Lesson Objective:
To brainstorm headlines and get your thoughts straight on the sales letter you will create
to sell your product or service.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Word Processing
Today’s Lesson:
Welcome to Day 4 - you’ll be spending the next few days with me, Yanik.
Before we begin on the sales letter process, I want to share a story with you…
A couple months ago I was sitting on a plane on my way to speak at an Internet
marketing seminar. Instead of catching up on my reading, I struck up a conversation with
my neighbor. He told me he had just graduated college with a marketing degree.
I hesitated for a second, not knowing if I should tell him what I really thought, but I went
ahead anyway...
I confided in him that I had also graduated with a BS in marketing, actually a top 25
business school, but that I *never* learned anything useful in my marketing classes.
He was stunned.
I went on to tell him there was just *one* critical skill (something I never learned from
any stodgy professor) that has been responsible for the majority of my success, both
online and off.
I know this might seem hard to believe, but it's true and I have proven it time and time
again. As I've grown and built several successful web sites, plus my offline businesses, I
have always relied on this *one* critical skill.
And do you want to know what I told him it was?
It's simple....
I'm talking about how I discovered what it takes to write powerful, persuasive,
moneymaking copy so good that people are practically forced to order!
Many people don't realize how important good ad copy is to their success.... and that's
why they end up closing their doors and blaming the economy or making up some other
lame excuse. Let me tell you, once you master this skill you can literally write your own
ticket.
And that’s exactly what we’re going to cover in this section -- so let’s get going…
(Copywriting is a vast subject and I’ve included some valuable resources at the end of
this section to help you along.)
STOP! For me, I find I learn from real life examples and “doing it” rather than just
reading!
So before we start into your website, I want to give you few examples of top selling web
sites and let’s see if we can’t figure out the common link they all have.
Take a look at each one and then continue on through this section.
Example 1: Amazing Formula
Example 2: Instant Sales Letters
Example 3: How to Write and Publish Your Own eBook in 7 days
Example 4: Public Domain Riches
Example 5: Ebook Secrets Exposed
Example 6: No Cost Advertising
Example 7: MYSS
Example 8: Internet Marketing Center
These eight websites have generated $100,000’s in sales!
Did you figure out what they all have in common?
They are all just sales letters! Pretty simple, almost the exact same as you’d see delivered
in your mailbox as “junk mail”.
The truth is you need to forget almost everything every guru or Internet marketing expert
tells you. We suggest the simple sales letter works better than almost anything else you
can have on your site.
(Just trust me on this one – try it my way first and then if you still want to do all kinds of
crazy things you can do them with the profit you’ll make using my methods.)
Your main goal is to sell… and having all kinds of content and free stuff on your site
will distract people away from your main objective. (Actually, you’ve got 2 objectives –
the first is to sell and the second objective is to get contact information for your
‘maybes’.)
You’ve got to study direct response advertising because the web is really the same thing
– just on a computer screen instead of a sales letter sent through the mail or a direct
response ad in the newspaper.
STOP! Think for a moment about why most sites fail…
It’s not because they haven’t invested in the best shopping cart system…and it doesn’t
have anything to do with not using Flash or some other fancy “plug-in”…and it’s not due
to the fact they’ve over-looked top-quality graphics or design work…
So what is it?
The real reason most web sites can’t make money is because they lack strong web copy.
Consider this: If a site didn’t have any graphics – just words – could it make sales?
Absolutely!
But what if a site didn’t have any words – just graphics – could you expect to see any
sales?
I don’t think so! Therefore…It’s The Words That Sell!
The right words have the almost magical power to make your visitor BUY!
Anytime I start with my sales letter I always start with the most important element…the
headline. (Now, this already assumes you are an expert on your subject and you’ve done
your research on your product and its benefits.)
Brainstorm 50 - 100 Headlines
Your headline’s job is to immediately get your prospect’s attention and stop them dead in
their tracks.
So my headline on Instantsalesletters.com is “In only 2 ½ minutes you can quickly and
easily create a sales letter guaranteed to sell your product or service without
writing”.
Does that pretty much grab your attention if you’re interested in selling your product or
service? I think so.
But before I tell you my secrets for creating headlines let me give you the thoughts from
guys a whole lot smarter than me about headlines:
David Ogilvy says, “On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as
read the body copy. It follows that, unless your headline sells your product, you have
wasted 90% of your money.”
And Claude Hopkins relays the importance of a headline, “The salesman is there to
demand attention. He cannot well be ignored. The advertisement can be ignored. But the
salesman wastes much of his time on prospects whom he never can hope to interest...The
advertisement is read only by interested people who, by their own volition, study what we
have to say. The purpose of a headline is to pick out people you can interest.”
John Caples has these words of advice, “If you have a good headline, you have a good
ad. Any competent writer can write the copy. If you have a poor headline, you are licked
before you start. Your copy will not be read...Spend hours writing headlines - or days if
necessary.”
I don’t think these masters would have placed such an importance on headlines if it didn’t
really matter. In fact, John Caples says that he’s seen one ad pull 19 ½ times better than
another one simply by changing the headline.
You can believe it!
In my own personal tests the best I got is about 2 1/2 times — but that’s still pretty damn
good! So for spending the same amount on marketing and advertising you can more than
double your response — not too bad.
Now, when coming up with powerful headlines you want to be able to answer the
questions nearly everyone has on their mind whenever they read your ad. Here are the
questions you need to zero in on:
What?So
Cares?Who
What’s In It For Me?
Why Are You Bothering Me?
If you have good answers to these 4 critical questions then you’re well on your way to
success.
Here’s What Your Headlines Should Do:
1. Identify your ideal prospect and speak directly to them
Your headline needs to grab the person you want to attract and single them out. If you
want business owners, your headline should begin with “Business Owners! Discover
How to Make Your Computers Work Harder and Faster!”
Do you see how this qualifies exactly who you are looking for? You have targeted
business owners looking to make their computers work faster and harder. You can easily
target any profile you wish just by building-in these screening devices in the headline.
The more narrow the criteria — the less the quantity of responses you’ll get but the
quality should be higher.
2. Offer the biggest promise or self-serving benefit to the reader
Answer the question everyone has on their mind, “What’s in it for me?” You answer that
question and your ideal prospect will stand up and take notice.
This brings us back to the same question everyone is constantly asking. Everyone is busy,
so get to the point with the biggest benefit right away.
3. Your headline should make the reader inclined to keep reading
Curiosity is a very powerful human emotion. However you don’t want your headline just
to be some trick to get people to read. If you can combine curiosity with self-serving
benefits then you have a real winner.
But don’t be like some creative types… never use double meanings or some obscure
reference in your headline. People are too busy to pick up on those. It’s much easier to
click away from your site than try and figure out what you mean.
Humorous or cute headlines are most certainly a major waste of money.
4. Offer news if possible
News is always a good attention-getter. Everybody likes to stay current. So
announcements are almost always “surefire”. You can capitalize on new developments,
improvements, new procedures, etc.
Headline Appeals That Last Forever
Generally there are only a few things people want (this is important – I’m not talking
about need):
· Be healthy
· Look better (reduce fat, be prettier, more handsome, etc)
· Be rich and make money
· Save money
· Get rid of problems/find the easy way out
· Not be embarrassed
· Have fun and excitement
· Gain respect and feel important
Of course not all of these appeals will apply to your business, but many can if you take
the time to figure out how to apply that appeal. But not only are there universal appeals –
but headlines that have worked before can usually be reworked over and over.
Human appeals are immutable. These next headlines I have compiled for you have all
been successful in selling different products or services – you should be able to use these
as brainstorms for your own powerful headline.
Take this list and use for your own ideas (each of these headlines is a proven winner and
has made money):
40 Proven Moneymaking Headlines
1. “The Secret To Making People Like You”
2. “How To Win Friends And Influence People”
3. “Do You Make These Mistakes In English?”
4. “Hands That Look Lovelier in 24 Hours — Or Your Money Back”
5. “When Doctors “Feel Rotten” This Is What They Do”
6. “How I Improved My Memory In One Evening”
7. “They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano — But When I Started To
Play!”
8. “Throw Away Your Oars!”
9. “Thousands Now Play Who Never Thought They Could”
10. “Discovered — Amazing Way To Grow Hair”
11. “How To Collect From Social Security At Any Age”
12. “The 5 Problems Everyone Has At The Dentist — And How (practice name)
Solves Them”
13. “Corn Gone in 5 Days Or Money Back”
14. “How A Strange Accident Saved Me From Baldness”
15. “A Significant Breakthrough In The Fight Against The Effects Of Aging”
16. “Right and wrong farming methods…and little pointers that will increase
your profits”
17. “Some straight talk about vitamins and your sex life”
18. “Speak Spanish like a diplomat”
19. “Stop dreaming and start making money”
20. “Suppose this happened on your wedding day”
21. “Take this 1 minute test – of an amazing new kind of shaving cream”
22. “The amazing new Beverly Hills ‘wrinkle eraser’ discovered by a top oriental
chemist!”
23. “The amazing diet secret of a desperate housewife”
24. “What the travel agents won’t talk about can save you 50%-70% on your
cruise vacation!!!”
25. “To people who want to write -- but can’t get started”
26. “We’re looking for people to write children’s books”
27. “You can laugh at money worries if you follow this simple plan”
28. “Why some people almost always make money in the stock market”
29. “38 fun and easy ways to earn $500 next weekend”
30. “7 steps to freedom”
31. “Confessions of a disbarred lawyer”
32. “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from
the electric clock”
33. “Banking secrets that banks don’t want published”
34. “Can you pass this money test?”
35. “How a fool stunt make a star salesman”
36. “How to wake up the financial genius inside you”
37. “How to pay zero taxes”
38. “If you can lick a stamp you can lick your weight problem”
39. “New diet burns off more fat than if you ran 98 miles a week”
40. “My feet were killing me…until I discovered the miracle of Hamburg”
These 40 headlines, proven to work throughout the years, will continue to work… and
they are pretty easy to model for your own stuff!
How about we take the third one down the list: “Do you make these mistakes in
English?” written by Maxwell Sackheim.
It ran for 40 years!
This is not some pretty ad for Chevrolet or Coca Cola that they had no idea if it’s making
money, this is a mail order company that knew they were making money and they ran
this ad for 40 years.
Maybe if you’re selling a real estate information product it could be “Do You Make
These Mistakes Investing in Real Estate?” Simple, right?
Or if we’re selling a course to webmasters it could be: “Do You Make These Mistakes
Building Web Sites?”.
Remember, don’t copy – but emulate. One of the greatest headlines ever was “They
Laughed When I Sat Down At the Piano – But When I Started to Play!…”
That one has been knocked off lots of times – but you have to understand the big idea
behind it. This headline succeeds because it dramatizes the triumph of the underdog.
Quick Starts for Headlines
You may have noticed that certain words are used more frequently and continue to be
used in winning headlines. The most powerful words used in winning mail-order ads (the
hardest kind of advertising) were the words, “you”, “how”, and “new”.
Not far behind was “How To”.
So if you ever get stuck for a headline, a classic which almost never fails to work is
“How To…”. (It’s a shop-worn classic, but it still works like incredibly well.)
Today’s Assignment
You guessed it:
Come up with 50 headlines for your product! Never edit. Just keep coming up
with all kinds of headlines. Start with the craziest, wackiest ones to warm up your
brain.
Remember, your headlines should answer the big questions we talked about:
· So what?
· Who cares?
· What’s in it for me?
· Why are you bothering me?
Got it? Great – get going!
Today’s Resources:
Instant Sales Letters
Create a winning sales letter in just minutes…without writing!
Web Copy Secrets
Learn the secrets of outrageously profitable websites from the inside out. Peel away
layer-after-layer to discover how they turn visitors into sales. It’s like a sales copy
autopsy.
Make Your Words Sell
Whatever you're selling on the Web - if you want to sell more... You need to use the right
words! Images don't sell. Graphics don't sell - Your words sell! I give this web
copywriting resource a big thumbs up.
How To Master The Art-And-Science Of Writing "Killer" Ads & Sales Letters
Even if your ads and sales letters are doing okay, you can now double, triple, or even
quadruple the results you're getting once you discover the step-by-step system for writing
powerful ads and sales letters that sell!
Push Button Sales Letters
Here's software that lets you fill-in-the-blanks, click a button and poof! You have an
instant sales letter for your product or service. You get a sales letter nicely formatted on a
web page when you're finished. Just polish it up some, link it to your order form and
you're off and running.
Dan Kennedy’s Copywriting Seminar-in-a-box
“Only 115 people were permitted to attend Dan Kennedy's recent, closed door, 2-day
Seminar where he revealed ALL of his most prized, most powerful and most profitable
copywriting techniques. Everything else was just "elementary school" before this.”
Books:
Here's my recommended reading list. My bookshelves are literally filled with marketing
and advertising books and I try to review as many as I can. Here is my list of top books
you MUST read:
"My life in Advertising/Scientific Advertising" by Claude Hopkins. "My life in
Advertisng" is not public domain and worth reading. I've read both these books about 7
times.
"My first 65 years in Advertising" by Maxwell Sackheim. Out-of-print.
"How to Write a Good Advertisement" by Victor Schwab. One of the first books I
ever read on advertising and still one of the best.
"Tested Advertising Methods" by John Caples. Absolute classic. Devour this one and
also look for Caples' other books that are out of print.
"Advertising Secrets of the Written Word" by Joe Sugarman. Sugarman has made
millions for himself selling blu-blocker sunglasses. His copywriting book is a tremendous
resource for any copywriter.
"Ogilvy on Advertising" by David Ogilvy. An absolute must-have classic written by an
agency man who actually understood direct response.
"Magic Words that Bring You Riches" by Ted Nicholas. One of my direct marketing
heroes. Ted took the guts of his $197/year newsletter on direct marketing and distilled it
into this book.
"The Ultimate Sales Letter" by Dan Kennedy. Superb book. My copy is dog-eared
and heavily used. Perfect for helping you create your own powerful sales letter.
"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini. This isn't a
copywriting book but you must get this book. I've read it at least 7 times and it will help
you understand the psychological triggers to a sale. Very Powerful!!
“Budget Cruncher”! FREE Stuff! ?
((Audio)) eBook - “14-Point Web Copywriting Formula You
Can Use To Create Web Sites That Sell”
Download it Here for FREE
eBook - “7 Hidden Psychological Secrets to Getting More
Customers to Buy, Keeping them Forever and Making Even More Money!”
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