Powering Content

Chapter 8. The One About Formulas and Headlines

Long before Nestle, Enfagrow, and Gerber took the baby formula market by storm, a German chemist named Justus von Liebig patented and sold the world’s first commercial infant formula, Liebig’s Soluble Food for Babies. He had come up with a complex percentage method to mix cow’s milk, water, cream, and sugar or honey in specific ratios. He had gone through all that trouble to replicate the most perfect, beneficial form of infant food: breastfeeding. He reverse-engineered the most effective nutriment available in order to help babies that could not get fed otherwise. Why am I bringing this up? Because with all the bad reputation that “formulas” get these days, some of them are still valuable for one simple reason: they work. In the absence of natural success or luck, well-structured formulas deliver again and again. And consistent success is the only way our content marketing machine will run nonstop.

So, stay with me as we look at an entire chapter of reverse-engineered structures that have helped others break through the noise with their content. These success formulas, which include headline patterns, powerwords, and copy snippets, will assist your daily content creation efforts. Keep them close and go back to them whenever you need to.

Content Success Formulas

The blank page is a content creator’s worst enemy. That is why every time someone asks me how to face a blank slate, my answer is one and the same: don’t. You are perfectly ...