Websites 4 Small Business Newsletter
15 May 2005

HOW TO CREATE HYPNOTIC HEADLINES
by Joe Vitale

Dr. Scott Lewis is a comedy-hypnotist performing at the Riviera 
Hotel every Monday night in Las Vegas. He called me one day wanting 
a truly hypnotic ad to run in the local newspapers to pull in 
college students to his show. I asked him to tell me what he 
already had in mind for the ad. Here's what he told me:

"I'm thinking of using the headline 
'Come do outrageous things at the Riviera next Monday night'."

What do you think? Me, I didn't think it was a very hypnotic 
headline.

For one thing, it's not engaging. It just sits there. It's 
slightly active, in the sense that it says "come do outrageous 
things," but that's not enough to truly mesmerize busy readers 
of newspapers. Not today. And not college students.

For another, his headline would eliminate all the shy people 
from going to the show. They might be afraid they would get 
hypnotized and look stupid in front of their friends. After all, 
far more people want to be spectators than performers.  
Scott would miss his target audience.

I advised Scott to try the following headline instead:

"What outrageous things will you see your friends and others
do next Monday night at the Riviera?"

Now we have something truly hypnotic.

First, the question involves the mind. It forces you to begin 
thinking of WHAT you will see next Monday. And it begins the 
process of having you IMAGINE outrageous things.

Second, this new headline isn't confronting. Good hypnotic 
headlines sneak in under the radar and deliver their message.  
This new ad says what will "your friends and others" do, not 
what will YOU do. See the difference? It makes it safe for 
you to go to the show. Your friends "and others" are going 
to look like fools, not you.

All headlines can be improved by doing just three things:

1. Make them engaging.

My favorite way to engage people is to ask an open-ended 
question. How can you use an open-ended question when writing
your next headline? (I can hear your mind whirling.)

2. Make them curious.

People are naturally curious. Appeal to their curiosity and 
you can hypnotize them into doing almost anything. What can 
you make them do with a curiously hypnotic headline? (Note how 
your mind is again buzzing.)

3. Make them short.

When Scott asked me to review the ad with my new headline, 
I realized we could add a shorter headline before the longer 
one.  This way we could telegraph our message and then pull 
people into our hypnotic headline. So I advised him to make 
the main headline, "Think you've seen outrageous?" We then 
used the longer headline ("What outrageous things will you see
your friends and others do next Monday night at the Riviera?")
as the secondary headline. Don't be afraid to use two headlines,
as long as the first one is short and leads into the longer, 
more hypnotic one.

Finally, how did the new headlines pull for Dr. Lewis? Just 
call the Riviera in Vegas and try to get into his "Hypnolarious"
show next Monday night. You'll find his show packed -- and 
you'll be amazed at the outrageous things you'll see your 
friends and others do on stage there!

-------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Vitale is world's first Hypnotic Writer. To learn how you 
can hypnotize people into buying your products and services,
click here  or go to 
http://www.hypnoticwritingswipefile.com/g.o/Web4Business