Irony of ironies: Direct Marketing News has the most boring headlines ever.

Here are samples from the cover of the August 2011 issue…

• Occasion for change
• Making a commitment
• Email front and center
• Furnished dwellings

That’s it! Those are the cover headlines. The first one in the list is the “Spotlight” article; the other three are in the sidebar.

Inside you’ll find equally boring pabulum. For example:

• Retailers save on swipe fees with discounts
• Tailor marketing strategies to customer preferences
• Mobile tagging extends TV ads for brands
• New accounting rules will improve your loyalty books
• Drive e-commerce with tailored email tactics
• Marketers leverage Facebook for email acquisition and consumer engagement

As I look through the magazine, it’s actually difficult to find anything at all that catches my attention.

Now, I realize it’s a news magazine, but given that it’s DIRECT MARKETING news, couldn’t it be just a little bit more interesting than “Occasion for change”?

-Ryan M. HealySimilar Posts:

• Tell Me Your Favorite Brands
• Direct Mail for Newsletters
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• Jason Fried on Selling
• Do Questions Work as Headlines?

Ben Settle is one of the most talented copywriters I know.

And so I was thrilled when he agreed to do an in-depth copywriting Q&A interview here on my blog.

If you already read all 4 parts, then you know Ben delivered a ton of valuable copywriting tips, many of which you won’t find anywhere else. For instance:

• How to get good at copywriting fast.

• The creative process Ben uses to create new ads.

• An easy way to start a sales letter. (Use this opening if you’re struggling to write the first sentence.)

• How to pinpoint the right emotional hot buttons for any market you write for.

• How to come up with an endless supply of fascinating ideas for your emails and sales letters.

• Is long copy dead? Discover the truth to this often-asked question.

• How long your emails should be. (Yes, there is a length that’s usually best.)

• How often you should email your list. (And how to minimize spam complaints and unsubscribes in the process.)

• How to test new ideas that your market may not be familiar with.

• How to write copy for high ticket products when you haven’t seen the product yet.

• How Ben broke into the golf and martial arts markets. (The answer will surprise you.)

• Why copywriters who write lots of emails are better at writing sales letters.

• A simple way to write sales copy faster — without sacrificing the quality of your writing.

• Why “mega headlines” and yellow highlighting can actually hurt sales.

• And much more.

Of course, given the amount of information Ben shared (and the length of each post), I realize you may have inadvertently missed one of the four installments. And so I’ve linked to all 4 parts below. What’s more, I’ve put the entire Q&A into a single PDF that you can download to your computer.

• Ben Settle’s Weird Copywriting Tips – Part 1
• Ben Settle’s Weird Copywriting Tips – Part 2
• Ben Settle’s Weird Copywriting Tips – Part 3
• Ben Settle’s Weird Copywriting Tips – Part 4

Download the 19-Page Ben Settle Copywriting Interview as a PDF

If you prefer to download the 19-page PDF to your computer, you can do that here:

• Click here to download the PDF of the Ben Settle copywriting interview.

Feel free to print this PDF for your files or share it with anybody else you know who would benefit from it.

Naturally, I’d love it if you bookmarked this post, tweeted it to your followers, or linked back to it.

Thanks in advance for your help.

-Ryan M. HealySimilar Posts:

• Ben Settle’s Weird Copywriting Tips – Part 4
• Ben Settle’s Weird Copywriting Tips – Part 2
• Ben Settle’s Dirty Little Email Secret
• Get Your Copywriting Questions Answered… for Free
• Ed’s Got My Back

Right now, I’m toying around with a few different headlines for my Copywriting Code membership site.

In fact, my plan is to rewrite the headline and restructure the entire sales letter to be more persuasive.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to do something COMPLETELY different. Rather than do a split-test (since the site doesn’t get much traffic at this point), I thought I’d see what YOU think about the following headlines.

Please vote for your favorite headline or suggest one of your own.

Also, please keep in mind that Copywriting Code is a membership site that teaches both freelance copywriters and business owners how to write direct response copy.

Thanks in advance for your help!

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. Do you have an idea that needs more explanation? I’d love to hear it. Just leave a comment below.Similar Posts:

• You Know You’re a Freelance Copywriter If…
• Stuck on a Sales Letter? Then Do This…
• Wanted: Copywriters Who Want More Clients
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• Video Killed the Copywriting Star?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Since my wife and kids are sick today — bad coughs because of some respiratory bug — there won’t be a lot of romance going on here today.

But I’m not going to let that stop me from cuddling up by the fire with another sales letter… maybe yours!

=========================
I’m looking for a hot date with an ugly sales letter! Can
you help? >>> http://www.ryanhealy.com/copy-critique
=========================

As you may recall, I’m currently offering 8 copy critiques at 40% off the regular price. You pay only $300 for your copy critique.

Just yesterday I finished the first critique. He ordered it on Feb 8 and I finished it on Feb 13, well under my 14-day turn-around guarantee.

Here are some relevant stats:

• I inserted 18 comments right into his sales letter pointing out trouble spots and areas for improvement.

• I wrote 2 new headlines for potential testing.

• Plus, I wrote 1,397 words — 5 pages! — of feedback that was sent in a separate document. (The sales letter was 2,512 words, including testimonials. I wrote more than HALF that in feedback.)

Of course, I can’t guarantee a certain number of comments or headlines or pages when I do your critique.

But I can guarantee I will give you my best suggestions to strengthen your copy so you get more sales.

So what do you say?

For only $300 I’ll get all cozy with your sales letter and show you exactly what changes to make so you can romance more sales out of it.

Click here to order your copy critique.

-Ryan M. HealySimilar Posts:

• Copywriting Critiques: New Special Offer
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• This May Surprise You, But…

Damn that Ben Settle.

Every time I take a shower I end up thinking of him.

And no, it’s not what you think.

You see, about two years ago I discovered Ben Settle’s blog. At the time, he and I had never met or spoken with each other. But I loved his style and became one of his regular readers.

And so one day Ben wrote a post about showers. More specifically, he suggested taking showers anytime you needed a headline breakthrough… even if that meant taking multiple showers a day!

After I read that post, I started paying attention to my thoughts whenever I took a shower. Sure enough, I discovered I do some pretty serious thinking while relaxing under the hot water.

(Is it the hot water? The solitary space? The lack of interruptions from young kids? Probably all three.)

Anyway, ever since Ben made me aware of a hot shower’s unique “thought-enhancing” qualities, it seems he’s popping into my head every time I turn on the shower faucet.

There’s a Copywriting Lesson Here…

If you can take something completely ordinary (like taking a shower) — and put a totally unique spin on it — then you can reel in your readers, engage them, and practically force them to take action.

The reason why this works is because a good hook causes prospects to lower their natural sales resistance.

And when your prospect’s sales resistance is down AND he is genuinely interested in what you’re talking about, it’s that much easier to make the sale.

With that in mind, I encourage you to go hop over to Ben’s blog and check out this post:

==> Why You Should Write Your Headlines Underwater

Caution: If you read this post, you may have trouble taking showers without thinking of Ben Settle. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. ;-)

-Ryan M. HealySimilar Posts:

• Do Questions Work as Headlines?
• Most Popular Content on Copywriting Code
• Ben Settle’s Weird Copywriting Tips – Part 2
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One of the biggest benefits of being a copywriter is I get to learn while I earn. I learn something new from every single client I work with. This was especially true when I recently wrote a sales letter for Ed Oakley.

Ed is the co-author of two books: Enlightened Leadership and Leadership Made Simple. As part of my research, I began reading the latter of the two. Then, on page 27, I came across a “gold nugget” of insight.

Nothing redirects people’s thinking better than a well-phrased question.

This really struck a chord with me because of a few “coincidences” that all happened around the same time.

For one, I started using questions as post titles on my blog. Based on Alex King’s Popularity Contest plug-in, I’m able to see which posts are most popular. Currently, on this blog, my post titled “Eight Months to Write a Letter?” has been the most popular.

On another blog, the most popular post was a blog carnival I hosted (the people who participated in the carnival linked back to the post, which produced a lot of out-of-the-ordinary traffic).

But the second and third most popular posts both use questions as post titles. The second most popular post is “Are Cars Worth It?” and the third most popular post is “Should You Tithe When You’re Broke?”

And yet it seems using questions as blog post titles isn’t the only place they’ve been proven effective. They’ve also worked extremely well in direct response sales letters.

Examples from sales letters.

• One of the greatest copywriters of all time, Bill Jayme, is most famous for this headline that was used to promote Psychology Today magazine: “Do You Close the Bathroom Door Even When You’re the Only One Home?”

• And Gary Bencivenga got good mileage out of this famous headline phrased as a question: “Has This Man Really Discovered the Secret of Inevitable Wealth?” (Kudos to Ben Settle for digging this one up.)

• One of Maxwell Sackheim’s most famous headlines was for a space ad that advertised the Sherwin Cody School of English. The headline said: “Do You Make These Mistakes in English?” (Note: If you have the AWAI Hall of Fame book, you can read the entire ad on page 257.)

• Eugene Schwartz made his mark selling a unique type of rose plant that produced incredibly large quantities of blooms throughout the entire growing season. To sell this plant, he asked a poignant question: “Who Ever Heard of 17,000 Blooms from a Single Plant?”

• And perhaps the most imitated headline on the entire Internet was a question written by John Caples. It was originally to sell a laundry detergent: “Who Else Wants a Whiter Wash–with No Hard Work?”

The bottom line: questions
definitely work as headlines.

So, in light of all this proof, does it make sense to always phrase headlines as questions?

The answer, clearly, is no. I believe questions as headlines are some of the riskiest types of headlines you can write. Many times the question simply won’t be compelling enough to capture your readers’ interest. In most cases, you will be better off with a statement or promise of some kind.

But I also believe the right question used as a headline can have the biggest payoff. My recent experience has proved this to be true.

Recently, I conducted a headline split-test for an upcoming real estate conference. The headline that won by a long shot was a question: “Would You Like 2008 to Be the Year in Which You Build the Foundations for Long-Term Real Estate Wealth?”

(I actually thought this headline variation would lose the split-test. But the actual results proved otherwise.)

Anyway, the whole point of this article is this: Whenever you are brainstorming headlines for blog posts, sales letters, articles, etc., always consider headlines that are phrased as questions.

You may ultimately decide to go with a statement or promise, but occasionally you will happen upon a well-phrased question that outperforms all the other “normal” headlines you can possibly think of.

-Ryan M. HealySimilar Posts:

• What Questions Do You Have About Copywriting?
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