay if you combine some of Kane & Hearst’s outrageousness with the market research insights (to make sure you get revered and not reviled by would-be prospects…) then these headline structures almost can’t fail to get your sales copy a ho’ lot more attention than it gets now.
Yes, even if you aren’t that great at writing.
Whatever the case, the book is still on sale at a $200 off the regular price discount — $524 vs $724 — until tonight (6/20) at midnight EDT at the link below.
After the deadline, the book’s regular price gets a long overdue hiking.
Get it at this discount price today while you still can here:
https://www.EmailPlayers.com/slacker
Use code: ROPER at the checkout.
Make sure you see the price change before entering your info.
Ben Settle