Six Tips For Writing Effective Headlines

As you may anticipate, an excellent headline is absolutely critical to the success of your sales letter or web page, because it's the first thing a prospective customer sees. You will have about three seconds to catch his attention and entice him to actually read past the primary headline.

The second most important characteristic of your sales letter or web page is the first sub-headline. Both the headline and the sub-head must provide a major benefit by way of offering a pleasurable consequence or relieving a painful scenario for the customer. Which brings us to the first, and possibly most important, rule for writing good headlines:

1 - Great Headlines Are All About The Benefits

Your headline should state or imply the most important benefit (in terms of pleasure gained or pain resolved) within the headline. Undergo your full listing of benefits and determine which is the strongest benefit to your target customer base. If you don’t have a listing of benefits, or for those who find it tough to create a listing, then try this trick … On the left side of a sheet of paper, write down every feature of your product or service (features are “facts” … color, size, number of pages in a book or ebook, discusses flipping homes, etc.).

Then for every feature, write down on the right side of the paper what that feature does for your customer (e.g., stops the pain of XYZ, reverses damage from years of smoking so you may breathe easily again, makes you lean and attractive to the opposite sex, etc.). After getting your listing of benefits; decide the most effective, and write a headline about it.

2 - Great Headlines Will Embrace Power Words

Power words are key words proven to get better response to sales letters. There are actually a whole bunch of power words, however here are the Top 20:

Discover, Proven, Introducing, Easy, How to, Attention, Save, At last, Quick, Just Arrived, Free, Results, Guarantee, Sale, Now, New, Revealed, Bargain, Why, Announcing.

3 - Effective Headlines Will Instill Curiosity And/or Evoke Emotion

Emotion grabs attention; details and logic closes the sale. In a headline, it’s all about grabbing attention, so you must focus on emotion, and one of the most effective emotions is curiosity. For instance, in some of my headlines or sub-heads for the income opportunity mentioned above, I'll say “How To Turn 5 Minutes Into $88,587 Per Month … Using the 1 Most Important Marketing Tool On The Net”.

As discussed above, the specificity is good … it appeals to the logical mind with the numbers and may appeal to the emotions if you are emotional about solving money problems or getting wealthy, but the phrase, “The 1 Most Important Marketing Tool On The Net”, makes you wonder, “What IS the top marketing tool?” and “How does he use it to make over one million dollars per year?” So, now you click the hyperlink or read the sales page to fulfill your curiosity.

4 - Good Headlines Will Ask A Question

Reading is basically a “passive” activity. Yea, I know it takes energy to read, and that’s not passive like slouching back on your couch watching TV … but what you're reading is doing the “telling” and you're doing the “receiving”. Nevertheless, if what you’re reading asks you a question … it begs you to begin thinking your own thoughts … you must fill in the blanks. So a question like, “What Would Happen To Your Family If YOU Lost Your Job?” will get you thinking. If you’re thinking, you’re engaged in what you’re reading. If you’re engaged, you’re more prone to keep reading.

5 - Use “How To” When Writing Headlines

One of the most popular things folks search for is “How To” information … they are trying to resolve a problem. Either they need to know “how to” do something to eliminate a problem … for example, how to wire up that new ceiling fan … or they want to know “methods to” get something they want. “How To” headlines by definition are providing solutions; thus, they work. Use them.

6 - Time-Limited Special Offers Also Make Good Headlines

When you have a services or products for which most individuals in your area of interest know the price range … and you have come up with a way to offer the identical quality (or better) for a considerably lower cost, then announcing the discount within the headline can be very effective. Even when your audience doesn’t know the price range, you can get the same impact by using a “percent discount” approach. For example, you might say, “All Steaks 60% Off”. And when you have a legitimate reason, or your customers believe there is likely to be a credible reason, to time limit the discount … that’s even better. “Massive Overshipment Received: All Steaks 60% Off This Week Only … While Supplies Last”.



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