How To Write Headlines That Sell

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Copywriting is one of the most valuable skills you can develop to grow your business and increase your lifestyle.  Whether you’re generating leads for a direct sales or network marketing company or selling physical or digital products online, you’re not going to get very far without effective copywriting.

Copywriting is basically salesmanship in print, or selling through the written word…and if you can master it (or at least get pretty good at it!), you’ll be able to make more money and create more lifestyle than without it.

(in fact, you probably won’t make it at all without it)

Arguably the most important aspect to your copywriting is your headline, the words that are at the top of the page and usually bolded and in a different color than the rest of the page or letter.

(Red, 18-20pt Tahoma, Bold is the “standard” for headlines as far as conversion goes)

The headline is what grabs your reader’s attention and pulls them into the page, convincing them that reading the rest of what you’ve written is going to be worth their time.

Without an effective headline, the rest of what you’ve written is all for naught – if the reader doesn’t make it past the headline, they aren’t going to bother reading anything else on the page.

Writing a good headline is not as complicated as many marketers make it out to be.  It can be simple if you will follow the right process.  The key to writing a good headline is to really put yourself in the position of your prospect and then figure out what problem they have that they want solved.

• Do they want to loose weight?
• Do they want to make more money?
• Do they want better health?
• Do they need to learn how to market?
• Do they need to learn a new skill?

 Once you know what the problem is they want solved, you simply craft a headline that speaks to their problem and offers a solution.

Here are a few different types of headlines that you can use in your website copy:

•         How to (accomplishment) In (Time Frame)
•         The Quick Way to (Accomplishment)
•         How to Turn (Problem) Into (Benefit)
•         How To Get (Goal) From (Something Common)
•         Who Else Wants To (Accomplishment) Without (Pain)
•         (Number) Ways To…
•         (Number) Reasons To….
•         How to Have…
•         Learn How To (Accomplishment)
•         How To Get Free (Product / Program)
•         How You Can (Action) In The Next (Time Frame)
•         How I (Accomplishment) In (Time Frame)
•         If You Want (Accomplishment) Then (Action)
•          Learn My Secrets to (Accomplishment / Action)
•          [Topic] Exposed: Learn The Insider Secrets To (Success with Topic)

The key to writing good headlines is to start with some of the examples above and then just keep writing out new ones over and over again until you have at least 10-20.  At that point you’ll really be able to identify a couple of winners, and then you can start with those as your baseline.

Of course you’ll always want to split-test your headlines to see which ones pull the best, but at least you’ll have something you can start with and modify over time.

Study other successful marketers or competitors in your niche and see what type headlines they are using – that’s a great place to start developing a swipe-file of ideas you can look back at every time you need to write a new headline and sales letter.

Features vs Benefits

As much as possible include the benefit of your product or service in your headline.  Don’t just tell people the facts, tell them what those facts are going to DO for them.

As an example, if you were selling a product on learning to speak Spanish, don’t just say:

“Learn How To Speak Spanish In 4 Weeks!”

That’s a feature, not a benefit – you’re just telling them what they’re going to get.  The prospect wants to know how getting that is going to help them get what they want or how it’s going to change their life.  So, you’d want to write it more like this:

“Learn How To Speak Spanish In 4 Weeks So You Can Travel All of Central America Without The Expense And Stress Of Having To Rely On A Translator Or Bulky Dictionaries!”

So now we’ve told them what it’s going to do for them – save them time and stress because they’ll know how to communicate.  As long as that’s what your target market is looking for, you’re golden!

So remember, features tell, benefits sell.  Include benefits as much as possible!