Friday, May 19, 2006
[Copywriting Tips] Do your headlines fight like cats and dogs?
Recently I was asked to critique “Marvin’s” sales letter for a coaching website. Each headline was okay but together they fought like cats and dogs (or 2 football teams in the playoffs) – lots of screaming and wrestling that accomplished little. The originals were much better than what you see here – I have to disguise the details by creating headlines for an imaginary service. Main headline: Who else wants to feel less stressed at the end of the day? Subheading 1: Are you leaving money on the table because of beliefs you created ten years ago? Subheading 2: Wouldn’t it be nice to say good-by to all those self-defeating beliefs and start moving at lightning speed to your new goals? Of course, the letter included more headings, and lots of bullets and text under each heading. But the sales letter didn’t hang together. In an ideal copy world, readers will skim through the headlines and bold type and they’ll realize what’s going on. The headlines tell a story even if you don’t have time to read the smaller print. To help “Marvin,” I’d first ask about his target market and his success stories. We’d figure out why his service uniquely delivers value to his own target market. A very rough first draft of Marvin’s new headlines: “Who else wants to feel less stressed and earn more money?” “How to stop your own ancient beliefs from creating more stress than traffic jams” “How beginners can compete with experts in the relaxation marathon” Okay...that one’s a little over the top. But you get the idea, right? We begin by holding out a benefit – less stress, higher earnings – We’d keep our headlines focused on that theme. And we’d also experiment with variations. After writing a first round of headlines, often we realize we need to refocus altogether. But most important, we won’t let our readers relax till they come to the very end of the sales letter. Copywriting maven, author and speaker, Cathy Goodwin, PhD., owns Copy-Cat-Copywriting. She works with self-employed professionals who want to turn their lazy, good-for-nothing websites into profit centers that work 24/7. Download your valuable 10-page fr*e Report: 7 Best-Kept Secrets of Client Attracting Websites. http://www.copy-cat-copywriting.com/subscribe.html |
# posted by Cathy Goodwin @ 2:29 PM 
