Copy Tip 13: Insider Tip on Headlines
Before we get into the juicy copy tips, I want to let you know something:
Some of the vehicles you use when creating and using copy don’t have to cost a fortune to bring you great results.
$75 returned for every $1 spent
Just recently a client (retail travel agent) sent out a 2-sided postcard to a list of around 290 of her clients … and got 24 bookings — worth almost $30,000 to her business. For less than $400 (I don’t have exact figures on this one, sorry!) … $30,000 returned in business.
In other words, for every $1 she spent on the campaign, she got back $75.
Low Cost Campaign Returns ROI 2158%
A campaign we did ourselves last year cost us $109.90 in setting it up. It was sent to 157 clients. 19 ordered during the campaign (a 12.1% response). Gross sales were $8161 and our net ROI was 2158%. In other words, for every $1 spent, we made a net profit of $21.58.
Our actual sales ended up being a fair bit higher … as orders kept arriving long after the “official” campaign was over … in fact, we were still getting orders last month (November 2008) — 17 months later! So our actual net profit would now be around 50 percent higher than the figures above.
“Fully Booked” from tiny classifieds ad
In October 2008 I created an ad that cost my clients (2 sharing one ad) less than $100 to advertise. Their services — tarot reading and reflexology — were fully booked while that ad was running. It was slightly smaller in area than one side of a regular business card.
Why am I giving you these examples?
For two reasons …
- I want to demonstrate to you that you don’t need to spend a fortune to put your copy skills to work in a way that’s effective for your business. You can invest just small amounts and see quite profitable results when you understand and can use effective copywriting techniques.
- Secondly, I want these examples to inspire you … if I can create these results, you can share in my knowledge and put it to work for your business. You can see that this stuff really does work.
Now of course I’m nowhere near the “guru” status in this industry and readily admit that I’m always learning. Learning never stops. While I live and breathe copy stuff day-in and day-out, there’s always masses of great resources to absord and study and put into practice. Any wise marketer or copywriter really is a perpetual student in the craft … there’s always someone doing great things to learn from, and I keep on learning from the world’s best.
The big difference is doing what you know rather than just knowing what to do.
When you start creating campaigns and testing your offers, the more you do, the more you’ll want to do … and the easier it becomes because you don’t only know it, but you also implement and do it.
Inside Secret on Headlines
Here’s today’s copy tip … your headline is “the ad for the ad”. It gets 70 to 80 percent of the attention of your copy — so it’s worth getting this part right!
We’ll talk a lot more about headlines in upcoming tips: but here’s the tip I want to leave you with today:
Your headline should persuade your prospect to keep on reading (or watching/listening) … and nothing else.
It has ONLY ONE purpose.
It’s not designed necessarily to sell your product or get your prospect to take action.
It’s not designed to convey all of your copy points.
It’s simply designed to grab the attention of your prospect and get them to read the next sentence.
Joe Sugarman talks about this with his “greased slide”… your copy is like a slippery slide designed to keep your prospect moving in the right direction.
(You really should have this book in your must-read collection!). Here’s my link to the book on Amazon.com (yes, via amazon associates):
You want to sell your prospect to keep on reading. So don’t try and make your headline do everything: just make it do this one thing.
To be successful, it must achieve this one purpose!
Tomorrow we’ll get more into headlines … and some essential considerations you cannot afford to overlook.
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