Fishing For Ideas Seeking inspiration for lively ad copy? Try hitting the newsstand.

I recently received a frustrated e-mail from a youngBIZ Experiences whose plight may be similar to yours. He said he andhis partners were banging their heads against the wall trying tocome up with an arresting headline to use on a flier for theirsales training program. Nothing seemed to "sing" forthem, and he wondered if I could supply the magic words.

Unfortunately, I was too swamped at the time to offer hands-onhelp. But I wanted to at least help him help himself, believing inthe essential truth of that proverb, "Give someone a fish, andyou feed them for a day; teach them to fish, and you feedthem for a lifetime." So I e-mailed back this thought:"Whenever I'm struggling for an advertising headline, I gofishing for it in a special pool--the pool of publications relatedto my client's enterprise (software, photography, health and soon). There, I scope out cover headlines, story headlines and someof the text as well. Almost without fail, I come upon sets of wordsthat have the potential, with a little editing, to become ahard-hitting advertising headline. I copy them down, let themmarinate in my head overnight and look at them the next day.Invariably, some solid headline candidates come out ofit."

A good case in point is one of my current clients--CavanaughGray, a finance and marketing senior at the University of Illinoisin Chicago and a budding BIZ Experiences, who wrote recently. Grayruns a seminar program geared toward teaching young, aspiringentrepreneurs--those in seventh to 12th grades--how to get an earlystart on small-business success. To promote his enterprise, hesays, "I have done my best to put together a brochure thatdepicts what the program has to offer; however, I still feel thereare a lot of things missing." Let's talk about what thoseelements might be.

Before:

This brochure gets attention with the acronym "YEP".But is there enough salesmanship? Nope.

1. A company name as a coverheadline is great if you run "Fayetteville's FabulousFatburgers," but this one needs more.

2. The slogan below is agood one, but it needn't be on the brochure's marquee.

After:

This new cover uses words that grab attention and hold out abenefit to the reader.

1. This headline getsreaders' juices flowing.

2. The subhead uses thealways-provocative word "secrets" to describe thebenefits.

3. The footline furtherpiques the curiosity of the target audience.

Jerry Fisher is an advertising copywriter, consultant andauthor of Creating Successful Small Business Advertising($39.95), available by calling (800) 247-6553. If you'd likeJerry to consider your materials for a makeover in this column,send them to "Ad Workshop," BIZ Experiences,2392Morse Ave., Irvine, CA 92614, or e-mail him at Jerry228@aol.com

M.I.A. Headline

The cover of Gray's principal promotion piece drew my eyebecause of the acronym YEP, which stands for Young BIZ ExperiencessProgram. It leaps off the page with its interesting graphic design.But I'm going to be picky and say that for any acronym to earnits badge of legitimacy--and be a truly powerful emblem--the wordthat's created must have a meaning relevant to the enterpriseit promotes. YEP doesn't. And although the sin is notegregious, there's a lesson to be learned from an organizationlike MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, whose acronym is verypowerful.

The acronym not withstanding, Gray's seminar program shouldbe promoted with the potential benefits somehow incorporated intoits identity. While the Young BIZ Experiencess Program works fine asan underlying moniker, it needs some accompanying sizzle in orderto sell. So where should Gray turn? As I mentioned, I like to headto the newsstand for periodicals on the topic, but in this case, Ihad them at home--10 years' worth of BIZ Experiencesmagazine. As I write this, I'm looking at the November 1998issue, which has the cover "Young Millionaires: 30 HotshotsShare Their Million-Dollar Secrets." I decided this was a richlittle collection of words from which to fish for Gray'sheadline.

I borrowed the phrase "Young Millionaires" and theword "secret" from BIZ Experiences'scover . . . and, yes, dear editors, I promiseto return them in good condition. My recommended headline forGray's brochure cover is "Young MillionaireTraining," followed by the subhead "Secrets to makingyour BIZ Experiencesial ideas pay off."

This new headline and subhead are followed by the session dates,as on the previous cover. And, finally, to tease the recipient evenmore about some of the information inside, I included this bannerbelow: "INSIDE: HOW 5 FAMOUS MILLIONAIRES GOT STARTED ASTEENS!" This should be the clincher for getting young readers(or their parents) to turn the page and look inside, which isusually the hardest obstacle to overcome. As you can see, the coverof one magazine offered just what I needed to put together a muchstronger brochure cover.

Inside Gray's brochure, there should be a detailed rundownof what the program offers, much more than what currently exists.Prospects and their parents need this detailed information sinceyou're asking them to invest their time and money. Asmentioned, the piece does have some compelling elements, especiallya peek at how such people as Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey and otherswere preparing for their careers when they were teenagers. Now themore skeletal elements need to be fleshedout . . . and the result will be a muchimproved selling piece.

Q: I've noticed you always advocate starting off asales letter with a very short first line that grabs attention andlooks easy to read. But I can't seem to come up that one, greatshort line. What should I do?

A: Here's one solution. Develop a "stack"of short sentences, one on top of the other. It looks interestingto the eye, and you don't have to settle on just one greatphrase. For example, here's a stack I used for the makeover ofa sales letter sent in by a computer cleaning service owner aboutfour years ago:

"Dear Computer Specialist,

They're lurking all around you.
They destroy.
They contaminate.
They affect your health.
They can even kill your computer and all its data."

Then, having lured the reader in, I follow with this copy:" `They' are dust particles. And they're not thebenign little specks you may think they are." It's aseries of short, punchy, provocative phrases stacked pancake styleunder the salutation. They look easy to read. They spark interestin the subject at hand, and they draw people into the body of theletter more quickly than a traditionally formatted paragraph would.Try that with your sales letters.

Q: My advertising simply isn't working, even thoughI've been told by many people that it's very good. (Andthese are people who'd be honest with me if it weren't.)How do you explain that--and can you help me fix it?

A: I often remind people of the one unpredictable"virus" that has always affected advertising: inertia.It's the predisposition of readers to not take any sort ofaction--and for no special reason. It's almost easier to acceptthat you created a weak ad than that people are simply beingpassive about a good ad. So is there any cure for the inertiavirus? Sometimes a "promptness bonus" works. This meansoffering a special goody to prospects for not being their usualslothful selves and responding with an order in a specified amountof time--like 10 days. It's not a new idea. But depending onwhat you offer as a bonus, it can be a powerful little enticementthat gets readers off their duffs and over to the phone with theircredit cards.

Contact Source

Young BIZ Experiencess Program, 770 N. LaSalle, #700,Chicago, IL 60610, (312) 706-7152.