Four headlines that engage and convert customers

Whether you need to capture the attention of a potential customer on your website, convince a journalist to publish your story, increase your mailing list with your website opt-in, generate leads from an advertisement or boost your hits with a blog post, learning to write good headlines is perhaps one of the greatest time investments you can make in your business.

To help you make a start, and get more results from your marketing and advertising here are four types of headlines that can help you connect with potential customers and convert more sales.

1. The threat

One of the most powerful buying motivators is fear and pain. Generally speaking we move faster away from pain and potential threat than we do towards pleasure, so if you can pinpoint something your target market is afraid of losing or afraid of happening, you can really get inside their head and create a headline that is impossible to ignore.

Examples of a threat headline are “The shocking truth about what your child is really eating”, “the [x] lies your [person/brand] is telling you”, “The information/advice your [trusted person] should give you, but won’t”, “If worse came to worse and [specific scenario], would you/your family/your business be protected? Or “Did you know you could be personally liable/held accountable/at risk of/ for [threat], even if you [protective measure]?”

To craft a powerful threat headline ask yourself:

  • What are my target markets frustrations?
  • What problems do they have that my product or service solves?
  • What are their pain points and worries?
  • What is keeping them up at night?
  • What do they fear most?
  • What are the greatest threats to them, their family and their livelihood?

2. The benefit

The benefit headline, as its name suggests is driven by a benefit. The benefit can be positive, drawing your target market towards pleasure like “How you can generate more leads for your business without spending more time, money or effort”, or a negative benefit, drawing them away from pain, frustration or consequence like “Stop paying too much tax”.

Whichever way you go, when mastered, the benefit headline can be incredibly powerful.  The key to its success though, depends on how well you know your target market and what they need or desire, in order to appeal to their buy buttons. It can’t just be any benefit that your product or service provides though, it has to be a benefit your target market can’t ignore or must-have in order to incite action.

When crafting a benefit headline ask yourself:

  • What does my target market want most?
  • What are their dreams and aspirations?
  • What do they value?
  • Who do they look up to or want to be like?
  • What are their frustrations?
  • What do they want to avoid most?
  • What can my products or services give them, save them, help them become or achieve that will help them get what they want or avoid what they want to avoid?

3. The promise

The promise headline is like the benefit headline only more powerful because it comes with a promise of results. It could be that you can provide the desired results within a desired timeframe, or the desired result with a guarantee. Of course you MUST deliver what you have promised, so handle this headline with care.

When crafting a promise headline ask yourself:

  • What results have I generated for past customers?
  • What results will motivate potential customers?
  • Can I deliver results in an assured timeframe?
  • Can I offer a money back guarantee?
  • How can I eliminate the perceived risk people have when buying from me?

4. The testimonial

The testimonial headline is one of the most powerful headlines because it uses a customer success story and their own words to sell your products and services. It gives you credibility and proves your value long before you’ve tried to establish it.

The testimonial could be outstanding results you’ve delivered, a relatable situation you helped a customer through, a common problem you solved, a testimonial that addresses common objections people have or even a celebrity or notable person who uses your products or services.

The key to a good testimonial headline is that it needs to be specific, have high impact, connect with or be relatable to your potential customer and prove your value. To do this you may need to give the customer who is endorsing you specific boundaries and prompts of what you are looking for from their testimonial.

Have you found a particular type of headline has worked well for you?

Amanda


Marketing words that boost engagement and conversions

Words are powerful. They can move us, engage our emotions in ways we don’t even realise and persuade us to take a course of action we may not have ordinarily taken.

That is why the words you use to help you tell the story of your products and services are so important. They can be the difference between telling and selling, and someone browsing or buying.

Fortunately, there are some words and phrases that have been tried and tested to help boost engagement and conversions regardless of your industry. So to help you, here are seven words I’ve found as a copywriter to be extremely effective, regardless of who or what I’m writing about.

1. “You”

No word in marketing is, or ever will be, as powerful as the word “you”. The more you can make your marketing about your target audience, and their needs, their problems, their desires and their frustrations the more effective it will be.

Remember your potential customer doesn’t care about you – at first anyway, they want to know what is in it for them and how you can solve their challenges and meet their needs like no-one else can.

With this in mind, one of your main objectives when writing your marketing material should be to use the word “you” as many times as possible. Customer focused words like “you” should appear at least twice as many times as self-focused words like your business name, “we”, “us”, “ours”, “me” or “I”. 

2. “Guarantee”

When you are willing to back your own product or service with a guarantee, particularly a 100% money back guarantee, you minimise the risk for your customer and give them a sense of safety and security at the time of purchase.

Offering a guarantee can also help you persuade your potential customer into feeling like they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by buying from you.

3. “Free”

While some marketers over the years have questioned whether the word “free” is still effective in marketing, the fact remains that we all love freebies. The impact of the word, however, depends greatly on what it is linked to.

“A free quote” for instance, isn’t a good “free” incentive. Let’s be honest, would you pay someone to come and give you a quote for a job if a quote was all they were giving? I know I wouldn’t, it’s just something we do in order to generate business.

The key is to offer something that is relevant and of value to your audience. So if you were looking at offering the ever popular “free consultation”, instead of leaving it at that, articulate what value they will receive in a consultation with you (and FYI a sales presentation or the opportunity to come and “find out how we can help you” isn’t value). What will you give them, or talk about in the consultation? What will they have or be able to do by the end of it?

When you start approaching your free offers like this, you will start to see just how powerful the word “free” can be in your marketing.

4. “Instant”

Let’s face it; given our lifestyle, most people you market to will have a short attention span, little patience and a growing desire for instant gratification. You only need to look at the growing credit card debt to see this is true. We don’t want to wait, we want it now and, while some of us may meet it with some scepticism, we are, generally speaking, intrigued by anything and anyone who can deliver us the instant results or changes we are looking for.

If you can build an instant element into your offering and marketing, whether it is instant access, download, delivery, implementation, value or results, it can be incredibly rewarding.

A word of warning though, when you build up a customer’s expectations like this you need to be 100% confident that you can deliver on it. If there is one shadow of a doubt – or you have to rely on someone else to fulfil your “instant” promise (like a third party or supplier) think about what else you could do instead.

5. “Easy”, “Quick” or “Shortcut”

We all want to know the easiest option or the quickest way, it forms part of our desire for instant gratification. We’re willing to look at whatever will speed up the process of being, doing or having what we want, or make the process that much easier.

Perhaps your product or service is easy to buy, easy to use or implement or has the potential to make your customer’s life easier (be specific with how). Or maybe it’s the shortcut they’re looking for that will deliver what they want in record time. The easier and quicker something is, the more desirable it becomes in the mind of your customer.

6. “Never”

The word “never” can be incredibly powerful when you are pointing out the negative benefits of your product or service. If you’re wondering what a negative benefit is, it’s something your customer will avoid (and want to avoid) by buying and using your product or service. Essentially it demonstrates how you can help them avoid pain.

Obviously how you use it depends on your business and what you sell, though some examples are “never miss a payment again”, “never worry about a deadline again” or “never pay too much in tax again”. The key is to make the negative benefit realistic, of high importance to your customers and for ultimate impact something that is weighing heavy on their mind or keeping them up at night.

7. “Proven”

By having a proven system, formula, methodology or product, or a strong track record of generating results, you take the risk and fear out of buying from you. It’s one thing to say that you are great, it’s quite another to be able to back your claims up. The effectiveness and credibility of your message amplifies when you prove you can do what you say you can.

Don’t just make “proven results” or a “proven formula” another claim though, say how and why it is proven or draw on testimonials and case studies to show that it is proven.

So there you have it, seven words that when used right can generate great results in marketing. The next challenge is to find which words will work best for you and your business.

Have you found certain words work wonders in your marketing?

Amanda


Five questions to help you tell the story

Stories are powerful. We not only remember them long than we remember facts, they engage us, appeal to our imagination and when done right, cause us to become emotionally invested. 

Imagine if you could cause this same reaction in your target market after they read your website or promotional material? How many more enquiries would you get? How many more sales would you convert? To help you, here are five questions that once answered will help you tell the story of your products and services and emotionally engage your target market.

1.    What is your target market’s biggest need, frustration or problem? 

People always move faster away from pain then they do towards pleasure, so pain is a good place to start your story. What problems do your target market experience without your product? What limitations do similar products or services have (without naming and shaming) that could be causing your target market frustration? 

What is keeping them up at night? What is costing them money, time or limiting their growth that can be related to not having or using your product or service?

2. Why haven’t they been able to solve it? 

Once you’ve established their pain, look at why they haven’t been able to solve it until now. Was it due to a lack of time, money or knowledge? Have options or availability been limited until you or your new product or service has come along? 

3. What would their life be like if their problem was solved?

Paint the pleasure. Describe the life of your target market once their problems have been solved, their ideal “imagine if…” scenario. How much more effective, efficient or profitable will their business be? How much easier and happier will their life be? 

4. How does your product or service solve their need? 

Once you’ve taken them to a place of pleasure and hope, show them how you or your products or your services make it possible. How are your products or services different? How have they helped others achieve the same ideal scenario? 

5. What do they need to do now? 

Now it’s time for your call to action. What steps do they have to take now to start making their ideal scenario a reality? Is it to call, email or buy now? Do they need to go to another web page, book a consultation, request a quote or download something? 

Work out exactly what action you want them to take then call them to do it while offering them an incentive or emotional pull.
 
By taking your target market through this process, you allow them to have an emotional experience with your product or service before they even try it, a very powerful marketing technique that will result in more enquiries and conversions.

Amanda


Six usability mistakes businesses make with their web copy

When it comes to writing for the web, to make your copy truly effective there is a lot you need to do in a small amount of time. You need to be compelling and establish your value quickly, though you also need to make sure your copy is easy to read, easy to understand and leads your web visitor somewhere – preferably to a sale.

Unfortunately for most businesses their web copy doesn’t even come close to doing this. To make sure you’re not in the majority, here are six usability mistakes most businesses are making with their web copy and how you can avoid them to make sure you get the results you want.

Mistake #1 – Choosing pretty fonts instead of practical fonts

With a wide range of fonts to choose from it can be tempting to go for a font that will look more attractive to make a statement or differentiate you from other sites. The only challenge is many of these fonts can be harder to read, particularly on a computer screen that is hard enough to read on.

When it comes to the web (and really the same applies across all your marketing material) fonts like Arial, Calibri, Tahoma and other smooth rounded fonts make your text easier to read for your visitors. Also keep in mind the size, colour and spacing of your text as this will impact readability too.

Mistake #2 – Not having critical content above the fold

The space above the fold (where people don’t have to scroll to down to see text or images) is prime real estate on your website so be sure to make the most of it. Instead of sticking a large image that doesn’t establish your value or what you do, place your most critical and compelling information there so your reader has incentive to scroll down.

It could be a paragraph, a sentence or a headline, there is no rule as to how much text there should be, just as long as it gives your reader a reason to read more. The less you rely on your reader scrolling the better.

Mistake #3 – Not giving mobile users access to your full website

You’ve no doubt experienced the frustration of using your mobile to access a website you regularly use on your desktop only to find you can’t access what you need to. So don’t disadvantage (or annoy) your mobile visitors by giving them a limited version of your website. Mobile users should have the same usability and search ability as desktop users.

It is important to check your website on your mobile and see what your website looks like to readers and what they can see above the fold as this can often vary depending on the device they are using.

Mistake #4 – Not having a clear sales process or navigational path

One of the first steps you should take when planning your website is to work out what you want your readers to do on each page and where you want them to go next. Do they need to be guided through a number of pages in order to make the sale or will they get everything they need to purchase off the one?

Ask yourself what path would you ultimately like them to take through your website? What page should they visit first? What page should they visit second and so on? Once you have worked out where they should go, make sure it is easily signalled in your copy along with a call to action that allows them to act now if they want to.

Mistake #5 – Not having website pages that are easily digested in 5-10 seconds

On the web you have 5-10 seconds to grab the attention of your reader – the time it takes to read a headline and maybe your first sentence. You don’t have long at all to establish what you do and what value you can provide, but you need to find a way.

It used to be just your home page you had to do this on as that was the main point of entry to your website, but now your reader’s search could land them on any page from your blog to your service page, your about us to your contact page, so every web page needs to establish your value, start solving a problem or provide the information your reader is looking for within 5-10 seconds.

Mistake #6 – Not making it easy for a visitor to get in contact with you

So many businesses are becoming faceless online, only allowing their web visitors to contact them through a designated contact form, while this can work with some industries and businesses, most consumers want to be able to get in touch with you in a variety of ways like phone, email, social media and a contact form.

Minimise your web visitor’s frustration by making it easy for them to get in touch with you. Where possible include your phone, email and social media contact details on every page or in your side bar so regardless of what page your web visitor is on they can get in contact with you easily. If you are worried about listing your email because of spam, then spell it out in full like amanda(at)velocitymedia(dot)com(dot)au.

Amanda


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