Sublime

All of these headlines are also questions but with the added twist and intrigue of a term your prospect hasn’t heard before.

I realized readers didn’t want to hear everything I had to say about a topic every time I fired up my computer.

“PULLMAN PORTER LECTURES: Ford Makes a Hit in an Address to Students at Dartmouth.” The Times continued to report on my grandfather in its April 13 issue of that year: “PULLMAN PORTER WINS AS COLLEGE LECTURER; John Baptist Ford, Who Made Four Hundred Dartmouth Students Look at His Profession with New Eyes, Talks of Traveling Public.”

Socially, this insight comes naturally. What you might not realize, though, is that in marketing — and especially in crafting powerful leads for sales letters — the same instinct can apply.

The less your customer knows about you, what you’re selling, or his own needs, the less effective a direct lead is likely to be.

Andy Stanley, Johnny Carson, Howard Hendricks, Ronald Reagan, Billy Graham,

“Advertising works best,” says Drayton Bird again, “if you promise people something they want, not — as many imagine — if you are clever, original, or shocking.”

Unless your advertising is built on a Big Idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.