60% of Your Copy is Dying Here — Literally Right Here

Seriously, right there…in the headline. Your headlines are terrible, offering the reader no incentive to invest their precious time in your copy.

Can you lose a sale in the two seconds it takes to read a headline?

Absolutely!

Sales trainers know that the first seven seconds of contact can make or break a sale. The best salesman I ever worked with would pull up into the client’s driveway, strut up to the door, beaming ear-to-ear with a smile, waving to the homeowners and neighbors, and polished it off by expertly executing the greeting. They didn’t stand a chance.

In the copy business, your headline is the de facto first impression. Its job is to attract your reader’s attention and promise them some benefit for continuing to read your copy. Slap together a boring, irrelevant, or lazy headline, and you’ve just thrown away your investment.

Know Your Audience

Before you put the first words of the headline on paper, it’s critical to know whom you’re writing the information for and dive into that person’s head. Start with basic questions, like…

·        Who’s your target?

·        What do they care about?

·        Why should they buy from me?

·        Why wouldn’t they?

·        How can I craft this information into a dynamic, must-read headline?

Once you have your masterpiece, ask…

·        Does this headline grab attention?

·        Does it promise an adequate reward for the reader’s time investment?

·        What would my target audience like about it?

·        Is there anything they wouldn’t like, that would keep them from reading?

After the fact…

·        Did it work?

·        If so, run it again.

·        If not, what should I do differently next time?

The Law of Attraction in Action

In Ca$hvertising, Drew Eric Whitman claims that “60 percent of all people who read ads typically read headlines and no more.” Headlines that persuade the reader to continue on to the body of the copy tend to offer news, provide helpful information, or promise rewards for reading the ad. One thing these approaches have in common is that they are selling the reader on the benefit of reading the copy. It all starts here. The headline must create a positive first impression or the odds of the advertisement having a high ROI plummet.

Let’s think about it from a different angle. What drew you to your significant other? If you’re like me, attraction was the starting point. From there, you found common interests, developed a respect for their intelligence, fell in love with their personality. The deeper, more profound levels of the relationship were dependent upon that first spark. Thankfully, my wife was able to look beyond the cocky exploits of a senior who, arriving at an intramural ultimate frisbee game straight after class, insisted on scoring the game-winning point with his backpack on. Negative first impressions take time to overcome. I had time to recover, your company doesn’t.

Do These Same Principles Apply to Copy?

Of course! Headlines that spark the attention of the reader, draw them in with some attractive information, and the promise of unknown benefits are the ones that give your copy a chance to work its magic. In fact, the sole purpose of the headline is to attract the attention of the reader so that he feels a sense of loss if he doesn’t open the email. The best copy in the world can’t sell if it’s not seen.

Advertising legend David Ogilvy warns that “unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.” There are a number of formulas for writing an effective headline, but we’ll save that discussion for another day. In this article, we’re going to look at the principles that precede the headline, the psychological triggers that, when combined with a great formula, make for a successful headline.

Here are some tips on how to attract your target audience’s attention and draw them to the main body of your copy.

Speak to Your Target Audience

This is a must every time you write a headline or produce an ad. When targeting a very specific group, use words in the headlines that will catch their eyes, such as asthma, replacement windows, cyclists, or Christians. I mentioned earlier that you have seven seconds to make a positive first impression and significantly boost the odds of a sale. In copy, that first impression may range from two seconds for an emails headline to seven seconds for a commercial or white paper.

Once you’ve narrowed down your target audience, it’s your headline’s job to hook them. Be specific. The likelihood of people outside of your target audience making a purchase is slim, so limiting your scope might narrow overall readership, but it will increase reader rates among purchase ready customers. Good headlines keep their eyes on the prize.

Sell the Benefits

This is copywriting and sales 101, but it’s one of the most common mistakes you’ll find in the copywriting industry. Just look at your emails. How many did you delete without even glancing at the body of the copy?

I have this little exercise I like to do where I open my personal email, read the headlines, and make an immediate decision to either read or delete the email. If I went on to read the email, the headline probably hooked me. I’ll go back and study its construction to see why they got me to open the message. If I sent it to the trash bin, I ask myself “why”? Since I only read the headline, what about it just didn’t cut it? More often than not, they failed to sell the benefits of the email. If your content or offer is worth the read, the headline has to match the strength of the body, otherwise, your message will go unnoticed.

Use Specifics, Not Generalities

Once you identify the target audience of your advertisement, the key is to use attention-grabbing words or phrases in the headline to demand their attention. “Huge Home Improvement Sale” doesn’t cut it. Neither does “Get up to 40% Off Your Purchase.” Neither headline has really narrowed the target and tailored their language to drive open rates. If the point of emphasis for your home improvement sale is outdoor kitchens, call the attention of that prospective client base. Let them know that’s where the savings are. Show them the money!

Include Your Brand Name in the Headline

This is a great approach if you are reaching out to new, prospective clients. Mentioning the brand name in the headline informs the reader what you’re selling. Some won’t care, but remember that we’re going after a specific target audience. We’re trying to catch the attention of those people and persuade them to open the email. If you’re selling roofing to an area recently impacted by hail, get that brand name in front of their eyes and on their minds. They have to make a repair, so it’s up to you to flag your audience before they go elsewhere.

Give Them the Latest Product News

People love breaking news. Smartphones have spurred the addiction to the latest updates, sending you notifications for emails, Facebook activity, world and national news, and sports results. Maybe you got a notification about stories like obese bumblebees having difficulty mating or a moose that stomped a man's foot in Alaska after he kicked her. Maybe you jumped at that Ramen scented bath powder.

We’re inundated with news and we like it. After all, this is the information age. If your readers will open and read articles as dumb as Ramen scented baths, your news about a product that will improve their quality of life will be too tantalizing to delete.

Quotes Sell

David Ogilvy says that using quotes increases recall by an average of 28%. Why? Because they connect your reader to a third party. A customer with a great experience and praise for the product or service they purchased is essentially a referral. Placing that quote in the headline connects your viewer with a legitimate customer who can speak from experience. At one of my previous jobs, we had our customers make a few calls from our reference list. The results were outstanding! Building an advertisement around a customer’s direct experience and giving a snapshot in the headline will give you a huge boost in open rates.

Flash Some Numbers

Did I get you with the percentage in the headline? Maybe you fall into that target audience that’s only getting a 40% open rate on emails and you’re fed up with it. Maybe you wish 40% of your emails were opened. Either way, if the 60% stat caught your eye, I grabbed your attention with a real and significant stat that directly relates to your business’ operations. Same goes for your customers. They enjoy statistics that reflect and quantify their experiences. Stats provide structure and insight.

If Advertising Locally, Include the City Name

The key here is to acknowledge the fact that people care most about what’s happening where they live. It pertains to them. Listing the city name gives the headline a local touch that distances your company from national, non-local brands. By addressing the target population as a neighbor, you’ve already started to earn their trust and break down potential barriers.

Let me caution you…even if your headline is ridiculously effective (your emails are getting opened and driving customers to your website to look at your content), if the content of the email or on the website blows, so will your reputation with the customer and search engines. The customers will treat your emails as spam and the bounce rate on your website (readers who are there for about five seconds then click away) will spike. The quicker your audience bounces from your content, the more alerts search engines like Google receive that say your website is garbage, the more they’ll bury it in the search results. Readers want the whole package. If either the headline or the content is awful, you’ve wasted your time and money, as well as potential clients.

Attraction is key to gaining readers and converting them into customers. Your headline starts the engagement, creating that spellbinding first impression. It’s the good-looking charmer that captures attention and directs the reader to the deeper-level connection.

Attract the interest of the reader, and you’ve got a chance to close them in the body of the copy.

Bonus Tips!

1) Plain text emails greatly outperform HTML

2) HTML formatting can draw attention away from the headline. It’s a distraction.

3) Attraction creates a sense of curiosity. Capture that “must-read” sensation.

Open and honest feedback is greatly appreciated, as is your contribution to furthering this discussion. Comment below to join the conversation.