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Headlines That Pull, Persuade And Propel!
But lately, I’m seeing more and more headlines that are limp, bloated or dead wrong.
A headline is meant to do two vital things.
No more and no less. First, it needs to grab your reader’s attention. That’s the primary and most important job of the headline. It’s not meant to summarize an offer or be a paragraph in and of itself. It’s not meant to make a sale, either. You know what I’m talking about, right? Headlines like these make me twitch…
Ugh.
Double ugh.
People not only won’t read it all (much less your entire salesletter), but it also immediately sends off alarm bells way too early that your copy is a blatant salesletter.
In today’s fax-microwave-email world, people want everything fast. Their attention span is smaller than an subatomic particle. Online, they surf the web in a click-happy state, ready to open and close browser windows at the blink of an eye. Literally.
For example, they tend to scan web pages quickly, even many of them simultaneously. Your site is but a blur to them. So, your headline must be both prominent and effective enough to stop them.
And the headline’s second job is, it needs pull the reader into the copy and compel her into reading further. To do that, it must create curiosity. It must be interesting enough to pull the reader in. It must be pithy enough (not necessarily short but straightforward enough) to do its job in the least amount of words possible.
And finally, it must cater to a specific emotion or a relevant condition that speaks to the target market at a personal level, and does so immediately and with as little thinking as possible — one to which the reader can easily and instantly associate.
Before I give you some examples, note that most of these headlines were enormously successful for my clients, not because they were tested and tweaked (and most of them were), but because they were actually stolen from other, equally successful ads or salesletters. All “great” copywriters do this. They steal. They recycle. They copy. They model. They swipe.
But above all, they adapt.
Of course, they must not be copied verbatim. (There’s a big difference between plagiarism and modelling.) But they can be easily adapted to fit the market, the offer and the message. I have a large swipe file that contains copies of ads, websites, direct mail pieces and salesletters I come across. I then turn them into templates or “fill-in-the-blanks” formulas.
Here’s a list of “triggers,” coupled with actual examples I used in the past:
Study and model successful copywriting as much as you can. Dan Kennedy, my mentor and a hugely successful copywriter, teaches his students this exercise: buy tabloids, such as The National Enquirer, on a regular basis. Of course, the publication may be questionable for some, and it may not necessarily fit with your style or cater to your market.
But here’s the reason why.
Ad space in tabloids is excruciatingly expensive. If an ad is repeated in more than two issues, preferably copy-dense ads and full-page advertorials, common sense tells you that the ad is profitable. Rip out the ad and put it into your swipe file. (If you don’t have one, a shortcut is to copy someone else’s, or swipe from proven list of successful headlines. But also, don’t discount supermarket magazines, like Cosmo, Vanity Fair, Men’s Health and the like.)
Then, copy the headlines into a document. They can be easily converted into “fill-in-the-blanks” formulas. And believe me, they work well with almost all markets. I’ve tried these types of headlines on both low-end and high-end clients, from simple $10 products to six-figure investment opportunities. And they worked quite effectively in both situations.
The cosmetics of a headline is equally important if not more so. The type must be bold, large and prominently placed, even written in a different font or typestyle. It must “scream” at your readers and grab them by the eyeballs. Remember, the first job is to catch their attention. Then (and only then), it’s to get them to start reading your letter.
Specificity is also quite important. The more specific you are with your headline, the better the response will be. Use odd, non-rounded numbers because they are more believable and pull more than even, rounded numbers. (In its commercials, Ivory Soap used to say it’s “99.44% pure.” Of course, that number is more believable than “100%.”)
Whenever possible, be quantifiable, measurable and time-bound. For example, you’re promoting some “how-to” marketing program. Don’t say, “increase your income” or “make money fast.” Words like “income” and “fast” are vague. Be specific. Say, “How six simple sales strategies helped me stumble onto an unexpected $5,431.96 windfall — in less than 27 hours!”
The bigger the numbers are, the greater the impact is. If you say “five times more,” replace it with “500%” (or better yet, “517%” or “483%”). Don’t say “one year,” say “364 days.” The brain thinks in pictures, not numbers or words. Both terms may mean the same thing, but one is perceived as bigger.
Using some of the triggers mentioned at the beginning, here are some examples of being specific with your headlines:
My favorite headline formula is the “gapper,” which is based on the pain-pleasure principle. In sales, it’s referred to as “gap analysis.” (Dan Kennedy calls it “Problem-Agitate-Solve.” That is, you start by presenting a problem, you agitate your audience by making the problem “bigger,” more significant and more urgent, and then you present your solution in the offer.)
With the “gapper,” there’s a gap between a prospect’s problem and its solution (or a gap between where one happens to be at the moment and where that person wants to be in the future). But many prospects either do not know there is in fact a gap or, because it is one, naturally have a tendency to ignore it.
It’s simply human nature.
So, a headline that communicates the presence of such a gap — and particularly one that widens it (which can also be accomplished through other components, such as a surheadline, subheadline, “lift” copy, sidenotes or opening statements) — will likely appeal to those who can immediately relate to it (i.e., people within that specific site’s target market).
By opening the gap or widening it helps to reinforce a sense of urgency in the mind. After the headline, visitors will want to know how, by reading further, they can close that gap. And the wider the gap is, the greater the desire to close it will be (and the more valuable the gap-closing solution, which is your offer, will be as well).
Why? Because it appeals to stronger motives.
Abraham Maslow, the famous psychologist who developed the hierarchy of human motives, stated that the foundation of all human needs is our need to survive. Once satisfied, the next one is our need for safety. Our need to be with other people is next, followed by our need to feel appreciated. Finally, our need to be challenged is at the top.
The “pain-pleasure principle” states that people either fear pain (and try to avoid it) or crave pleasure (and try to gain it). When given a choice between the two, however, pain is a superior motive. Our need to survive and feel safe, which are at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid, rule over all other needs, which are social, esteem and self-improvment needs.
So, a headline that instantly communicates a problem (i.e., a painful situation or a potentially painful one that may arise without the benefits of your offering) will have more impact. People who associate with the message will feel compelled to read more, which also helps to qualify your readers — it isolates the “serious” from the “curious.”
You heard it before: there’s a difference between “needs” and “wants.” When I work with plastic surgeons, I often tell them to use as a headline, “Suffering from wrinkles?” That way, it pulls only qualified prospects into the ad because it appeals not only to people with wrinkles but also to those who suffer from wrinkles (i.e., they want to do something about them, since not everyone who has wrinkles are bothere by them).
A web salesletter I recently wrote for Michael Murray talks about the fact that he is a college student stricken with cerebral palsy who’s “made it” online. The copy and most of the headers use some of the triggers I mentioned earlier.
Below is a brief list. Can you identify them?
Michael is a 19-year old with cerebral palsy. (I was moved by his story.) With his headline specifically, I used strategies to increase the attention factor. My biggest concern was the fact that people have become desensitized with opportunities of this nature. So, while I catered to people’s emotions, I used Michael’s disability as a psychological “hook.”
Ultimately, ask yourself: “Does my headline effectively stop people from scanning my web page, capture their attention and trigger their emotions in order to pull them into the copy?” More importantly, ask yourself, “Does my opening statement beg for attention, arouse curiosity and genuinely cater to the motives and emotions of my market?”
If not, change your headline and try different ones. Sure, the change may be small and insignificant. But often, the smallest changes can create the most dramatic changes in your results.
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