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THIS WEEK
Copywriting: Great lines to hook your reader's interest and force them to keep reading
ALSO IN THIS EDITION
| Copywriting: Great lines to hook your reader's interest and force them to keep reading |
What is the difference between a great stage play or TV show and one you turn off? Generally the language, dialogue and action hooks you in ... you want to stay just that bit longer to find out what happens in the end. Everything is revealed piece by piece until finally the whole picture is before you.
Copywriting is a lot like theatre. You need to find the right language and dialogue to hook your reader's interest and get them to take action.
But how do you do it? There are thousands of psychological tricks and triggers to get your reader's attention. Here are just a very select few to get you started.
 The opening headline is the most important line in your whole document. I can spend a few hours alone just polishing the headline for maximum impact. If you have the wrong headline, the readers will often click away or trash your letter.
So what makes a great headline? Go to your nearest bookstore and check out all the trashy magazines. The front cover is full of headlines! "Paris's Secret Rendezvous" – everyone loves to know the secrets behind things. "Real life weight loss miracles" – people hope for a miracle in their day to day life. "From Trash Collector to Millionaire in 3 months!" – people love rags to riches stories.
Here are the top 10 types of powerful headlines:
- How to ... People want to know how to do something. Your headline promises the solution to their particular problem.
- Benefit headline. People are always fascinated to read about things such as how you can earn $5000 per day in your pyjamas.
- Story headline. Tell a story in your headline "They laughed when I sat down and the piano, but when I started to play ..." starts one of the all time highest selling ads.
- News headline. This is where you have a breakthrough or a new product "New auto polish reduces 80% of car resprays without toxic chemicals".
- Fear headline. Some people buy on fear "Are your friends whispering about your dirty blinds".
- Question headline. Asking a question can be a great way to grab attention "Do you know the early warning signs of a heart attack?"
- Guarantee headline. This is where you lead with your business guarantee "Play guitar in 7 days or your money back".
- Personal revelation headline. This is where you share something about yourself such as "How a 40 kilo overweight man married Miss Universe".
- Timeframe headline. "Give me 7 days and I'll make you a millionaire".
- Testimonial headline. "How a broke window cleaner made $1.5 million in 48 hours"
But headlines are only part of the story. By using rich, emotive words you trigger and emotional response in your reader that makes them want to keep reading. Words such as gut wrenching, liquidated, phenomenal, colossal, whopping, stupendous, frantic, little-known. Inflamed, easy, lazy-man's, greatest, confessions, dare and scandalous all create impetus to keep reading and find out more.
Other hot words include 100% money back guarantee, astonishing, breakthrough, exclusive, exceptional, innovative, miracle, jam-packed, jump-start, money-saving, profitable, sensational, special offer, free, tried and tested and unconditional.
The bottom line is you need to make your words sizzle. Write your copy and then go back and increase the temperature of your words through adding in sizzling language to your copy. Look for every word that is bland and add in some spice.
 You also need to look at the words or phrases that connect the paragraphs in your text or the sentences within your paragraphs. And the result? If you don't have great compelling connecting phrases, you can lose readers.
Here are just a sample of some great copy connectors: After all ...; And that's just the beginning; And the result?; Better yet; But, that's only half the story; Here's the most important part; Here are the details; Here's the deal; In fact; Let me explain; Let's face it; Listen; Now, here's the next step; So that's why; Suppose; You see; and the ubiquitous but wait there's more!
What this means is you need to re-read your copy and ensure you have the right connectors between sentences and paragraphs to keep your reader hooked in to reading through to the end.
Finally, the most powerful way to hook your reader's interest and keep them reading is to tap into their mind. Words such as imagine, just think about it, picture this all conjure up images in a person's mind and place the person in a slightly trance like state more open to suggestion. You will hear the best NLP practitioners in the world regularly use this sort of language as part of their seminars (often before they place a plug for their books or training courses!)
So there you have a quick snippet of great lines to use to hook your reader in and force them to keep reading.
Of course you can also hire a freelance copywriter to give your copy that hypnotic quality. Heart Harmony specialises in compelling web copy as well as direct mail letters and flyers to grab your customers attention and generate action. Give us a call on 07 3351 8844 for your next writing project.
| HR Tip - Getting your HR Manual Read & Understood |
HR Manuals are not exciting bed-time reading ... but your employees need to read and understand their content. You also have an obligation to make sure your employees understand the core policies including all of the sexual harassment and anti-discrimination ones.
 So what can you do to get the manual read? This is only limited by your imagination - so here are just a few ideas to get you started.
- Start by getting the employee to sign an acknowledgement form to say they have read and understood the policy manual about 7 days after they start with you. This goes on their personnel file. Often the act of needing to sign the form is enough to spur people to action.
- Choose a topic or clump of information and discuss it in your monthly team meeting.
- Have an employee make a presentation about a policy to the rest of the team.
- Run a competition to find certain words within policies following a series of clues.
- Discuss the policies with your team leaders - in particular anything where they are vicariously liable for the actions of their employees.
- Hand out copies of a particular policy to your employees (such as leave) when asking for who wants to take School holidays off.
- Leave post-it note messages on desks referring to a particular policy (such as computer useage)
Business of the Week - Webjet
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Webjet is an online booking company that helps you search for the best flights to your Australian destinations. So what? There are a tonne of websites that do that I hear you say.
But where Webjet excels is levering the information they have and maximising their automated system. The best way to explain is to tell you about our experience this week.
This week I booked some flights for myself and my family to Sydney using Webjet. Nice smooth interface, easy to follow instructions and clear booking.
They had a lovely subtle up-sell of things such as insurance, car hire adn hotels. Nothing in your face, just subtle and understated.
The magic came a few hours after the booking was finalised - another email thanking me for booking with them and to show their appreciation a free city guide to Sydney.
The guide had very useful information about things to do and see - and surprise, surprise I could book for some of these through Webjet. Brilliant marketing!
It was only a little thing and would have been very easy to set up with their auto-responder program, but the fact that they had the right destination, with useful free information combined with a hearty thanks made a load of difference about my experience of Webjet.
What little things could you do after the sale has completed to convert a happy customer to a raving fan?
Well the paralympics have been and gone ... and a cat stuck in a wall of a house got more coverage than the competition! Is it just me or is something wrong here with the news coverege?
Does your writing reflect your brand?
exuberantly yours
Ingrid
Heart Harmony
PS: This week's Small Business Tips blog also included posts about can you have too many printers and systems, systems, systems.
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