Why the headline is no longer 90% of the battle in copywriting

This will sound like copywriting heresy. But if I don't profane the false goo-roo gods sometimes, life ain't much fun. Here’s the story: I recently finished my yearly read-through of the late, great brilliant copywriter Eugene Schwartz’s book “Breakthrough Advertising.” It is by far one of the single most valuable copywriting books I possess. There is very little in it I disagree with, and even those disagreements have to do with the times he lived in and nothing else. A time which I describe as Third-generation marketing warfare on page 12 of the upcoming April Email Players issue, whereas I believe we now compete in the theater of Sixth-generation marketing warfare, with many of the old "weapons" still necessary, but not nearly as important or powerful as they were then. Take the almighty headline. Old GS says it’s 90% of your ad in the book. Get that wrong, and nothing else matters. And at the time, he was absolutely right. Today? It’s different. Headlines are about as important to your overall advertising now as swords used by world class swashbucklers in 17th century sea battles were then - when it was the canons that did the most damage - with the swords being used afterwards to secure the ship and clean out the survivors. Which brings us back to 6G marketing warfare. The headline is still extremely important. But you can win many copywriting battles with a crap headline or even none at all if you use the heavy artillery that wins the day in the current business and marketing world. The only thing a better headline will do you for now is help you win a single battle against someone whose ads you happen to go head to head against, but not even come close to winning the war. Enter the April “Email Players” issue. It’s all about Sixth-generation marketing warfare. And it is, in many ways, the most valuable content I’ve ever written. Certainly it’s been more valuable to my business than anything else I’ve written about. Whether it will be to anyone else I can’t say. Especially since, it’s actually quite low on “how to” info, and is mostly just an intro to something I have yet to see anyone else write about in my industry, but that I’ll be writing a lot about in the months and years ahead, applying it to various different aspects of business, marketing, email, copywriting, launching products, list building, and everything else I like to talk about and implement in my own businesses — in both the info publishing and software spaces. But a warning to the goo-roo fanboy chasing hacks & tricks. There are zero of either in Email Players. And that's especially true in this upcoming April issue. It’s exclusively big & dramatic concepts combined with pure strategy — both of which will take a lot of thought, work, and patience to implement. However, I truly believe those who take it to heart, who read it multiple times, and, most important of all, doggedly APPLY the info over the coming months, years, and decades will see that patience and work rewarded in ways mere money cannot measure. For now, I will just say this: For the longest time, I’ve treated business as WAR & not merely business. And if this issue does nothing but impart that on its readers I’ve done my job. But the deadline to subscribe is in just 2 short days. That means if you want in, you can’t procrastinate. And if you're a current subscriber whose credit card is expiring or you need a new one because of some low life hacker, put it on whatever card you use to pay for your phone and other entertainment bills then switch it later if need be. You gotta get your shyt together to stay subscribed. This is the One Email Players Issue to rule them all. And its “fingerprints” will be on all future issues henceforth. Here’s the link: Ben Settle Copyright © 2021 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: