Your headline is your main benefit

Listening to Jay Abraham today: While the first action of the headline is to get attention, it also tells the person what your main benefit is - to that reader or listener.

This defines the "elevator pitch" which is another type of headline. You have to reach out with your key service and how that service benifits your client.

For me, this is interesting, since I started out with self-help, but am currently working up the Online Millionaire Plan for publishing.

"I write and publish books which help you achieve your dreams in the real world." Fits both niches, doesn't it? I write books, but my nomme-de-publishing-plume would only have "We publish books which help you achieve your dreams in the real world." And so that would be the motto for my Lulu bookstore.

However, the press release and sales page for Online Millionaire Plan should include a challenge and a fact: "Help me prove this statistic wrong: only 1 out of 100 will ever get rich, only four will become financially independent, only 20 will actually retire, as 45 are still working and the other 30 are completely broke and dependent." Or, shorter, "Help me disprove the statistic that only 5 out of 100 of your friends will ever get rich or financially independent. " Subhead: "(75% of them will either still be working or broke at age 65.)"

I have to find more modern version of this statistic, but it should hold up. (Similarly, around 5% of any population is responsible for 95% of the crime.) These are bell curve statistics which abound.

I could go on with these stats, but the next point is to actually write the press release and squeeze/sales page to get people to sign up for my Online Millionaire Plan list.

More on this later...