19 Classic Headlines From the 1920’s You Can Use Today
The other day I found myself going through a box of magazines from the early 1920’s, including Success, Physical Culture and Hill’s Golden Rule looking for classic headline inspiration for a project I am working on.
Some might think this is an odd strategy because how can anything from the 1920’s be appropriate and used today?
With certain articles and ads this line of thinking would be correct. It doesn’t take long when perusing through an almost 100-year-old magazine to be astonished and even uncomfortable with some of the topics and advertisements that were commonplace back then.
But that’s not the point of this article.
Instead I was treasure hunting and looking for a gold nugget or two.
What I ultimately found were 19 headlines that I found interesting and eye-catching for one reason or another.
Some caught my eye because of the headline itself.
Others caught my eye because of the strategy behind the headline (e.g. a contest or test).
Regardless, I thought these headlines could easily be adapted and used in your marketing and advertising today.
Of course, they all need to be tweaked for your business and some need to be updated to today’s reality, but each of these classic headlines are easily modified and adaptable for use today.
In no order, here are the 19 classic headlines from the 1920’s I discovered:
- An Amazingly Easy Way to Earn $10,000 a Year - Let Me Show You How Free
- How to Get What You Want - A Remarkable System of Personal Efficiency
- Stop Wondering How I Teach Piano; I'll Show You, FREE!
- Pick Out the 7 Best Words
- How I Saved My Hair the Tragedy of Baldness
- How Right or Wrong Thinking Measures Your Income
- My New Way of Selling
- Why Live an Inferior Life?
- Five-Minute Test Reveals Your Chances for Success
- Do You Do Any of These Embarrassing Things?
- I Guarantee You Results Worth $1,000 in One Year
- A Two Minute Test for Memory - Can You Pass It?
- The Magic of Charm
- What Are Your Chances of Business Success?
- Solving the "Mystery" of Disease
- Fear Is Your Worst Enemy
- They Called Me "Grouchy" Until I Learned Music
- 3 Priceless Secrets
- Six Vital Success Principles You Should Know - Their Use May Make Your Fortune
I did a headline for all of them (pretty easy to do!) but one of my favorites: How I Saved My Marriage from Sleeping in Separate Rooms. I can craft a message about how our sleep systems solve sleep issues that tend to drive couples to sleep in separate rooms. Thanks for posting, Mike! Good stuff.
Nice job Ben!
I like it Ben
An amazingly easy way to get your customers to advertise FOR you!
For years now I have saved your emails and thank Craig Garber for 1st introducing me to you. I can clearly see the value of what you did here Mike and will use these as swipes as I write. I also love that you are from Pennsylvania as am I. (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Area) Hope to see you one day to make my business better as you have today.
Thanks Richard. Half of my family is from Kingston area. Stay tuned for an opportunity to meet up soon!
Great article Mike. Here are a few headlines I’ve adapted:
An Amazingly Easy Way to Keep your windows clean, year round – Let Me Show you how for FREE!
My New Way of Keeping Windows Amazingly Clean!
3 Priceless Secrets For Keeping Your Windows Clean!
Thanks,
Caleb
Nice job Caleb! Make sure you use them!
Hey Mike: I have a list of 100 headlines that I go to EVERY time I write sales copy. I just created 8 flyers for my members to attach to outgoing dry cleaning using that list. Thanks for this addition. The oldies are really goodies.
Fear Is Your Worst Enemy In Business – thanks for the great information, Mike. I’ll add these to my swipe file of headlines. Keep up the good work.
Jon – long time,no talk! Hope all is well! Thanks for playing along!
Great stuff Mike!!
Hey Mike, great headlines, good job.
A FREE 10 minute check up for your car – will your car pass?
Appreciate you sharing this. I think many of these headlines can be used as is, without tweaking.
I used Mike’s Copy Doodles for my flyers when I was actively selling real estate. It made a difference in my marketing response.
Thanks Mike!
Jeffrey – how would you tweak one or two for your CPA biz?
Nice collection of headlines and interesting how much of what they were selling could still apply today. I’m equally intrigued by the “leave a comment to obtain the PDF” technique of gathering leads – what might we offer for my (dentist-oriented) business that could generate the same interest? No answers yet, but I’m thinking!
Hey Doug – I am not doing lead capture here, though I have in the past. The point of this article was simply to get my readers thinking about their business.
Great lesson, Mike. Always valuable to go back in time to discover the roots of success.
They called me a “Sourpuss” until I learned to smile.
The magic of a smile.
Even “why live an inferior life” tied in with a beautiful smile focus.
Love them Brian and great to hear from you!
Thanks Betty! Appreciate the note!
Mike: Thanks as always! Here’s mine
Six Vital Estate Planning Principles You Should Know – Use Them To Turn Your Fortune Into A Real Legacy!
Nice job (as usual) Dave!
A Two-Minute Sales Test – Will Your Top Rep Get It Right?
Thanks Mike. Always good food for though and action. I copied the 19 headlines into word and then generated multiple headlines under each headline. The more I worked this the more ideas started to flow. For example- They Called Me “Grouchy” Until I Learned Music, could be –
They Called Me “Broke” Until I Learned How To Generate Real Profits
They Called Me “Broke” Until I Learned How To Plan
They Called Me “Broke” Until I Learned How To Magnetically Attract New Customers
They Called Me “Broke” Until I Learned How To Get Customers To Respond To My Ads
They Called Me “Broke” Until I Learned How To Mastermind
Those are really cool headlines, Mike. Thanks for sharing them. Here are two headlines I could use from those you listed:
Six Vital Success Principles Concrete Contractors Should Know – Their Use May Make You A Fortune
Solving the “Mystery” of Highly Profitable Contractors
Awesome Alistair!!!
Thanks Doug and great job on winning last week’s contest. https://mikecapuzzi.com/information-first-marketing-asset/
Mike,
Thanks for sharing the Golden nuggets from your research.
Also, interesting to learn of and see the snaphot of Hill’s Golden Rule.
Here are my adapted headlines
What Are Your Chances of Success After Buying A Business…
A Five Minute Test For New Entreprenuers – Can You Pass?
What Are The Chances of Success Selling Your Business…
A Five Minute Test For Owners – Will Your Business Pass?
An Amazingly Easy Way to advertise your business – Let Me Show You How
Rewrite:
“Do you make these mistakes in job interviews?”
Here are a few adaptations that may be worthy???
An Amazingly Easy Way to Stop Losing Hair – Let Me Show You How Free
How to Get The Hair that You Want – A Remarkable System for your Self Esteem
Stop Wondering How I Do Great Hair; I’ll Show You, FREE!
Six Steps to Remarkable Hair!
All of these and more I shall try …
Another oldie but goldie is:
“Give me $99 and have a fantastic haircut or don’t give me $99 and don’t have a fantastic haircut!”
or
“Give me $50 and stop going bald or don’t give me $50 and keep going bald!”
I plan to Use :”Pick Out The Three Best Words for your Prospecting Email”
Nice article Mike, thanks for sharing
thought of this one for the season:
When you show up using one of our boxes – you make your competition look like the old lady that hands out crackers on Halloween night!
Good variety of attention getting headlines. I’ll try tweaking each one for my business coaching and the Optimist Club and see which ones look good, then I’ll try them out in Facebook.
How to Get What You Want – A Life Changing System of Influence and Persuasion
Very nice Ian! They are very good!
Go Jon!
These are great! I’ve been wanting to use Typeforms to create an interactive market research tool and at least 4 of these headlines would be easily adaptable to that project!! Thanks Mike for all that you and your team do to make me successful!!
Mike – These are a nice collection of headlines! I was doing some digging myself the other day and came across the Christmas Wish Book. I’d give you the link, but you might think it’s spam. Check it out under wishbookweb. Your search engine should take you right to it. There’s a program that is cataloging the past issues. I’m not affiliated with the program. If you want some more fun, take a gander at the project, say for the year you were born – and see what was hot and how they sold it. The voice used was very telling of politics and world issues. Fun!
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Rebecca – will check out.
3 mind blowing secrets about Liability Insurance!