In the late 1970s, famous copywriter Joe Karbo rocked the direct marketing world with his full-page newspaper ads. The headline was: “The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches.” Many people thought this was revolutionary. But actually, he wasn’t onto a new concept.
You see, people had already been appealing to prospects’ laziness for decades.
For example, in 1923, the legendary dancer and dance instructor Arthur Murray ran an ad in Popular Science magazine with this headline: “See How Easily You Can Learn To Dance This New Way.”
So, it’s a time-tested technique. But can you use laziness headlines yourself?
Absolutely! Even If your prospects are the hardest-working people on planet Earth, they’ll be more inclined to order your product when you use a laziness headline in the right way.
We’ve got a lot to cover so you’ll really understand this and know how to do it. And we’ll have some fun along the way.
First, though, fair warning:
Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time.
OK. Now that we have that out of the way and my lawyer can go off and invent other things to do for me, let’s dig into laziness headlines.
• How laziness is just part of human nature (even though many people go to great lengths to hide their laziness from you).
“Life is hard and then you die”
- may be true, but that is not a valid sales proposition :->
- everything has an easy part and a hard part. Start by emphasizing the easy part.
- human brain. Frontal cerebral cortex – ego – “hard work.” Brain stem – old mammalian brain – busy enough keeping you alive and running your emotions – they like simple, easy. And they decide what you buy.
-Just because someone works hard at one thing doesn’t mean they want to, or even are willing to, work hard at everything.
- Look at how many advances have been commercial advances. No-iron shirts. I don’t know much about women’s clothes, but I imagine no-iron blouses, too. Automatic dishwasher. How much easier is it to use an iPad than a vintage 1995 Windows computer? Progress favors laziness.
- People are so busy these days. Who wants to add one more difficult, time-consuming activity to their schedule?
• People will pay you their hard-earned money for the opportunity to be lazy

The 7 reasons people buy:

1. Make money
2. Save money
3. Save time
4. Reduce effort
5. Increase pleasure
6. Reduce or eliminate pain
7. Improve health

4 of these reasons appeal directly or indirectly to laziness
◆ (1) Save time – time is work (in prospect’s mind). Less time = less work
◆ (2) Save effort – very direct appeal to laziness
◆ (3,4)Increase pleasure, reduce pain – Hard work, no fun; pleasure is fun. Hard work – pain. Less pain = less hard work.
- Garfinkel’s Law of Work
> applies to how easy or hard it is for people to read your copy (not whether or not you talk about laziness in your copy)
> “He who works, gets paid.” (“She who works, gets paid.”)
> When they work hard trying to understand what you’re saying in your copy – they get paid (by keeping the money that you were supposed to get)
> When you do the work necessary to make it easy for them to read and understand, they read easy, and you get paid.
When you’re the one looking out for them (and their time, and their energy, and their peace of mind) – and you show it – you are much, much more likely to get the order.
• The steps to putting together a great laziness headline
1. Think about what your product or service will do for your prospect – or how it will take the burden of doing something off their shoulders

2. In what way does that make it

- easier
- faster
- less painful
- more enjoyable
- or in some other way, “less hard?”

3. From that, try one of these templates
How Would You Like To ____ The Easy Way To ____
Save Up To ____ With ____
What If You Could ____
What Our Customers Love Most Is How _____

/a>]]>

Episode 002 - Laziness Headlines

Copywriters Podcast