…of people are likely to take some form of action.

The old and still commonly used sales model for selling anything embraces the following formula:

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

So, this drop to 20% is obviously happening at the interest and desire stage.

But the reason marketers are finding it so hard to stimulate interest and create desire is because they are getting the attention part wrong.

Let’s be honest, getting someone’s attention isn’t that difficult.

A person’s attention could easily be interrupted by using:

• a picture of a naked woman,
• a controversial statement
• BIG Letters,
• ….and many other techniques

…but the key for you to gather more customers is to get your prospective customer’s attention in a way that makes them want to read more of your message.

Make sense?

I couldn’t believe it the other day when I was doing some research into stock market investment courses and someone was selling an investment course using an ad entitled Barnyard Beauties – with some scantily-cladded young ladies and horses with cheesy grins.

Really!

I digress..

So, let’s say you are selling online courses as an affiliate.

What is it that’s is going to make your ads, emails, video sales letters or blog posts stand out over other similar ads in the marketplace.

Good marketing copy but more importantly…

A well-crafted Headline!

A number of you reading this blog might be totally new to developing an online income outside of your current 9-5 and have never been exposed to concepts in sales and marketing, so let me insult your intelligence for a second.

I’m sure you’ve read magazines before and seen headlines – right?

Well, magazine/newspaper editors use headlines for one reason and one reason alone.

To get the reader to read the rest of the article.

That’s it.

So, it doesn’t matter if you are selling your products using Facebook ads, social media posts, emails, newspaper/magazine ads your goal is going to be to make the reader want to consume your information – the details about your product or service.

So…

By writing headlines that motivate the person to read every word of text that you write, as long as you can describe the benefits of the product well, you’ll increase the probability that your reader will take the necessary action that you want them to take.

Try and think of your headline as a door that leads to the benefits that your prospective customer is going to experience.

So, let me give you some examples and formats of headlines that you can use to apply to your products.

People love ‘how to’ tips.

When someone is experiencing some form of ‘pain or frustration’, time is of the essence.

People who have reached a certain level of frustration will often seek out the fastest way to get an issue resolved.

Why resolve the issue using trial and error when someone can give them an answer that can solve their problem immediately.

It is commonly held in the marketing community that the  ‘how to’ headline is the easiest one for a new marketer/business owner to create, put out in the marketplace and generate interest.

So…

Let’s look at the anatomy of a great ‘how to’ headlines.

Have you ever come across this one before:

How To Win Friends And Influence People

Now…

If you read this carefully it has a 2-fold benefit:

• Win Friends and then
• Influence people

The format:

How to [benefit 1] And [benefit 2]

Practical example:

How to Lose Weight And Keep It Off

Writing these headlines is quite simple.

It simply involves defining two benefits that your customer is going to get as a result of using your products and stating these benefits after your how to statement.

That was easy, wasn’t it?

Now that we have covered the ‘How to’ headline format let’s look at other headline formats that you can use to attract new customers.

This is a very clever way of creating headlines because it has a number of clever psychological factors at play.

First, it makes the benefit to the reader obvious.

It applies a principle of psychological persuasion known as social proof.

Human beings have a need to belong. That’s why we like people who are like us in some way, shape or form.

When we see other people taking a certain action, it gives us confidence that taking the same action would also be a sensible thing to do.

By stating ‘as well’ at the end of the headline, there is an assumption that other people have also demonstrated that they would like to achieve the same result and this puts the reader in a space where he/she feels like they part of a unique group.

This is deep – if you can get it.

If you want to find out more about the nature of social proof I would suggest checking out Robert Chaldinis book – Persuasion.

Here’s a practical example that you can model:

Would you like to have younger looking skin as well?

What I’ve done here is to include two benefits to make the headline more enticing.

See how easy this is?

Let’s move on to another type of headline that you should think about using.

This is one of my favourite headlines because it involves a number of cool principles.

It makes the assumption that if the person doesn’t know what you are talking about – they should do.

It is an effective way of pulling an emotional trigger that stimulates curiosity in the minds of your prospects.

Example:

“What everyone ought to know about having younger looking skin”

And finally the last type of headline that we will talk about together is…

One of the biggest reasons that consumers don’t take action is because they often don’t know how to.

You would be amazed at the fact that people are often looking to be led by a fascinating  authority figure.

People like to be told what to do, if it’s done right.

As far as communication goes, people generally respond to one of two types of instructions:

• Overt
• Covert

I’ll get into covert commands and conversational hypnosis in another post but overt commands, e.g ‘Do this now’ that are related to a benefit, are an effective way of planting the seed of the benefit being realized if action is taken.

Headline example:

“Lose Weight Now, Keep It Off And Leave Your Friends Foaming At The Mouth In a Jealous Rage”

In this example, the overt commands are ‘Lose weight’, and ‘Keep It Off’.

It sounds very obvious but telling your prospects exactly what they should do is a habit you should embrace because it will improve the responsiveness of your prospective customers.

That’s it!

You have just learned how to write better headlines, to capture you reader’s attention and motivate them to read the rest of your sales message.

Don’t forget…

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Till next time.