Posted: December 14th, 2011 | Author: steve | Tags: Copywriting, Direct Response, Headlines, Increase Conversions, Marketing, Sales Copy | View Comments
I stumbled across this great article the other day and just had to share it with you all. I know it’s hard to believe that something as small as your headline can have such a huge impact on your bottom line, but it’s about time you started believing. Your headline can indeed make our break your offer.
Interspire writes:
“They say that if your web site has a bad opening headline you’ll loose over 50% of your visitors in the first few seconds after they arrive at your home page. Headlines are the most important part of a web page, but what constitutes a good headline?
In today’s article I’m going to list the top 12 best direct response headlines ever created. How do I know these are the top 12 headlines ever? Simple. I read this article. I’ve written quite a few headlines over the last few years. Some worked and some didn’t. The headlines below have sold hundreds of millions of dollars of products over the last 50 years, and best of all you can adapt each of these headlines to suit your own business.
1.‘They laughed when I sat down at the piano – but when I started to play!’
This is *the* most popular headline of all time. It has been used in direct marketing to sell millions of dollars worth of products, but what is it about this headline that makes people keep reading? I think it’s the anticipation. As a reader you ask yourself ‘well, what happened when he sat down at the piano? Did they like what he played? What song did he play?’. This makes you want to keep reading to see exactly what ‘they’ did when ‘he’ started to play the piano. Can you use anticipation to build curiosity in your headline?
2. ‘They grinned when the waiter spoke to me in French – but their laughter changed to amazement at my reply.’
Again, the use of anticipation. ‘What was her reply?’ you ask yourself. ‘If they didn’t think she could speak French, then what country was she from?’. When I see this headline I picture a group of mature aged women sitting around at a fancy restaurant with a waiter by the side of the lady who replied in French. How can you use visual imagery to create a killer headline for your web site?
3. ‘Do you make these mistakes in English?’
When I was writing our most recent newsletter I decided to give this headline a try. ‘Do You Make These Mistakes When Attracting New Clients?’ is the headline I chose. The headline is followed by a paragraph about our web master secrets email course. I think when you see this headline you immediately ask yourself ‘What mistakes is he talking about? What if they are costing me and my business money?’ This headline is easy to flip and use for business. Can you flip it?
4. ‘Can You Spot These 10 Decorating Sins?’
Similar to headline #3, this headline provokes thoughts of embarrassment. Obviously this headline would’ve been used in craft magazines targeted to female homemakers, but what you do you think the inner monologue of a reader would have been when she saw this headline? ‘Decorating sins? I’ve spent so much time decorating the family home. I hope I haven’t committed any of these decorating sins. Let me read on just to make sure.’ What ‘sins’ might your potential customers be committing? Can you use this headline on your web site or in an article?
Posted: June 4th, 2011 | Author: steve | Tags: Business, Copywriting, Email Marketing, Entrepreneur, Internet Marketing, Sales, Writing | View Comments
Altucher wins again with this entertaining article. He gives some really great advice on how to become a better public speaker, which also happens to be great advice for those of us desiring to become better copywriters:
“1) Start off with a joke. This is a must. People need to laugh within the first 30 seconds or else you’re going back to your cubicle at the pencil factory and they will never remember you.
I spend about at least one to two hours before the talk coming up with the first joke because I know that’s what starts off the good feelings for the rest of the talk. I usually make it relevant to the locale and the topic or the news (Tomorrow’s joke starts off: “True story: two days ago I was having dinner with the prime minister of Pakistan and…”) And it actually will be a true story.
2) Get on their level. This has two meanings. I once fell off of a podium while pacing around giving a talk. I was very embarrassed. So now I always get off the podium and explain that I’m afraid to fall off so I’m just going to walk around if that’s ok with everyone. People laugh a little bit and it physically and mentally brings me onto their level.
3) Very important: I very very slightly slur my words. A very small slur. I don’t drink at all. But by slightly slurring my words it’s as if I’m telling my brain I’m a little drunk. When you’re a little drunk you don’t really care what people think of you and you take a few more chances than you would’ve otherwise. It also makes me a bit more brutally honest. And everyone likes a nice drunk!
4) I try to use JUST one word plus one image per page. No more! You think people really want to come to a talk and read a novel? They want to look at funny pictures. At heart, we are all two year olds trying to just stay alive. I’m not saying this in a patronizing way. Its just true.
Here’s one slide from my upcoming talk:
Colorful, topical. It’s the world record bubble creator, so its interesting. And has the flare of magic around it. Given recent events, if I can’t fill up 30 seconds of brilliant insight with this slide then I shouldn’t be doing any public speaking.
5) Try to shock people on each slide. This keeps them awake. They’ve just been jolted with electricity. Like a taser. That hits their brain to keep them awake for another 30 seconds (I say this all because I hate talks and I know I fall asleep every 30 seconds during a talk) Here’s another slide from my upcoming talk:
I then tell people I just bought this house. People are shocked for a brief second (the human mind is conditioned to believe everything it hears). Then I say, “no I didn’t”. And everyone relaxes. All of their muscles relax. The jealousy muscle, the reality muscle, the humor muscle. Everything settles down. Some chuckles. Its obviously not my house. But now we can all move ahead and talk again.
Posted: May 11th, 2011 | Author: steve | Tags: Blogging, Copywriting, Grammar, Internet Marketing, Sales, Writing | View Comments
A refresher on how to use semicolons can never hurt, and it doesn’t hurt if that refresher also happens to be hilarious! Leave it up to The Oatmeal to knock it out of the park.
As a marketer you can learn a lot from The Oatmeal actually. People love to laugh and be entertained, so if you can infuse a little humor and personality into your marketing message your business is only going to benefit.
Just make sure you steer clear of religion and politics, for obvious reason;).
Click Here To Read The “Semicolon” Comic At The Oatmeal!
Permanent link to this post (100 words, 1 image, estimated 24 secs reading time)
