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!

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

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. Healy