HomeLibraryAdsQuestion headline
Library ad

Question headline

What percentage of the possible sales of your product are you getting?

idn.duke.edupublic-domain-us

The pattern

This still is filed under Question headline.

Define

The first line is a question the reader was already asking, or one they cannot leave unanswered.

Mechanism

Open loop plus recognition. A good question is the reader's objection, spoken first by us.

Verdict

We know the real objection and can answer it in the next breath.

Read the pattern

Why it works

The ad is an interrogation, not an argument. Each question is one the reader cannot answer, and the indented lists make the gaps visible as inches of column rather than as an accusation, so the discomfort builds without the copy ever calling him careless. Only after the ignorance has been sized does a cheap, concrete object appear as the remedy, which makes five dollars feel trivial against the volume implied by the questions. The five-day refund removes the last friction, and the italics carry the two actual arguments, increasing distribution and bringing every territory up to quota.

Steal this when

You sell data, research or an audit and the buyer does not yet feel the gap. Open with a run of questions he cannot answer about his own business, size the gap with lists rather than adjectives, then price the fix low and guarantee it.

All ads