How To Write Great Headlines That Pre-Sell Your Prospects
Do you want to know the top secret to effectively selling things online?
It’s uncovering the RIGHT WORDS for the job.
Think about this: Most visitors take 8 seconds or less to decide whether to stick around or move on to the next site. You have just 8 seconds to convince them that your site is where they will get what they are looking for.
It doesn’t matter how incredible your product is or how amazing your website is… if your words don’t grab your visitors attention, they’re going to leave.
Make note of this point: of all the words on your site, the most important are the ones in your HEADLINE.
Your headline is the first thing anyone sees on your website. You want your headline to jump off the page, capture their attention – ignite their curiosity – and pull them deeper into your site. And it has to do it in under 8 seconds!
Make YOUR headlines work for you by using the following formula:
MAKE YOUR HEADLINE RELATE TO THE PROBLEM THAT BROUGHT THEM TO YOUR WEBSITE IN THE FIRST PLACE…
When visitors come to your site, are looking for information to solve a problem.
They may be looking to learn about training their dog. Maybe they’re searching for information about how to cure diabetes. Or, maybe they want to start their own online business.
Whatever their problem is, you want to relate to it in your headline. You need to demonstrate that YOU know what their problem is all about. When you show a clear understanding of their problem – they will be far more willing to stay on your website.
PRESENT A SOLUTION TO THEIR PROBLEM…
Once you’ve described a problem, you now want to solve it. You should do this in a way that creates a powerful image in your visitors mind.
Describe how your dog training course will have their dog obeying every command in 5 easy lessons.
Tell your visitors they’re about to discover the latest research and cure to diabetes.
Promise to show them how to start their own online business for under $100.
You want them to see the end result and stir their emotions that this just might be the solution to their problems.
STATE THE BENEFIT THEY WILL GET FROM WHAT YOU HAVE TO OFFER…
There is a story about a man who went to the hardware store for a drill. He didn’t go there because he wanted a drill. He went because he wanted a hole.
People want to know what your product or service does.
Let them know they’ll get the inside scoop on dog training – because you have successfully trained over 300 dogs.
Describe the relief they will experience when they get their blood sugar under control without medications.
Help them imagine what life will be like when their online business goes ballistic and they can stay at home with their family.
You need to answer the question that’s on your visitors mind… “What’s in it for ME?”
SPEAK TO THEM AS IF THEY WERE A CLOSE FRIEND SITTING ACROSS THE KITCHEN TABLE FROM YOU…
Write your headlines as if you were talking to your closest friend. If your customers use certain dialog, make sure you talk to them in the same language.
For example, if your customer is a professional, talk to them as a professional. If they are a ditch digger, talk to them as a ditch digger.
You need to know your market and speak their language.
Your goal is to… Get them to picture how great their lives will be after they’ve used your product or service.
But, they won’t listen to you if you talk in a different language. They won’t believe that you really understand their problem if you do.
MAKE YOUR HEADLINES “JUMP OFF THE PAGE”
It’s all about how you format your headline.
- Try to limit yourself to just one important idea per line
- Also, use formatting tricks such as italics, bolding, and ALL CAPS
- Use shadowing so that your headline pops off the page
- Use a color to have it stand out from the rest of the page
You want your visitors to capture the meaning of your headline at a single glance.
Your headline can have a huge impact on your sales, so it’s important to spend the time creating several headlines so the you can uncover the right combination of words to get the impact that you want.
We spend HOURS on our headlines, and usually create 50 headlines before we select the one we want to use.
We suggest that you choose at least three headlines and test them. Run each headline until you feel that you have a good sampling of the market and then test it against another headline and compare the results.
It is no different than running an Adwords campaign. You always want to be testing to find the best headline for your sales copy.
You may have to tweak them several times before you hit the bulls-eye. But, keep testing because it is definitely worth the effort. It can make as much difference as a 500% increase in sales.
While the main purpose of your headline is to grab your visitors attention and get them to stick around to learn more, the secondary purpose is to get them to read your Sub-headlines.
Your headline and sub-headline should act together to draw a visitor into your salescopy. Website visitors will skim your salescopy before they decide if they want to read further. We recommend to our clients that their headline and sub-headlines provide a 30,000 foot view of your program and they are weaved together in such a way as to communicate your entire story in “Cliff Notes”.
Your headline and sub-headlines should get your message across loud and clear. You need to write headlines that force your visitors to pay attention.
In todays market, where video is replacing the sales page, your headline may be the only sales copy that your website visitor sees. So make it great!
I recommend that if you want to write great headlines that you do two things:
First, create a swipe folder of headlines that you find appealing. One of the best resources for finding great headlines is Magazines. I like Readers Digest in particular.
Authors Bio
For the past 11 years, Randy’s principle business enterprise has been in the top 5 listings on Google for his industry. His list of clients includes the Department of Defense, Department of State, Municipalities, Fortune 500 Companies, College and Universities, and several hundred small businesses.
Today, Randy is using his acquired knowledge to help businesses learn how to grow through the savvy use of internet marketing techniques. His central focus is to take complex online marketing strategies and tactics and break them down into easy to follow step-by-step processes.
Randy has written and published articles on internet marketing strategies to show businesses how to make money online. You can access these resources and learn how you can make more money online at www.InternetMonetizationUniversity.com .
Finally Revealed! Instant Strategy Anyone Can Use To Increase Sales From 1/2% to 12%… Add Video To Your Sales Process Using This Proven Tactic
There are many reasons why you want to use video in your internet marketing business, but one statistic stands out from all the rest.
Typically, only ½% to 2% of visitors to your website will purchase your product if your website is text only. If you ad sales-orientated videos to your site, of the people viewing them over half will take some sort of action, and 12% will actually purchase the product offered.
Simply put, if you’re not using video in your online marketing efforts, you’re leaving money on the table.
When you use video, you need to determine how you are going to use the video you produce….
- Will the video be used to pre-sell your product
- Will it be used to actually sell your product
- Will your video be used to demonstrate a feature of your product
- Will it be the information product itself.
Once you define how you want to use the video, the next step is to crystallize the message that you want to convey to your audience. We like to teach “The Seven Slide Solution” by Paul Kelly. A study from Princeton University on cognitive science reported that the average person can hold and process only seven pieces of information in short memory at one time.
Paul Kelly writes that: “people think in ideas, not in facts and that the structure by which people communicate ideas with one another is with stories.” When you build your video around a story, your audience will understand your ideas and can be persuaded to consider changing their status quo.
Stories are the most powerful communication device anyone can use to sell a product or idea.
To tell a great story, you need to storyboard the sequence of how you want to lay out your video. A storyboard conveys a visual line of reasoning and shows how each idea relates to the other ideas. It allows you to determine what should be included or excluded from the presentation.
What makes this process easy is that every good story has the same structure. As long as you follow that structure, you are guaranteed to make a great video.
- You start with a premise – the premise is the message. It is the theme or central idea that the story is built around. A good story can only have one premise otherwise the story becomes unwieldy and meaningless.
- Next you have the core conflict – this is the “hook” that holds your audience’s attention. People love conflict, especially when it can be observed from afar. Conflict holds our attention because people are naturally curious and want to see what happens when two forces or ideas are in opposition to one another.
- Next, you examine the conflict from multiple viewpoints and build tension – when you look at the consequences of the conflict you build tension. Tension takes your audience on a journey and builds a desire to see what happens next.
- When the tension is at its peak, you offer a choice – a fork in the road. This is the moment of truth when a decision must be made and the audience waits to see it it’s the right one.
- This leads to the resolution of the core conflict and does a number of things… it shows the result of the choices that were made and leaves the audience feeling satisfied that they know the outcome.
Building the scenes of your presentation…
One of the advantages to creating videos using the storyboard method is that you can create chunks of material that can be inserted into the video using editing software. When you build your video you will focus on 7 scenes (mini-videos within the storyline). There is a specific role for each scene.
- Scene 1 – engagement
- Scene 2 – backstory
- Scene 3 – build tension
- Scene 4 – bring it to a boil
- Scene 5 – offer choices
- Scene 6 – provide resolution
- Scene 7 – set up the “sequel”
The role of scene 1 is to capture the audience’s attention. It is similar to reading the jacket cover summary of a book in the bookstore. It’s when you decide to buy it or put it back on the shelf. With your video, it’s when you decide to continue watching the video.
The role of scene 2 is to provide the backstory. It describes how you came to this point or how the main character came to this point. It is the part of the video where you want your audience to say: I can relate to that.
Scene 3 is where you create tension by exploring the consequences and repercussions of taking or not taking action to address the conflict.
Scene 4 is used to bring the tension to a boiling point. It is the point in the video where you want to bring your audience to where they want relief. They want the main character of the story to make a decision so that they can see how the story turns out.
Scene 5 is used to relieve the tension which can only be done when someone makes a decision. It’s the turning point of the story and the point where a choice is made.
Scene 6 is when the core conflict is resolved and you learn what how the main characters life has changed to date.
Finally, scene 7 sets up the sequel. It sets the stage for the audience to go deeper and learn more.
One more structure needs to be discussed before you begin creating your scene layout. It is how to structure each scene for use in your storyline.
You should design the scene according to the following structure:
- Plant a question
- Evoke an emotion
- Answer the question
- Move the story forward
Authors Bio
For the past 11 years, Randy’s principle business enterprise has been in the top 5 listings on Google for his industry. His list of clients includes the Department of Defense, Department of State, Municipalities, Fortune 500 Companies, College and Universities, and several hundred small businesses.
Today, Randy is using his acquired knowledge to help businesses learn how to grow through the savvy use of internet marketing techniques. His central focus is to take complex online marketing strategies and tactics and break them down into easy to follow step-by-step processes.
Randy has written and published articles on internet marketing strategies to show businesses how to make money online. You can access these resources and learn how you can make more money online at www.InternetMonetizationUniversity.com .
Astounding New Book Reveals How To Increase Your Sales and Make Greater Profits By Knowing the Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
Today’s article is about “The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions”. The information I am about to share with you was collected from the New York Times Bestseller, “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely. In his book, Ariely proves scientifically that people don’t behave in a rational way when it comes to their buying decisions, but rather in a highly predictable, irrational manner. Moreover, if you know what influences a prospects buying decision, it can have a significant impact on your internet marketing business.
Key Point: All of your customers base their buying decisions on a scientific principle called “Relativity.” As Ariely points out in his book; “We don’t have an internal value meter that tells us how much things are worth. Rather, we focus on the relative advantage of one thing over another, and estimate the value accordingly.”
In other words, we base our decisions to purchase by comparing the product to our other choices. He illustrates this point by showing how a restaurant can increase their sales of sizzler steak. He points out that given three choices, most people will choose the middle choice. So let’s say that you want to sell an 8oz sizzler over 8oz of ground sirloin, you wouldn’t give a customer just two choices: an 8oz ground sirloin for $5.99 and 8oz sizzler for $9.99. Given just two choices, a lot of people would select the 8oz ground sirloin because it appears to be a better value relative to the two choices.
He points out that you should put in a “decoy”, a third choice that will make the 8oz sizzler more attractive. Knowledgeable restaurant owners do this all the time. They add a 6oz filet mignon to the menu for $22 as the “decoy”. They know two things:
1. They are’t going to sell much filet mignon but they will sell more 8oz sizzlers because now the sizzler looks more attractive relative to the other steaks on the menu. After all, you are getting a deal, an 8oz steak for $9.99 compared to a 6oz steak for $22.
2. They also know that given three choices, most people will select the middle choice.
Ariely points out: “we not only tend to compare things with one another, but also tend to focus on comparing things that are easily comparable – and avoid comparing things that cannot be compared easily.”
How do you apply this principle to your internet marketing efforts?
First, you should never offer just one choice. You should always offer three choices when you design your offer. For example, you might offer a downloadable ebook for $27, an ebook plus audio for $97, and finally an ebook plus audio and video for $197.
Second, you should always show the value of your free bonuses as part of your offer. In other words, show that your bonuses alone are worth over $3,000 but that you get them included for free as part of your $197 offer.
Let’s illustrate this point by the offer we put together for Raw Food Chef Beth Wilke. Beth makes incredible raw food recipes that are not the usual free recipes that you can find throughout the Internet. She takes painstaking hours to blend just the right ingredients to bring out the subtle flavors of her raw dishes. She was marketing an incredible recipe book and a recipe club membership that just wasn’t selling the way she wanted. She is using three wonderful recipes as her name capture system.
We restructured her offer and once a raw foodist signed up for the three free recipes, they are presented with the following options on the “free recipe download page”.
If you were interested in raw diet recipes, which offer would you choose?
Note: There are times where the offer you want someone to choose shouldn’t be the middle choice. In this case, it was better to show it as the last choice.
If you are interested in getting three delicious raw food recipes, you can do so by going to www.sensationalrawrecipes.com . You can learn more about the raw food diet and sensational raw food chef, Beth Wilke at www.sensationalrawfooddiet.com .
Authors Bio
For the past 11 years, Randy’s principle business enterprise has been in the top 5 listings on Google for his industry. His list of clients includes the Department of Defense, Department of State, Municipalities, Fortune 500 Companies, College and Universities, and several hundred small businesses.
Today, Randy is using his acquired knowledge to help businesses learn how to grow through the savvy use of internet marketing techniques. His central focus is to take complex online marketing strategies and tactics and break them down into easy to follow step-by-step processes.
Randy has written and published articles on internet marketing strategies to show businesses how to make money online. You can access these resources and learn how you can make more money online at www.InternetMonetizationUniversity.com .
