Part of my 2020 strategy is improving my marketing know-how.
I've been re-reading books in my Kindle library on marketing. I've bought a lot of them over the years, so I want to go through them again and see if I learn anything new.
I reread Advertising Headlines that Make You Rich by David Garfinkel (Affiliate link)
What a great book. It covers the top 297 headlines that are proven to drive sales.
What was more helpful though, was Garfinkel's insights into WHY each headline was effective.
As I reread this book, it dawned on me that this is exactly why marketers have horrible reputations…
Each headline in the book exploits a human flaw.
So I went through the book and drafted a quick list of “human flaws” that marketers use to sell more products.
- Customers have unfulfilled desires.
- They lack confidence / fear inadequacy.
- They're dissatisfied with their lives on some level.
- They want to be good at something with minimal effort, and they want results quickly (they want to be “overnight pros”).
- They don't have enough time.
- They don't have enough money.
- They don't have enough resources / connections.
- They're scared of making mistakes.
- They want to impress friends & family, and people they don't like.
- They don't want to miss out.
- They want insider secrets.
Look at any top marketing headline, and they use one of these human flaws as a starting point.
But…is marketing evil?
No.
It's neither good nor evil. But this kind of information is pretty helpful if you want to connect with readers.
The book definitely helped me improve my copy, so I'm looking forward to using this knowledge (for good, of course).
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