When searching for effective forms of advertising, I tell people to simply look and see what affects you.  You are exposed to over 5,000 marketing messages every day (and growing).  Surely there has to be some good ones in there somewhere, right?

Writing headlines, or subject lines, or lead copy, is one of the most important forms of advertising messages.  John Caples, literally wrote the book on this subject, after he created the most famous headline in history, “They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano but When I Started to Play!”, and revolutionized the biz.

One of the best tips I ever got in searching for headlines was to look at the covers of women’s magazines.

8 Love Truths You Must Learn

How Dirty Is His Mind?

Get Healthy In A Hurry!

Interesting, huh?

Well, I found a new place to search for great headlines.

And you probably go there every day.  In fact, the name of the site includes one of my favorite advertising buzz words, “You”.

YouTube.

What’s making YOU click on videos?  When you’re killing time in your cubicle you-tubing “people falling down” on the ‘tube, which ones grab your fancy based on the headline?  My favorite?

If you watch this 100 times you’ll still laugh.

This one was so popular, it was copied as many times as Caples.

You’re responding to marketing all day long, even when you don’t know it.  Figuring out what makes you do the things you do will help you figure out what will make other people do the things you want them to do.