Headlines are short vital statements to stimulate your potential customers and clients to take action. That means sales! Since you only have 10 seconds to attract your visitor or reader, create headlines to make ultimate sales.
Your benefit-driven headlines are your 24/7 sales team working for your while you relax your favorite way.
Without them, your ezine ads, email promotions, special reports, eBooks, book and article titles, chapter titles, ezines and print newsletters, and Web site will not pull visitor attention, trust, credibility, traffic or sales.
Headlines bring far more sales than the copy following them. Perhaps you are a skimmer too. Skimmers usually just read the headline.
How to Use Headlines
1. EZINE ADS
Many businesses write ads and place them in strategic ezines or Web sites. They lose contacts and sales because they don’t use a benefit-driven headline at the top of the ad. For instance, “YOU CAN WRITE A PROFITABLE BOOK IN LESS THAN 30 DAYS! or HIGH TRAFFIC=HIGH WEB SALES.”
Start with the benefit in capital letters. Make a free offer to get people to visit your Web site. Include contact information in hyper links. Make your ad 5-7 lines. Don’t pitch what you are selling in the ad–this doesn’t motivate.
2 SUBJECT LINE IN YOUR OUTGOING EMAIL
Make sure your headline includes a benefit for the product, the teleclass, the seminar or service you are promoting.Over 50% of outgoing messages are never opened because the subject line doesn’t inspire or stimulate the audiences’ curiosity.
So many professionals just put an announcement in the subject line such as “Upcoming Programs.” Not specific enough, nor motivating enough to make me want to open the email.
Here’s a few winners: Quadruple your Sales in 4 Months with Articles Teleclass, FREE report: Online Marketing is 10 Times More Powerful than Traditional, or for an ezine, don’t just put its name in subject line, put its feature article in with a abbreviated ezine name and ….
3.. FREE SPECIAL REPORTS AND ARTICLES
These 2-6 page informational, how-to pieces help promote your business Online. Send one every month or so to follow up your email group lists.
Your article title is your headline. Best titles include a benefit and audience. People want to know what’s in for them before they invest their valuable time to read it. Don’t lose them with a weak title. Which of these are powerful? “10 Tips to Promote your Product with Flyers.” “Shorten your Journey to Business Success with Teleclasses.” “Want a Web Site that Turns Lookie Loos into Buyers?”
Within the body of the piece use headlines to inspire and motive the reader to keep reading to get their questions answered. The reason they read your article is to learn how to solve their problem. Headlines organize and guide your reader to make it easy for him/her to read. With appreciation for your useful article they may click on your product or service to buy you offer in your signature file at the bottom.
Within “The BIG 3 Marketing Machine” report, this headline pulls reader action: “Leverage your Sales Through a Short Headline.”
3. EBOOK-TITLES AND TABLE OF CONTENTS
Your eBook or print book title is an example of a headline. With only 4-8 seconds to impress, make sure it sizzles with the number one benefit and your preferred audience included
Sample titles that sell: “Increase your Traffic and Web Sales Five Times in 30 Days,” “Ten Roadblocks BetweenYou and a Real Life,” “Cold Calling: The Reverse Selling Way,” and “Speak Like a Pro For Profit.” Notice the benefits.
Within your book your chapter titles are also examples of headlines. These are so important to guide the reader through your information in an organized, compelling style. They help focus your reader and make your book easy-to-read, a great selling point. Since your chapter titles evolve into your table of contents, make them stimulate your possible buyer to pay for your book right now. These are what my eBook calls “Essential Hot-Selling Points.”
In one client’s chapter “You’re Having No Fun and it Makes You Sick” from a book on how relationships can be hazardous to your health, she offered these headings: “No One Told You? You Put Off Fun Til Later? He Healed Himself with Laughter! Are You Stuck in the Muck? and Stretch Your Fun Muscles.”
4. EZINES AND NEWSLETTERS
Just as with your chapter titles, every section of your ezine needs a headline. For instance, “Feature Article of the Month,” “Business Tip of the Month,” or “Publisher’s Message.” These are listed in your ezine’s table of contents near the top of the ezine. They give your prospective reader benefit- driven headlines to attract them to read on.
6. WEBSITES
Since headlines are the most important part of your home page and sales letters on your Web site, think about your site now. If you don’t have headlines on your home page that lead your visitor straight to your product or service sales letter and order page, you probably have low sales.
Why will visitors buy from you? They certainly don’t care about your bio, your mission or purpose. They won’t stay if your home page opens with a large graphic. Your potential customers want to learn more about how you can solve their problem, and that demands dazzling, meaty headlines.
For an eBook, one author put this headline on his home page: Want to Know How to Add 200 New Subscribers Each Month?” This headline led Web potential buyers straight to his sales letter and links to where the Online promotion product was sold.
For a Feng Shui Kit one client put this home page headline and link to her product sales letter on her home page: “Do you Miss the Sacred in Your Daily Life? Rediscover it with “The Sacred Collection.” In her sales letter she wrote more headlines and bullets for specific benefits throughout her sales letter.
7. LINK EXCHANGE
Reciprocal Web link exchanges are a win-win in business, since this is one way to optimize your search engine placement. When you agree with another Web site to exchange links, offer both a short and long version of your link. In the longer one, be sure to place a benefit-driven headline with the URL and a free offer. These annotated links stand out from the crowd and give visitors more information to make a decision..
When you add zesty, power-packed headlines to anything your write or use to promote yourself and your business, you will attract your target potential buyers who evolve into buyers.
Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people’s lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Author of 10 eBooks including “Write your eBook Fast,” “How to Market your Business on the Internet,” and “Create your Web Site With Marketing Pizzazz,” she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, The Book Coach Says…and Business Tip of the Month at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 145 free articles. Email her at Judy@bookcoaching.com.
