Your Headlines Are Key To Your Success Or Failure. Do You Know What To Write?
Most professional copywriters would say that headlines account
for 80% percent of more of the effectiveness of an ad or sales
letter.
After all, it's the headline that gets your reader to stop and
read further into your sales copy. If the headline fails, then
the entire ad or sale copy fails.
So with headline creation being of such importance, are you
giving your headlines the time and effort they are worth?
Writing good headlines is a skill that can be learned and
mastered if you are willing to put the time into studying good
proven moneymaking headlines.
One way of learning how to write killer headlines is to study the
masters. Read the works of the past greats, such as Claude
Hopkins, Robert Collier, John Caples, David Ogilvy, and Eugene
Schwartz, among others. There works are available in libraries,
used book stores, and in some cases there works have been
reprinted and are still available on the market.
A second method is to study the headlines in the super market
tabloids and magazines that you find near the check out counters.
Tabloids such as 'The Globe', 'The Star', and 'The National
Enquirer' or magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Readers
Digest, and Vanity Fair.
These publications are placed near the cash registers for a
reason. While you are standing in line waiting to check out, you
scan their headlines and many people become interested and
purchase these publications on impulse. And the sell millions!
They have some of the highest circulations of any publications in
the country.
So, what gets them to sell so well? Certainly not the title of
the publication! It's the headlines. They jump out at you. They
get you to stop and look. They arouse your curiosity. Even if you
don't buy, I'll bet on more than one occasion you've picked up
the publication and scanned it for an article mentioned on the
cover. I know I have.
The headline writers for these publications are some of the
highest paid writers in the country and the
During CPR, Locking Lips May Not Be Necessary
Many people are uncomfortable with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, so they don't attempt CPR at all. Two big studies show that a streamlined, hands-only CPR method could be just as good. Experts hope the findings will get more bystanders to try CPR -- and, in the end, save more lives.
Canadian Team Finds Abandoned 19th Century Ship
The HMS Investigator, left in the ice in 1853, was found in shallow water along the northern coast of Banks Island in Canada's western Arctic. The ship had been sent out in search of the doomed expedition of Sir John Franklin to chart the Northwest Passage.
circulation numbers
reflect it.
Ok, so these publications have great attention grabbing,
curiosity arousing headlines. How does that help you?
As you read and study these headlines, see if you can see a
pattern that you can use. Many of these headlines can be used to
develop killer headline templates where just by modifying or
substituting a word or two can also work wonders for your own
advertising and promotion campaigns.
Yet another technique is to look through direct response type ads
and advertorials in publications related to your industry. Go to
the library and check a number of back issues of these works. If
you consistently see the same ads running over and over again,
you know they are making money.
Some profitable ads have consistently run for as long as 40
years! Without being changed!
Professional copywriters constantly collect good headlines and
create what they call "swipe files." These headline swipe files
serve as models for good headlines and are great idea generators
as they work to develop their own winning headlines.
When you discover ads that are being run over and over, study
their headlines, and copy them into your own swipe file and when
you are trying to think about creating some new headlines of your
own, dig out the swipe file, review your collection of headlines
and see if you can't use some of them as models for your own.
Model success.
In another article, I'll tackle creating and working with
headline templates. Until then, keep pumping out those winning
headlines.
About the Author
George Dodge has worked on the Internet since 1994 developing,
and serving as webmaster for, numerous government and commercial
websites. One of his commercial sites focusing on headline
copywriting is
www.Headline-Creator-Pro.com where you can get your copy of a
headline generating tool that enables you to create winning
headlines quickly with push button ease.
|