How To Get Your Ads And Sales Letters Read

Have you been enjoying the Tour de France? I have, in fact I can’t get enough of it.

Actually, it’s an important lesson about long sales copy. You see, I’m interested in the cycling. If I can I’ll watch it for 3-4 hours a night! Sure, sometimes its on in the background but its there. But if you tell someone who isn’t into it, the reaction you’ll get is “I can’t watch it for more than 5 minutes!” OK, but if you’re a fan you’ll watch it. You’re glued to it.

A lot of people see sales letters that might go for 15-20 pages and think that nobody’s EVER going to read it. Too long, they tell you. But here’s the thing. These people are NOT your market. So who cares what they think.

What’s important is that there are people out there that WILL read it. And the more devoted the audience, the more they’ll read. After all, the people who think your sales letter is too long were never going to buy anyway, so don’t worry about them.

That’s like watching the cycling. If you’re ‘in’ to it then you just can’t get enough.

Incidentally, the longest sales letter I’ve ever come across so far is Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Just NOTE: I’m not saying to make your sales letters long. They should be concise and get to the point without wasting time. But sometimes this can take pages, especially if you’re tuned into your market and you’ve got a great offer. So longs is OK, but don’t make it unnecessarily long.

Anyway, I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid! How could I be writing about marketing and not have a single post on headlines! I didnt even realise it until I put together a set of posts on writing a sales letter for someone last week, and I couldnt find anything on the most important topic of all! Anyway, lets fix that up right now.

Headlines are the most important part of your sales letter. This is because you need to grab people’s attention RIGHT AWAY. If you don’t hook them into reading in the first few seconds then they’re gone forever. So a headline is quite simply the ad for your ad. It calls out to the person you’re trying to attract, grabs their attention and forces them to read. You want it to SHRIEK out and say “over here, over here. Read Me, Read Me!”

In fact, you want to know the #1 job of your headline? Its simple. Its job is to get people to read the first line. But if you get 5 times as many people reading your letter once you put a strong attention grabbing headline on it they you’ll get 5 times the sales (or opt-ins or what ever you’re after).

When I write a sales letter I spend most of my time on my headline. In fact, over 50% of my time is dedicated entirely to the opening page or screen. And most of that is spent on the headline itself, or the pre-head. I write out several pages of headlines, then go through a painstaking process of eliminating them until I have a few left over, and then I agonise over it more. And when my sales package is complete I’ll end up changing it again! Usually I send a couple off to clients with their sales packages for them to try different ones.

Now if you’re writing your own sales copy, go and check out other successful headlines and model them. Often a headline for a financial planner can be used by a mechanic. Here’s a good resource for ideas:
http://www.abraham.com/articles/100_Greatest_Headlines_Ever_Written.html

Here are a few common models you can use.

“How To Quickly And Easily <BLANK>”
“For example, How To Quickly And Easily Give Up Smoking”
or
“How to Quickly and Easily Make Money on The Internet”

“X Reasons To <BLANK>”
For example, “7 Reasons To Call Bayside Plumbing Before Anyone Else.”

“Warning. Do Not <blank> Until You <blank>”
For example, “Warning. Do Not Call Another Mortgage Broker Until You Download My FREE Report On XYZ”

“Who Else Wants <blank>”
For exmaple, “Who Else Wants A Quick And Easy Way To Make An Income On The Internet”
or “Who Else Wants To Run A Sub-3 Hour Marathon”

Now, here are a few very specific tips…

1. Don’t make your headline too long. I see more and more headlines these days where it looks like the writer simply wants to win a long headline competition. Problem is, by the time you get to the end of the headline you’ve forgotten how it started! Get to the point!

2. Dont try to be clever if you’re not experienced. Model what works! There are plenty of winning headlines out there so don’t try and re-invent the wheel. Far better to model a headline that has been proven to make millions, rather than try to come up with something completely new yourself.

3. Your headline should not be cute or funny. If you have to tell someone to read the letter in order to understand the headline then get rid of your headline and start again. It should be able to stand on its own, because when someone sees your ad or letter, if that headline confuses them then they simply wont read.

Anyway, headlines are a VERY involved subject, but these basics are a great start for you. I’ll probably return to headlines with some more advanced tactics in a few weeks.

Next week I’m going to pull it all together. Its going to be a collection of articles from the very beginning of this blog that you should review if you’re about to start writing a sales letter.

It’ll be all there folks. From headlines to testimonials. From guarantees to writing styles.

Talk to you all then,

All the best htsignature12