You’ve got seconds to grab your reader’s attention. Fail, and you’ll lose them and their money forever.
I want you to succeed, and headline creation is one of the things you need to learn to make money online.
So, after repeated requests, I’m going to break it down for you step by step as together we create a headline that grabs the reader and demands they read more.
To do this, I’m going to present you with a fictitious product. It’s called “Copywriter’s Companion”, and it will teach people how to write better copy.
Now, the first step in beginning to write a headline is know your product’s biggest benefit. “Copywriter’s Companion” teaches a person how to write sales letters that get huge responses. So, that would be our biggest advantage.
But I’m sure there’s more to this manual and your product then just one simple benefit. And our next job is to create a list of every benefit we can come up with. Start writing and just run on, even if some don’t make that much sense or are general. We can discard as we move on.
Here’s how my list turned out:
Teaches how to write to sell Saves time Can learn to make money as a copywriter Will be able to sell more and make more money I offer the book for less than hiring a copywriter Never turn out bad sales letters again
Now you’ll notice in my list that it is mainly made up of promises, and that’s no mistake. But more on that in a moment.
So, you have a list of benefits. Some pretty weak, some that really grab at you.
You now need to spend a little time developing some of your weak benefits. If you can’t develop them into something stronger than trash them. A headline is too short for words and benefits that don’t pull their weight.
Next, we begin to construct out headline into a sentence or two that will give the reader the biggest benefits.
Basically, we’re just stringing words together at this point. We want to get a rough form of our headline together that gives benefits. Worry about nothing else at this point.
Here’s the headline I came up with:
“Copywriter’s Companion is a manual of time saving tips that show how copywriters do it and get paid a lot of money”.
I know, pretty horrible. I don’t usually write that poor of a headline. But I did it so I can teach you how headline creation works.
Anyway, we have the rough headline. Not very exciting. But still, I see a ton of headlines of this type that dot the Internet landscape. And we both know a headline like that isn’t going to cut it. While the “Copywriter’s Companion” is a fine fictitious product, the headline I just wrote sheds no light on its true worth.
So, how do we make it sparkle?
First, we cut out the brand name “Copywriter’s Companion.” That’s a horrible waste of words and no one cares what it’s called.
Now the headline looks like this:
“A manual of time saving tips that show how copywriters do it and get paid a lot of money”.
Yes, I know. It’s still very drab.
So, I would rework it a little to shorten it up and make it clearer. I might write something like this:
“Write Sales Letters Fast And Make Thousands Each Project With My New Manual.”
Now it’s starting to take a little better shape.
Next I would make a few changes to make the headline a little more specific. Instead of just plain old sales letters, I would write, “open your wallet sales letters”!
Then I would turn my headline into a promise. Very important step. The reader has to be assured that if they invest the time reading your sales letter that they’ll get a reward.
So, I would place a guarantee in the headline. It works to instantly put them at ease that everything I’m about to tell them is true.
Second, I would put the word you in the headline. It speaks right to the reader. And it points out that I’m giving the promise to them directly.
With that, here’s my finished headline:
“You Can Write Get Your Wallet Out Sales Letters Fast, And Get Paid Hundreds of Thousands To Do It, With My Guaranteed, Step-By-Step System”!
I think it works!
Let me briefly sum up what the above headline does. You can use this summary for every headline you write from now on.
First, it addresses the reader directly.
Second, it makes a promise. The reader knows they’ll be able to write hard-hitting sales letters and make hundred of thousands.
And they now believe the headline and it benefits because I’m guaranteeing it.
And that’s my three-step plan for killer headlines. Address the reader, make a promise, and make them believe it. If you do, you’ll have awesome headlines that lead your customer into the rest of your sales letter. From there it’s up to you. But it’s been said before that you can’t write a bad sales letter if you have a good headline.
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