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Hey, Stupid! Can You Hear Me NOW?

By Patsi Krakoff in Email Marketing Tips, Getting Read, On Writing Better, Online Marketing

Attention
Grab their attention. In fact, steal it. Get it away from everything else by rocking their boat. Heck, why not tip it over.

What words can you use in your email subject line or sales copy title that will do the job?

"Scandal!" Yes, that’s more appealing than ‘insider secrets’, which has been overused to bits. "Asshole?" Yes, if you’re a Stanford professor with a couple of best sellers already published.

The problem with using earth-shattering, ass-grabbing words like these is the credibility issue. Once you have someone’s attention – which you will when you use strong controversial words – you better deliver the goods.

Nothing worse than feeling ripped off when you take time to read something only to discover it’s a worthless piece of marketing hype.

Most experts agree that you’ve got to use strong words to get people’s attention. Here’s an idea:

Darren Rowse recently ran a contest  over on Problogger of top 5 articles. The list of submissions was a great list of some good, bad, and average titles. Why not read the list and see which ones you could adapt to your own materials?

Here are a couple of samples:

Top 5 ways to get rid of your muffin top without dieting by Stephanie Quilao

Top 5 Productivity Tips Most People Know But Do Not Do by Donald Latumahina

Top Five: Why I love being Crazed & Maniacal by Amanda

The 5 things you need to survive a …

The top 5 reasons for not …

Top 5 weird things I’ve learnt about …

Top 5 Reasons This …  is Stupid

Top 5 reasons Why I’m too busy to …

Top Five Reasons to Avoid …

Top 5 Ways to Get Caught Cheating on …

# 5 Ways To Be An Annoying …

Get the idea?

Adam Urbanski, The Marketing Mentor, proposes writing out a Top 3-5 Deadly Mistakes customers make in your business/industry/field. That gets people’s attention, for sure.

But the more that is used, the more you will have to get creative and think up a title that really grabs people’s attention.

(This is a series of posts on how to write persuasive copy advertorials for your business)

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