Your Headlines Are Key To Your Success Or Failure. Do You Know What To Write?

Author : Angelique Van Engelen

Most professional copywriters would say that headlines account&lt;br&gt;for 80% percent of more of the effectiveness of an ad or sales&lt;br&gt;letter.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;After all, it's the headline that gets your reader to stop and&lt;br&gt;read further into your sales copy. If the headline fails, then&lt;br&gt;the entire ad or sale copy fails.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;So with headline creation being of such importance, are you&lt;br&gt;giving your headlines the time and effort they are worth?&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Writing good headlines is a skill that can be learned and&lt;br&gt;mastered if you are willing to put the time into studying good&lt;br&gt;proven moneymaking headlines.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;One way of learning how to write killer headlines is to study the&lt;br&gt;masters. Read the works of the past greats, such as Claude&lt;br&gt;Hopkins, Robert Collier, John Caples, David Ogilvy, and Eugene&lt;br&gt;Schwartz, among others. There works are available in libraries,&lt;br&gt;used book stores, and in some cases there works have been&lt;br&gt;reprinted and are still available on the market.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;A second method is to study the headlines in the super market&lt;br&gt;tabloids and magazines that you find near the check out counters.&lt;br&gt;Tabloids such as 'The Globe', 'The Star', and 'The National&lt;br&gt;Enquirer' or magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Readers&lt;br&gt;Digest, and Vanity Fair.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;These publications are placed near the cash registers for a&lt;br&gt;reason. While you are standing in line waiting to check out, you&lt;br&gt;scan their headlines and many people become interested and&lt;br&gt;purchase these publications on impulse. And the sell millions!&lt;br&gt;They have some of the highest circulations of any publications in&lt;br&gt;the country.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;So, what gets them to sell so well? Certainly not the title of&lt;br&gt;the publication! It's the headlines. They jump out at you. They&lt;br&gt;get you to stop and look. They arouse your curiosity. Even if you&lt;br&gt;don't buy, I'll bet on more than one occasion you've picked up&lt;br&gt;the publication and scanned it for an article mentioned on the&lt;br&gt;cover. I know I have.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The headline writers for these publications are some of the&lt;br&gt;highest paid writers in the country and the circulation numbers&lt;br&gt;reflect it.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Ok, so these publications have great attention grabbing,&lt;br&gt;curiosity arousing headlines. How does that help you?&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;As you read and study these headlines, see if you can see a&lt;br&gt;pattern that you can use. Many of these headlines can be used to&lt;br&gt;develop killer headline templates where just by modifying or&lt;br&gt;substituting a word or two can also work wonders for your own&lt;br&gt;advertising and promotion campaigns.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Yet another technique is to look through direct response type ads&lt;br&gt;and advertorials in publications related to your industry. Go to&lt;br&gt;the library and check a number of back issues of these works. If&lt;br&gt;you consistently see the same ads running over and over again,&lt;br&gt;you know they are making money.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Some profitable ads have consistently run for as long as 40&lt;br&gt;years! Without being changed!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Professional copywriters constantly collect good headlines and&lt;br&gt;create what they call &quot;swipe files.&quot; These headline swipe files&lt;br&gt;serve as models for good headlines and are great idea generators&lt;br&gt;as they work to develop their own winning headlines.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;When you discover ads that are being run over and over, study&lt;br&gt;their headlines, and copy them into your own swipe file and when&lt;br&gt;you are trying to think about creating some new headlines of your&lt;br&gt;own, dig out the swipe file, review your collection of headlines&lt;br&gt;and see if you can't use some of them as models for your own.&lt;br&gt;Model success.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;In another article, I'll tackle creating and working with&lt;br&gt;headline templates. Until then, keep pumping out those winning&lt;br&gt;headlines.&lt;br&gt;&lt;p&gt; About the Author &lt;p&gt;George Dodge has worked on the Internet since 1994 developing,&lt;br&gt;and serving as webmaster for, numerous government and commercial&lt;br&gt;websites. One of his commercial sites focusing on headline&lt;br&gt;copywriting is&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.Headline-Creator-Pro.com/np.html&quot; &gt;&lt;br&gt;www.Headline-Creator-Pro.com</a> where you can get your copy of a&lt;br&gt;headline generating tool that enables you to create winning&lt;br&gt;headlines quickly with push button ease.

Category : SE Positioning