Most professional copywriters would say that headlines accountfor 80% percent of more of the effectiveness of an ad or salesletter.
After all, it's the headline that gets your reader to stop andread further into your sales copy. If the headline fails, thenthe entire ad or sale copy fails.
So with headline creation being of such importance, are yougiving your headlines the time and effort they are worth?
Writing good headlines is a skill that can be learned andmastered if you are willing to put the time into studying goodproven moneymaking headlines.
One way of learning how to write killer headlines is to study themasters. Read the works of the past greats, such as ClaudeHopkins, Robert Collier, John Caples, David Ogilvy, and EugeneSchwartz, among others. There works are available in libraries,used book stores, and in some cases there works have beenreprinted and are still available on the market.
A second method is to study the headlines in the super markettabloids and magazines that you find near the check out counters.Tabloids such as 'The Globe', 'The Star', and 'The NationalEnquirer' or magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Redbook, ReadersDigest, and Vanity Fair.
These publications are placed near the cash registers for areason. While you are standing in line waiting to check out, youscan their headlines and many people become interested andpurchase these publications on impulse. And the sell millions!They have some of the highest circulations of any publications inthe country.
So, what gets them to sell so well? Certainly not the title ofthe publication! It's the headlines. They jump out at you. Theyget you to stop and look. They arouse your curiosity. Even if youdon't buy, I'll bet on more than one occasion you've picked upthe publication and scanned it for an article mentioned on thecover. I know I have.
The headline writers for these publications are some of thehighest paid writers in the country and the circulation numbersreflect it.
Ok, so these publications have great attention grabbing,curiosity arousing headlines. How does that help you?
As you read and study these headlines, see if you can see apattern that you can use. Many of these headlines can be used todevelop killer headline templates where just by modifying orsubstituting a word or two can also work wonders for your ownadvertising and promotion campaigns.
Yet another technique is to look through direct response type adsand advertorials in publications related to your industry. Go tothe library and check a number of back issues of these works. Ifyou consistently see the same ads running over and over again,you know they are making money.
Some profitable ads have consistently run for as long as 40years! Without being changed!
Professional copywriters constantly collect good headlines andcreate what they call "swipe files." These headline swipe filesserve as models for good headlines and are great idea generatorsas they work to develop their own winning headlines.
When you discover ads that are being run over and over, studytheir headlines, and copy them into your own swipe file and whenyou are trying to think about creating some new headlines of yourown, dig out the swipe file, review your collection of headlinesand see if you can't use some of them as models for your own.Model success.
In another article, I'll tackle creating and working withheadline templates. Until then, keep pumping out those winningheadlines.
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