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Part 27 in a 35 part series on headlines from John Caples book, Tested Advertising Methods.

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Transcription

Can you pass the headline test?

Hi, I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

We’re going to talk about the headline test, whether you have the ability to pass it or not. But first, I want to remind you about the book that I’m giving away for free current costs on on Amazon.com, and somewhere around $20, Nine Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

You can go and buy your own copy or you get a free online copy at AmazonProofBook com.

The whole book is about how to explode your business, how to stand out how to demolish your competition. That’s what it’s all about.

So go check it out, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business, AmazonProofBook.com, to get your own free copy.

Now, let’s talk about the headline test, shall we?

What’s the headline test?

The headline test is something I just made up. Okay, here’s the headline test.

Do you use headlines on a regular basis?

Do you study headlines?

I want to see if you answer yes to any of these questions.

Do you study headlines?

Do you have headline templates that you use?

If you answered yes to any of those, you’re in the right direction, you’re in the right place, because I’m going through the 35 proven formulas for writing headlines, as written down by John Caples.

In his book, Tested Advertising Methods, his fall from chapter five, and we are on number 27, I think today. Let’s see here, number 27. And what’s number 27, it’s offer the reader a test. This is very interesting. This is a very interesting one.

Now if you answered no to any of those, you really need to pay attention to what we’re talking about. And you need to go back and watch the other videos in this series. They’re all in order for one to 35.

Like I said, we’re on number 27 in this video. And we’re going through each one of these, any one of these can be used over and over and over again, as a form of headline as a form of title for something that you have a blog or video, a podcast episode.

Any of these things can be used over and over and over again, if you’re not using headlines.

So the question is why?

Why are you not using headlines?

You’re probably using them and you don’t realize you are but you aren’t treating them the right way. And so you have to think about these things. So he talks about offering the reader a test.

Now, we’re not just talking readers, he’s talking readers because he was writing this at a time when he’s talking about advertising, written advertising, okay, stuff that’s out there and ink and paper.

Now we have digital advertising, we have stuff that people will may be reading or people may be, they may be hearing it, they may be seeing it without reading it. They may be watching a video. This is what we’re talking about here. Okay, so here’s a couple of examples that he gives.

Can your scalp pass the fingernail test?

Can your kitchen pass the guest test?

Can you pass the memory test, a test of your writing ability?

These are all different headlines that have been used previously. And they all pull a person in. For one thing, there are multiple more questions. But just the word test is a challenge. And think about all the things you’ve seen out there on social media that are some type of a challenge, some type of a game, some type of a test or a quiz to take.

Sometimes they’re in the format of an advertisement, oftentimes, they’re in a format of a website has some type of, you know, time of year, you know, see what month you were born in what that says about you, you know, and they have these little things that you could go fill out well, they’re trying to get you to go to their website, so you can see the ads on their website.

And they’ve got, they’ve got back end deals where they make money that way, or they’re trying to get you to do something else. But they’re very addictive and look at I mean that this is an older book, and that this guy was writing ads in the early 1900s and 1920s.

At that time, he’s talking about talking about tests in the headline. It’s not just the value of the test itself. There’s something in human psychology that goes throughout time that loves a challenge that is interested by a challenge or by a test, or by something, it’s like, well, why not?

Can I pass that?

You know, people get into I mean, many of you may have clicked on this because of that challenge because of the title of this video, which is why I used it to prove a point Tests challenge that the term nowadays is gamify to gamify things we act like that’s a new idea. This is not a new concept. This is an old concept.

We just have a different word for describing the same thing. When you allow people to be challenged, you allow people to see whether they’re up to snuff on something. That’s something that is always attractive to people.

You will pull in certain people depending on the subject line. In your headline, the subject behind the headline is the type of people you might pull in more of, but tests are very attractive to people. It’s a very funny thing.

But another great tip from John Caples. When it comes to headlines tomorrow, we’re going to be going through number 28 out of the 35 come back then in the meantime, you get out there and let the magic happen.