Copywriting Grab Bag

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If you want an almost foolproof way to generate profitable headline ideas for your copywriting promotions quickly and easily, without struggle or pain…then here’s a way you may not be aware of.

Not long ago I was working on a very important copywriting promotion under an almost impossible deadline.

And at the “11th hour” before the deadline, the entire ad was finished — except the headline.

For whatever reason, coming up with a good headline was not happening for me.

It was a nightmare. I had two hours to go and the hundreds of headlines I had written were all but useless.

What to do?

Well, all I could think of was to “remove” myself from the situation and find something unrelated to the task at hand. Doing so had worked wonders for me before when I couldn’t figure out the answer to a problem, just never under a deadline like this one.

Not sure what to do, I logged online and started surfing around.

One of the first sites I went to was a discussion forum for people who own dogs (my mom’s dog was sick at the time and I was looking for answers).

And I noticed there were certain posts in that forum with an incredible amount of views and replies compared to the majority of posts.

And then it hit me.

All these people reading and responding to these particular forum posts were obviously caught up by the words and ideas of the post titles.

If you’ve ever read an online discussion forum you know what I’m talking about.

You can see a list of all the posted topics (or titles) and their respective number of replies and views. And some of these titles are so irresistible they’re literally impossible not to read or reply to.

Anyway, with no time to lose, I immediately went to some forums related to the product I was selling, hoping maybe I could get some ideas for my headline by reading the most-viewed posts.

It was a miracle.

The first forum I went to had four or five posts with over a thousand views. The other ones I visited had even more.

And I copied each and every one of the “most-viewed” forum posts, and played around with the different combination of words, ideas, themes and phrases they contained.

Half an hour later I had the headline for my ad, and made the deadline.

Anyway, online discussion forums are gold mines of information when you want to know what your market is talking and thinking about.

They reveal the worries, interests and desires of people in a (mostly) relaxed, informal atmosphere. It’s the next best thing to going to a convention of your prospects and eavesdropping on their conversations.

And if you simply pay attention to the things people are talking about in forums related to what you’re selling, you won’t be able to help but get great ideas for your headlines and ads.