How to cook up million dollar product titles
Published: Tue, 10/27/20
Napoleon Hill’s original title for his mega-bestselling book “Think And Grow Rich” was…
“Use Your Noodle To Win More Boodle”
Almost painful to read.
Yet, that book - one I admittedly intensely dislike - is one of the best-selling books of all time. But, do you think it would have sold as much with that moronic title “Use Your Noodle To Win More Boodle”? Even with the exact same content inside?
Of course not.
Such is the power of titles.
Anyway, here’s the point:
Over the years, I’ve helped certain people cook up many million dollar titles. Like, for example, my pal Ray Higdon with his bestselling “3-Minute Expert” program that my ego would like to believe helped it nab at least a few extra sales over the years.
In fact, after that, some of his friends asked for my help with titling.
At least one of which - Mark Harbert - said I was able to help quite a bit in this regard.
And, even to this day, people ask me for help with this.
And because I’m sick of people asking me, and because I can’t be bothered to work for free or work for a consulting fee to help them, I’m going to give away my big 2-part “secret” for creating titles right here and now, and simply reference people back to this email.
I freely admit I got this first part from studying the late Stan Lee.
And here it is:
A title just has to SOUND good.
Stan Lee had no idea what a “gamma ray” was that created the Hulk or what a “cosmic ray” was that created the Fantastic Four. But they sure sounded good. In fact, he did such a good job creating the country Latveria (Doctor Doom’s country) that fans used to ask him if it was a real place and where to find it on a map! Same with the writers of “The Amazing Spider-Man” movie using “decay rate algorithm”, or the writers of the movie “Backdraft” dreaming up “Trychtichlorate”, or the writers of the TV show Fringe making up “Cortexiphan.”
And so on, and so forth.
More:
Sounding good is only half the battle.
You also have to sum up the "essence" of the product in two or three or four words.
This is where the craft of copywriting comes in.
Thus, why a lot of my titles are also a result of nearly two decades of practicing, honing, and digging deep into the art & craft of writing sales copy, and distilling products down to a few words for headlines, bullets, closes, and, yes, titles. And the main way I learned it was doing the drills I give in the upcoming November “Email Players” issue. I don't teach anything about creating titles in this issue. Let the salivating goo-roo fanboy who just clicks & buys understand. That's not what it's about. It's about learning copywriting at a very deep level. And admittedly these drills are excruciatingly tedious, boring, and mentally taxing. But I did each and every one of them when I was getting started, and they were based off what some of my favorite copywriters and also comicbook artists did to excel and master their craft.
This is why I say you cannot “casually” read this issue.
You have to be mentally, emotionally, and psychologically engaged with the material.
Otherwise, there’s no point.
If you still want in on this issue, go here right away before the deadline:
https://www.EmailPlayers.com
Ben Settle