The ad: “100 Good Advertising Headlines… and why they are so profitable” (1958)
The copywriter: Victor Schwab of the Schwab and Beatty agency
The big idea: an ad that’s so useful, people read it, keep it and share it
The offer: hire the agency behind these headlines
The lesson: make your ad itself valuable – and steal the headline structures, not the wording.
If you’re reading this, you probably know how important headlines are when it comes to marketing campaigns.
According to David Ogilvy:
In other words, your headline accounts for 80% of the effectiveness of your ad.
That’s HUGE.
And yet, despite this important fact, most people think of their headline as an afterthought – hastily putting something together that “sounds nice”.
Problem is, if you want your ad to make money, that won’t cut it.
You need an attention-grabbing headline that hooks people immediately – and knocks them out of the “zombie state” they spend most of their waking hours in.
Fortunately, one of the best headline writers of all time has written an AD that itself is a super-useful collection of 100 proven headlines!
(Very meta, I know.)
And today, I’m breaking them down right before your eyes.
(This is Day 5 of my 100-Day Proven Sales Letter Breakdown Challenge. Prefer video? Here’s the full breakdown.)
Who was Victor Schwab?
Victor Schwab is one of those legendary copywriters every good copywriter ends up reading about. He was especially strong on headlines.
He was the copywriter who helped Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People become a best-seller.
And he ran his own agency – Schwab and Beatty, on Madison Avenue in New York – specializing in couponed (direct response) advertising.
This ad ran in 1958. To sell… the agency itself.
An ad that teaches
The ad is an early example of using authority content to sell a copywriting service. (Again, very meta!)
It’s worth checking out because not only will you get a free masterclass in high-level headline writing…
You’ll also get useful ideas on how to sell YOUR copywriting services.
And it’s a monster. Two newspaper pages. Tiny type. Six columns in places.
100 headlines, each one with a short explanation of why it worked.
(If you hand-copy it, copy the headlines only. The whole thing is too much.)
What every headline has to do
Right away, Victor breaks down the essentials.
The best headlines do two things:
They appeal to the target audience.
They promise a high-value reward for reading.
People are self-interested.
Miss either one… and your ad goes unnoticed.
As Sabri Suby puts it, you should offer your audience the “cream” of the market. That’s how you get them motivated to learn more.
What kind of reward can you offer?
A gain – how your product improves their well-being, their status, their bank account.
A loss avoided – how your product saves them from something bad.
Like this one from the list:
(Want to read the full swipe – marked up with my personal notes and comments? It’s one of the 100 annotated sales letters inside my Million Dollar Copywriting Swipe Library.)
We’re wired to guard ourselves against threats. That’s how our species survived.
Often, the fear of a loss moves people more than the promise of a gain.
It is the loss that keeps them awake at night!
How Victor Schwab uses psychological triggers and hooks
Are you wondering which headlines work best? Or if you need to test for years to get the best results?
Well, Victor has compiled an amazing collection of the top headlines that have worked in a variety of niches.
Use it as a reference for blog posts, VSLs, sales letters – even YouTube titles.
Sure, they were written for a different audience, in a different time. But the structure and the persuasion still apply.
Take one, adapt it to your situation, done.
I went through the list in the video. Here are my favorites, grouped by the trick they use.
Headlines that promise a reward
Headlines from the list
“The Secret of Making People Like You”
Secrets. People LOVE secrets. A bit overused now… but it still works.
“How to Win Friends and Influence People”
Probably one of the most famous headlines ever. “How to” + two benefits everybody wants.
“How I Improved My Memory in One Evening”
A how-to with a time element. Written as “I”… but you read it as “you”.
“Discover the Fortune That Lies Hidden in Your Salary”
A secret fortune I already have? Show me.
“161 New Ways to a Man’s Heart – In This Fascinating Book for Cooks”
Specific, a benefit people want, a mechanism (the book)… and it qualifies the reader: this is for cooks.
Headlines that hit a pain point
Headlines from the list
“Advice to Wives Whose Husbands Don’t Save Money – By a Wife”
A real pain point for that market. And “by a wife” adds instant credibility.
“The Child Who Won the Hearts of All”
Every parent dreads the kid acting up in public. This is the opposite.
“Are You Ever Tongue-Tied at a Party?”
Who hasn’t frozen up at a party? Am I that person?
“The Last 2 Hours Are the Longest – And Those Are the 2 Hours You Save”
This one sold faster flights. Anyone who’s been on a long trip knows the last few hours are the worst. Pure empathy.
“Whose Fault When Children Disobey?”
Is it MY fault? How do I make it not my fault?
“Have You These Symptoms of Nerve Exhaustion?”
“Nerve exhaustion”? Do I have it? Now I need to read on.
Headlines built on curiosity
Headlines from the list
“Who Else Wants a Screen Star Figure?”
“Who else” assumes there’s a trend… lots of people already cracked the code. Am I missing the secret?
“Do You Make These Mistakes in English?”
“Do you make mistakes?” is a yes/no question. “THESE mistakes” makes you need to know which ones.
“Why Some Foods “Explode” in Your Stomach”
Graphic. Show, don’t tell. And “some” foods – which ones? Am I eating them?
“Why Some People Almost Always Make Money in the Stock Market”
My favorite. “Why”. “Some people” – which group am I in? And “ALMOST always” is more believable than “always”.
“When Doctors “Feel Rotten” This Is What They Do”
A pattern interrupt. Even the poster child of credibility gets sick. So what DO they do?
“How I Made a Fortune With a “Fool Idea””
A paradox. How do you get rich by being a fool? It shocks people. It grabs attention.
“How a “Fool Stunt” Made Me a Star Salesman”
Same paradox, different reader.
Headlines with proof built in
Headlines from the list
“Hands That Look Lovelier in 24 Hours – Or Your Money Back”
A specific promise, a short time frame, and the proof right in the headline. You can’t lose.
“You Can Laugh at Money Worries – If You Follow This Simple Plan”
An if-then, reversed. Do this… get the thing you want.
“Five Familiar Skin Troubles – Which Do You Want to Overcome?”
Specific. Familiar. And it assumes you have at least one.
“Which of These $2.50 to $5 Best-Sellers Do You Want – For Only $1 Each?”
“Which”, not “do you want”. And “each” quietly assumes you’ll buy more than one.
“Doctors Prove 2 Out of 3 Women Can Have More Beautiful Skin in 14 Days”
Doctors. Prove. 2 out of 3. Can. 14 days. There’s not ONE word you could cut.
“How a New Kind of Clay Improved My Complexion in 30 Minutes”
“How”, “a new kind” (new mechanism), the benefit, and “30 minutes”. It has it all.
Every word in a great headline earns its place. Ruthlessly cut the rest.
Notice the pattern? Most of these have strong curiosity AND a benefit.
Many tease something new.
And a headline doesn’t have to do everything. It only has to pull people in for a few seconds.
Then the lead takes over – and they slide down the slippery slope.
The patterns behind the 100 headlines
The top headlines often follow similar trends:
How to _____ – the classic.
Who else wants ________? – the classic “get on the bandwagon” implication.
How I made a fortune with a fool’s idea – a twist in the tale plus a lucrative benefit. (Who wouldn’t check this out?)
A challenge or a discovery – like “Do you make these mistakes in English?”
A guarantee in the headline – like the famous “Guaranteed to go through ice, mud or snow – or we pay the tow!”
Before and after – like “They laughed when I sat down at the piano – but when I started to play!” (John Caples’ classic)
Why do they work so well? Simple.
They promise a big benefit or protect against a big loss. And they make the offer feel irresistible.
Your cure for the blank page
Too often, we struggle with writer’s block when it comes to headlines.
Impostor syndrome… perfectionism… the blank page.
They ALL show up when you sit down to write a headline.
So skim this list first. It gets the juices flowing.
Stuck on a headline? Pick 5 structures from Schwab’s list and write your offer into each one. Then pick the best… or mix two.
And here’s a bonus: this ad isn’t nearly as famous as the classics everybody swipes.
So if you adapt these structures, you’re NOT using the same tired headlines as everyone else.
How to make your ads have exponential reach!
Can you dismiss this ad as trash, like most promotional material? Probably not.
That’s the power of a high-value ad.
Nobody wants to read an ad. They want to read something that interests them.
(Gary Bencivenga was big on this, too: give away real value in your sales material.)
When you make your ad itself valuable, people will naturally read it – but they will also share it, and reference it later.
This gives you exponential reach – evergreen content that brings you hot leads long after it’s published.
Victor’s collection is STILL being shared today.
How many of today’s ads give away this much value for free?
Specialists win
One more thing.
The ad highlights how Victor Schwab‘s agency is made up of highly specialized copywriters.
Couponed advertising. Nothing else.
Remember: nobody wants to hire generalists.
They want specialists who can solve specific problems.
Would Victor Schwab’s headlines still work today?
Some of the wording is dated. “A plain girl”… “a screen star figure”…
You wouldn’t write that today.
But the structures? Absolutely.
“Who else wants…”, “Do you make these mistakes…”, “Why some people almost always…”
You see them EVERYWHERE today – email subject lines, YouTube titles, ads.
And the bigger idea – an ad so useful people keep it?
That’s basically content marketing… 60+ years early.
This one’s one of my favorite breakdowns so far, so I definitely recommend you watch the video.
Enjoy!
5 lessons to steal from Victor Schwab
1 – Promise a reward – or a loss avoided. The farmer’s $3,000 mistake still works on everybody.
2 – Swipe the structure, not the words. “Who else wants ___?” works in any market.
3 – Make every word earn its place. “Doctors prove 2 out of 3 women…” has nothing to cut.
4 – Use “these”, “some” and “which”. They turn a yes/no question into “I need to know which one.”
5 – Make your ad worth keeping. Value gets read, saved and shared. Pitches get skipped.
That’s Day 5.
See all the proven sales letter breakdowns →
More Victor Schwab: the promise lead he used, broken down next to Gary Bencivenga’s · my favorite headline formulas · all the proven sales letter breakdowns
More like this: the Zippo lighter ad · 22 classic print ads
And if you want the “secret recipe” behind ads like this one – the persuasion pattern I kept seeing over and over during these 100 days – grab it here:
Free cheat sheet
Steal the “Secret Recipe” Behind the Most Profitable Sales Letters of All Time
The 7-part structure I kept finding in proven sales letters – plus a 26-point checklist that catches the holes in your copy before it goes live.
Send Me the Secret Recipe →-Csaba
P.S. – A lot of people have been asking about the sales letter swipes I’ve used for this 100-day challenge…
They’d love to get access not just to the swipes themselves…
…But to my detailed notes, annotations and comments on them as well.
So I put them all together in my Million Dollar Copywriting Swipe Library – 100 of the best sales letters of all time, annotated and marked up. Plus a 2,000+ page swipe vault of emails, sales pages and Facebook ads.
It’s less than a buck per annotated sales letter… and some of these bad boys are 50+ pages long!
(PRO TIP: you can even feed them into your AI tools to make them that much smarter.)
