This is a fantastic post by a wonderful speaker friend of ours, Tom Harris.  Have you picked up a copy of his CD yet? It is amazing!

All effective marketing pieces need to follow a common formula, whether the piece is an email, postcard, web page, coupon, radio or TV ad, brochure, flyer, verbal presentation or anything else that is used to promote your business and gain customers.

There a four functions to a marketing piece: Grab, Engage, Inform and Offer (GEIO)

These functions are performed by the four parts of a marketing piece: Headline, Subheadline, Body, and Call to Action.

• GRAB – this is what a Headline does, and you’ve got microseconds to accomplish this. Headlines are critical because if you don’t grab them, then the rest of your marketing piece might as well never have been created. And once you’ve grabbed someone’s attention, you’ve got a few more microseconds to get them to the next step, which is:

• ENGAGE – this is the function of the Subheadline, to move the prospect on a bit further, to pique their curiosity a bit more, and to tell them that you’re about to give them some valuable information that they’ll be vitally interested in.

• INFORM – this is the message itself, the Body of the marketing piece. It must be concise, interesting and contain useful information that will prepare the prospect for the:

• OFFER – this function is performed by the Call to Action, where you’re asking the prospect to actually DO something – download a free report, email you, call you, visit your website, make a purchase, etc. A marketing piece that is just informative and doesn’t ask for an action at the end is a wasted effort.

So here’s the formula again:
Grab = Headline
Engage = Subheadline
Inform = Body
Offer = Call to Action

It’s a simple formula, and you can easily apply it to any new marketing efforts you undertake, or use it to evaluate your current efforts.