There you are, stuck on the supermarket checkout line, bored out of your head. Suddenly, a boldfaced word from the magazine rack takes a swat at the side of your face. “Look at me!! Look at me!!” it silently screams.

You turn, slowly. Your eye spies the Irresistible Headline. Swiftly, doing the job it was born to do, the headline laser-beams its way into your brain and zombifies you into powerless submission. With a mind of its own, your hand reaches out to grasp the smutty publication.

You know the empty promises; you have been spoonfed this nonsense before. But the checkout line is pure purgatory. This could be some juicy, fun reading!

You slap the mag down on top of some bananas, soymilk and instant pudding that’s riding in the cart seat where the child would go if you had one. “So what if I enjoy a little head candy now and then!” your Ego says to your Id defensively.

The headline that caught your eye contains words like:

Shocking Truth
Real Secret
Powerful Orgasm
Millionaire Strategy
Lies Exposed

Or it promises to solve a problem or answer a burning question, such as:

Lose 100 Pounds Feasting on All Your Favorite Foods!
Get Rich Doing What You Love: Secret Strategies of World Famous Millionaires
Is He Cheating? Six Telltale Signs
Are You MENSA Material? Meet Your Inner Genius

Now flash back to the many times you’ve fallen under the spell of headlines like this, plunked down cash in exchange for the instant gratification and then flipped eagerly to the article in question.

How’d you feel after you read the whole story? Immediately disappointed, right?

That happens for two reasons. The first is that no matter how wise, clever or powerful the advice; an article (or book, or how-to manual, or therapist for that matter) can’t solve your problems, answer your personal questions, or help you to become happy. That’s all on you.

The other reason is that good headlines try to fool you a little bit. Okay, a lot. They have a way of making you feel like you don’t know something, or you don’t know ANYTHING for that matter. If you read, the big reveal will come, or so they say.

Yes- it’s very manipulative! Good headlines prey upon your insecurity: “What does this person know that I don’t?” you wonder after reading a particularly mystifying lead-in.

There is something about a good old-fashioned persuasive headline that keeps you hunting for something you’re never going to find in this lifetime. They call this the Human Condition. It makes you listen to the “Experts” with rapt attention, thinking there’s something else that you should be getting, but you don’t. Life is one big paradoxical joke, and everybody’s in on it but you, right? That’s your self-doubt talking. It makes you try to buy your way to power, when the power is really in YOU and it has been the whole time.

Understand this basic fact about humans, and you’re on your way to crafting powerful headlines for your own business or your clients. Headlines that really sell, because they know how to play head games. They do! Don’t deny it. The mind games are everywhere.

Hard-hitting headlines weave a web of mystery and intrigue. They have to; it’s their job. Writers well know that the magazine would never sell if the headline read, “Madonna and Guy: Not Getting a Divorce,” because there’s no mystery in flat-out facts. The idea is to make people WANT to read the article (otherwise the writer gets fired and the publication eventually goes under).

If you’re a writer or would-be writer who’s trying to polish your headline-writing skills, just remember all the headlines you ever read on the supermarket magazine rack, and then model your technique after theirs. Here’s a good and quick headline formula that can work for you if you practice enough:

1. Write down a fact-based title.
2. Rework the copy so it “teases” the reader and leaves him in a state of not having but wanting.

For example, your initial title might read,

7 Copywriting and Marketing Tips for Your Web Site

And then maybe you could change it to something like,

The #1 Reason People Don’t Buy from You (And How You Can Transform This Knowledge into Dollar Signs for Your Business!)

Hard-hitting headlines fool your mind into believing it’s about to uncover some great mystery — the Human Condition. People who truly understand how to leverage the power of the Human Condition are the ones behind the compelling headlines and the ones writing the Secrets of a Millionaire Books that we’re all lapping up like thirsty hounds.

Did you ever think that as an ad copywriter or magazine journalist, you could also be considered a mystery writer on some level? Every time you write an effective headline, you’re tapping the mystery of life!

Copyright 2006 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.

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