Please critique (+ vote on) my headlines -- Thanks!...

I'm not understanding your fine distinction.

A) Bad headline... causes fewer people to read further.

B) Sales letter not written in understandable English ("martian" -- requires de-crypting)... causes fewer people to read further.

Result (in both cases), decreased results.

-- TW

PS: The audience I want to reach are... 1) Busy + 2) Speak English. I need an effective headline to break through their busy-ness filter -- AND I need my letter to be written in understandable English (not requiring them to 'learn a new hobby' to read it). I need BOTH. To my way of thinking, a "Glenn style" letter would not give me both. Yes, yes -- how do I know if I haven't TRIED it. I'm just saying -- to me, they seem not to be written in ENGLISH (even)!! But maybe that's what "heroine or LSD or crack on paper" looks like [or whatever that catch phrase he used, is]

Originally Posted by Ankesh

Actually - polarization increases the response rate.

A. Do you want to be mediocre for 100% of the population?

B. Or do you want 10% of the population to absolutely go gaga over you while letting the other 90% hate you?

B wins almost every time.

Thats why Fox News has become the biggest news cable channel out there.

Polarization decreases the population pool*. But increases the conversion and retention rates.

* Unless you are someone like Howard Stern. People who hate Howard Stern listen to him twice as long as people who love him

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(Not sure where I was tsk-ing any headlines... I thought your #3 was pretty good actually.)