One of my favorite ways to get inspiration for copywriting headlines and email subject lines is to look at the daily news headlines.

Whenever you come across a news headline that interests you, especially if it’s about a topic in a market you sometimes write copy for, make a note of it (if you don’t already have a headlines document in your Google Docs or on your computer, start one).

Each day take a glance at the headlines in Google News, New York Times (especially their most popular articles), Huffington Post (check out this article about their headlines and how they test them) and a news site in your local area.

Obviously you won’t be able to swipe these headlines word for word to use as a copywriting headline. The purpose is to give you inspiration and raw material to work with to tweak into a headline you can use.

It’s common for copywriters to study and swipe successful copywriting headlines but I find it adds freshness to your copywriting to also study the news headlines. Because news headlines tend to be pithy they also can provide inspiration as email subject lines.

I’ll share a few I came across this past week:

“What’s the biggest money mistake you can make?”

This is a curiosity headline from a news site in my local area. With a little tweaking you could turn this into a copywriting headline for copy in the financial/debt management niches. You could use it word for word in an email subject line.

A headline like this also meets the “3 a.m. test”  that Gary Bencivenga talks about: if you woke up a person in your market at 3 a.m. and read them your headline, would it create such a sense of urgency that they would want to hear more or would they roll over and go back to sleep?

“If you had more money than you knew what to do with, would you want more?

A good example of a question headline from the New York Times. If you write copy for financial services or products this would also make for a good email subject line and topic.

“Raising pigs and this baseball thing really go together.”

Another example from the New York Times. I like the use of contrast here. One doesn’t normally associate pig farming with baseball. Making note of a headline like this will remind you to use contrast in your copywriting headlines whenever possible because it’s one of the best ways to provoke curiosity.

“$5 debit card fee got you mad? Time for deposit-only banks.”

This is from Google News and an example of an emotion headline that targets a very specific frustration of the people in your market. It would be very easy to adapt this to a copywriting headline.

Another benefit to this daily exercise is it will help you stay informed as to what’s going on in the world. There have been countless times I’ve come across a factoid or statistic in a news story and used it in email and sales page copy.

Charles Kirkland posted a video today of a 17 word email he wrote for a list in the woodworking niche that made $300 in 24 hours.

You get to look over his shoulder as he writes the email and chooses the subject line. Then he takes you inside his Clickbank account 24 hours later to see the results.

At the 3:39 mark he mentions the #1 thing that causes emails to bomb and talks openly about an email he recently sent to a list of 5000 that resulted in no sales because he made this mistake.

It’s very rare to come across a free in depth video like this with pure content about email marketing, as well as honest discussion about recent successes and failures with email. Take a look. Nothing is being sold, it’s just helpful information.

It’s college football season, which I normally couldn’t care less about.

But there was a game here in Madison, WI last Saturday that was so big, with so much hype surrounding it, that even I started paying attention.

I even found myself reading articles about the Nebraska Cornhuskers. What?

So I figured if even I was noticing the game, then there must be a marketing lesson or two in it.

Sure enough there is.

The Nebraska Cornhuskers had been in the Big 12 conference for 100 years and then joined the Big 10 (Wisconsin’s conference) this year.

This was Nebraska’s first game against Wisconsin since 1974 and their first game with Nebraska as part of the Big 10.

Both teams wear red and white so it was Big Red vs. Big Red. It was billed as the biggest Wisconsin game ever and 81,000 fans crammed into the stadium.

Wisconsin has been to the Rose Bowl and has had its share of important games, so why was this such a big fat hairy deal?

Well, Nebraska doesn’t have a pro football team, so the Cornhuskers are the main attraction for football fans in Nebraska.

Also, even though the college football season is fairly short, there’s at least one article in the Nebraska newspapers every day of the year about the Cornhuskers. (Hint: that’s marketing lesson #1: consistency in telling your story).

Madison was overrun with Nebraska fans last Friday and Saturday and the energy of that was fun. I’ve never seen so many fans from the opposing team strolling the streets and stores of Madison. Apparently not even a recession can stop Cornhusker fans from spending lots of money on tickets and travel.

All of this piqued my curiosity and made me tune into the game and watch almost three full quarters of it (I shut it off after Wisconsin’s lead became insurmountable).

Which brings us to marketing lesson #2: In marketing and sales, curiosity draws people in even more than desire does.

Here we had a “product “that was more than 100 years old, predictable as can be, and yet a new story gave a freshness to it and made even non-fans who have no desire for college football curious and interested in it.

By the way, just so you know, curiosity… stories… freshness… these are all things that email copy can deliver day after day.