This might just be the greatest headline I have ever read.
Are you ready?
Here it is … from that bastion of upstanding journalism, the Daily Mail:
“Blind bisexual goose named Thomas who spent six years in a love triangle with two swans and helped raise 68 babies dies at the ripe old age of 40”
😂
I hardly need to break this down for you, right?
A perfect example of how to use sensationalism in your headlines.
And as Robert Collier wisely wrote in the legendary Robert Collier Letter Book, many years ago (paraphrased):
Anyone who assumes “but MY market is too professional to be amused by anything like that” … is an idiot.
Of course, you need to be careful with your branding.
I’m not advising everyone start throwing bisexual geese into their sales page headlines.
But the underlying principle — of using sensationalism to sell — doesn’t change.
It works, just like it has since the dawn of human history … when a certain serpent sold a woman an apple as “The World’s Only Organic, Juicy Fruit That Can Literally Make You Like God Himself — For FREE, If You Choose!”
(Well, he didn’t quite use those words, but that was the offer, anyway)
Something to think about for your next sales page.
Want my help with that?
Daniel Throssell