A Good Headline
It’s no secret that to get your stuff to sell online, you need to have a strong headline on your sales message. It is said that you can have a bad copy and still sell if you have a good headline on your sales message but if you have a bad headline but a great sales copy then you are going to have a hard time to get any sales at all. The reason here is simple, you have got to get people’s attention first before anything else takes place in order for you to actually move them gradually to the buy button.
To do that, your headline needs to stand out to your target market and irresistible for them to read your entire message. Now the headlines are not just important to be used in the sales letter. In fact marketers believe that you need to place a good headline on any written material or marketing message that you have with a good headline. There’s a Chinese saying that says that a good beginning means you are half way there and this could not be any closer to the truth. Be it a squeeze page, an article, a blog or even a video message, a headline is what you need to make it a good start for your readers and is it after you are able to get their attention will you be able to get them to actually start reading on your entire sales message. Always write your headlines first.
One good way for you to write an excellent copy is to start with your headline first. This is very useful for you to set the pace when you are going to write your entire sales message later on. Many top copywriters believe that a headline is like a promise that you make to your readers. When you have a solid promise you then will know what to write in your copy’s body. This way your promises can be fulfilled every single time you are writing a copy.
It is really simple to underestimate this little tweak to your writing habit which is why we consistently see bad sales copy that tends to side track away from their headline’s promise or statement. With a proper headline already written out, you will always be able to go back to the headline as a guideline and use it to inspire you on what you need to write next in the other parts of your copy. Use a collection of swipe files.
Sometimes it is very hard to write a good headline out of the blue. This is why the best copywriters will keep a good collection of swipe files so that they can refer back to what had worked before and then try to get inspired by ‘working’ headlines and move on from there. Having a collection of swipe files is a great way for you to consistently write good headlines fast without having to waste any time. All you need to do is to go to your swipe files when you need to write up a good headline, find a good headline that fits your niche or topic and use it to create a similar headline that will work properly for your current project. This is particularly useful when you are stuck for ideas or when you have no idea where to start. Understand what you are writing for.
Obviously, it is very important for you to thoroughly understand what you are writing for. Therefore make sure you do your research on the product on topic and make sure that you take note of the important ‘keys’ and ‘benefits’ or the product that your target market will be interested in. Now take special care to anything that is out of the ordinary or anything unusual. For example, One of the best headlines ever written was ‘Amazing Secret Of One Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards To Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks And Slices… And Can Slash Up To 10 Strokes From Your Game Almost Overnight!’ by John Carlton.
What really took the hearts of the crowd was the ‘one legged golfer’ part because it was not the usual thing that you see. And thus this creates a lot of mystery and curiosity and this is exactly what you will need to get your readers to read on for more. With that said, if you wish to include this kind of unusual but stunning effective ‘stories’ in your headline, you will really need to dig deeper into the niche and understand the product well. The sense of urgency.
Another big factor to whether or not your body copy will get read right now or never is the sense of urgency. Too many copywriting materials out there get ignored by a curious eye because the readers didn’t have the sense of urgency to read the letter now. People are naturally busy so you have to make sure that your letter gets read right now or you stand the chance of losing them forever. Time and limited offer are a great way to create a sense of urgency right now so that people will not neglect your copy. People are scared of losing out and if your headline has a very strong and enticing promise and a hint or a warning of urgency then people will take your letter seriously and read it as fast as possible.
Again, when you place the urgency factor into your headline, consider if your urgency is something that your target market will be concerned about. Make sure that your headline is telling the truth and make sure that you are not lying to the readers just to get their attention because it might backfire. If you say it is going to be a limited offer, then you need to make sure it indeed is a limited offer. When you keep your promise of your headline and the urgency is real, not only will you get your readers to read, you will be sure that a lot of these readers will turn into a real customer. Make use of these tips in your headlines and you will see a vast improvement in the overall response that you get from your targeted visitors.
