Can a Terrific Title Make You Millions?

“I used to call it Scrambled Eggs.” - Paul McCartney, referring to the working title of his famous Beatles song, Yesterday.

I’m convinced that a great title is one of the biggest keys to success for any book, movie, song, or business.

A great title gets you in the door. It sparks a flame of curiosity in your audience that makes them want to investigate further.

I’m amazed at how many Hollywood films are released with really boring, forgettable titles. Even with big-name stars attached, these movies are dead on arrival.

Basic
Man of the Year
Hollywood Homicide
Two For The Money

Do you remember those films? Do you care? Me either! Guess what? They all came out within the past six years and starred John Travolta, Robin Williams, Harrison Ford, and Al Pacino. They could be the best movies in the world but the titles don’t excite me enough to want to see them. They’re too bland and vague.

Compare them to these memorable titles:

Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Mission Impossible, Back to the Future, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, The Karate Kid, Kill Bill, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives.

Kinda grab you, don’t they? They’re intriguing, urgent, funny, interesting. They spark our curiosity. They’re also visual - they put pictures in our heads that tease us and make us want to see the action they promise.

How about hit songs?

Heartbreak Hotel, When Doves Cry, Werewolves of London, Sunday Bloody Sunday, All My Exes Live in Texas, Runnin’ With The Devil, Careless Whisper, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Lady is a Tramp.

Or some popular books:

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Conversations With God, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Alice in Wonderland, Green Eggs and Ham, Where the Wild Things Are.

‘Name’ titles tend to be popular and safe:

Charlotte’s Web, Carrie, Casablanca, Jerry Maguire, Ocean’s Eleven, Forrest Gump, Titanic.

Name titles make you curious about who the people are and why an entire movie or book is devoted to them.

Sure, there are many successful creations with bland titles. I can’t name one song title by the band New Order, but I can still sing their tunes. Titles like A Few Good Men, and Contact don’t elicit much excitement, but they have great plots and actors attached. Battlefield Earth is a pretty cool title, but we know what happened there. So who knows why some succeed while others don’t.

Why not strive to make your titles stand out? Why not make them memorable, catchy, intriguing, funny, quirky, or mysterious?

Give us a title we’ll always remember!

Thoughts? Leave a comment!

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“To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.”
                                            - Walt Whitman

If you want to earn (more) money with your creative idea, product, or service, these are what I consider the ABC’s of self-promotion:

1. Define What You Do Best, and Offer That.

What makes you memorable? How will your client’s life improve because of your creative service? Do you create incredible stuff?

Many creative people are jack-of-all-trade types (myself included). But the bottom line is that people will really remember you if you offer one great thing. Sure, you can still create different stuff on the side - that’s what I’m doing with this blog. However, let’s face it - when we think of Prince, Jack Johnson, Steven King, Woody Allen, and Madonna, what comes to mind? Answer: a unique creative person with a memorable style. 

It might take years to hone your uniqueness and that’s okay, because most of us aren’t lucky enough to be born with a voice like Stevie Wonder. But if your goal is to earn money from your creativity, it’s always good strive for focus, quality, professionalism, and a memorable style. Style is ideally a natural expression of who you are and what you naturally create. But successful, big-name creators are aware of their own brand, and they know how to hone it, package it, and market it.

2. Make Business Cards, and Hand Them Out.

This is one of the simplest, cheapest, and most powerful things you can do to promote yourself, yet many creative people I know don’t have business cards.  A business card is your mini-billboard. It says, “I have something great to offer.”

Give cards to everyone you meet. And while you’re at it, make business card magnets, so people can stick ‘em on their fridge. If you don’t know how to design your own business card, hire someone to do it; a student, a professional graphic designer, whatever your budget allows. Or just buy software at Staples and make them at home. 

A great on-line resource is Vista Print. Just upload your design and order. Their prices are amazing (except for shipping costs -but their fees are so low you still get a deal).

An effective business card should contain the following:

• Your Name / Business Name
• A line describing specifically what you do & what you offer.
• Your contact information - email, website, phone.

Important tip! Your business card should speak for you if you’re not around to explain yourself. So when you tack your card on a bulletin board, your card should say more than just “Jane Doe: Singer”. It should also say “Available for weddings and Bat Mitzvahs.”

3. Have a Website

A website is pretty darn essential nowadays for promoting yourself. The primary reason so many creative people don’t have a website is because they don’t know how to make one. Perfectly understandable. I didn’t know. I still don’t know. But I learned enough to squeak by.

The obvious: a simple, professional-looking site allows potential clients & customers to see your work and forward your site to friends and associates. If you’re not willing to invest the time to learn how to build a site using software like Dreamweaver, there are plenty of people who can build one for you relatively quickly and easily.

I personally chose to hire a tutor. I found him via craigslist. He lives in my town. I pay him to come over and teach me how to get sites like this one up and running.

4. Ask Your Local Newspaper to Run A Feature About YOU!

This is an age-old way to promote, I know, but it’s still something that a lot of people ignore. If your service is unique, call your local paper and introduce yourself to the features editor. They need good stuff to write about, particularly if you’ve accomplished something inspiring and your service is useful to local folks.

There are countless ways to promote yourself. Joining a word-of-mouth networking group like B.N.I. or the Chamber of Commerce is powerful and effective. They’re pretty inexpensive. Joining social media groups like Facebook can’t hurt either - they’re free. If you’re a writer, start building a fanbase by starting a blog. Use a paid service like Aweber to send email promotions to your fans through permission. Post free ads on craigslist…Be creative!

What are you waiting for? Show us what you’ve got!

Do you have any helpful promotional tips to share? Add a comment!