Page 121 - 597 Business Ideas You can Start from Home - doing what you LOVE! (Beginner Internet Marketing Series)

90 The Seven Lost Secrets of Success

Most of the great advertising giants from the Roaring
Twenties and beyond knew it was wiser to create 25
headlines before settling on one. (Barton actually often
created over 100 headlines and selected one from the list.)

The great admen often wrote several different ads before
deciding which would work best. They all knew the value
of this secret—honing your work until it was perfect.

MAKE IT TIGHT

Barton was no exception. It’s said that he was a stickler
when it came to writing. He always wanted the copy
tight. A running joke was that when he died his head-
stone would say, “The copy should be shorter.”

Simplify and tighten your ads, your talks, your letters,
and your meetings, until they squeak with tense power.
Brevity is the key.

“Two men spoke at Gettysburg on the same afternoon
during the Civil War,” Barton wrote in 1920. “One man—
the leading orator of his day—made a ‘great’ oration—

“The other speaker read from a slip of paper less than
300 words. His speech—Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address—
will live forever.”

Even Lincoln knew the power of a few well-chiseled
words.

SMART ADS

Far too many businesspeople admire seemingly crea-
tive ads rather than asking if the ads pull in business.
Cuteness and cleverness do not usually work.