Writing a Headline

The headline of your sales page/advertisement is the most important part of your whole sales process.  Especially in this Internet age of whiz-bang shiny object syndrome - If you don't grab the user's attention, they're gone.  A good headline is more important now than ever...

 

What makes a good headline?

 

1. Appeal to the self-interest of the user: "Be financially free for the rest of your life!"

2. Make it seem easy and quick: "You can be financially free in 5 days!"

3. Attract curiosity: "How a fool stunt made me financially free!"

4. Stay away from the negative: avoid "You could go bankrupt, or you could be financially free"

5. Try to summarize in a few words what would make you actually whip out your wallet as the consumer and pay good money for the product you're advertising.  That's your headline.

 

These headline laws are obviously not made up by me - they're time tested truths about advertisting.  They're advertising laws I'm reading right now in John Caples Tested Advertising Methods, which is a legendary advertising/marketing book.  You would think that after 100 years of testing headlines that most advertisers (especially the big ones) would get it right, but here's a couple of headlines I logged onto latimes.com and pulled today:

 

This ad for boeing jobs doesn't describe anything for anyone.  It's accompanied by a picture of a man holding a kid in the air.  The kid seems to be reaching for something.

STILL REACHING?  - boeing.com/careers

 

This ad for Standard Pacific Homes doesn't describe their product, and doesn't even do a good job of attracting curiosity, as intended.  How would a potential customer be enticed to click on an ad with this heading?  There are no good pictures or other significant text associated with the banner.

WHERE DO YOU WISH YOU LIVED?

 

I'm still not sure what this ad is for... I'm not gonna click it either!  There's a picture of a couple barbequeing...  no other text at all.  What a waste of money!

TIME WELL SPENT - Avalon Del Rey

 

 

A couple that seem to have it nailed:

 

This ad for cars.com uses self-interest and curiosity to attract a person interested in buying a car and getting a good deal (that's everyone that buying a car).  Everyone wants a good deal, and they will click the ad just to find out what the four keys are.

HOW TO GET THE BEST DEAL ON YOUR CAR - Four keys to success

This ad in the personals section appeals to self-interest, and touches the curiosity and easiness factor.  It's a natural click if you're interested in losing weight.

WHY NOT GET THE RED CARPET RESULTS AND LOSE WEIGHT LIKE THE STARS? -  Non-surgical liposuction

 

 

John Caples says in his book that he's seen the same ad, no other modifications pull 19 times better with a targeted headline.  I think the key to that statement is that he tested one headline against another.  How would he otherwise have been able to know which one was better, much less an exact number like 19 times better?  My law is to follow the basic advertising rules, and test everything to make sure.  test and measure and test and measure and test and measure and test and measure and test .......

 

TG

--

>> There are only 10 kinds of people in the world - those that know binary and those that don't.

How to measure if people scroll down a sales letter

I wanted to be able to see how many people were scrolling down my sales letters, and presumably reading the text, so I came up with a cool use of javascript.

 

I found a piece of javascript code that tracks the mouse movement.  When it gets above a certain value on the y-axis, I submit a page in a hidden frame, and insert a database record to log that this person had scrolled down the page.

 

Here's the code for the hidden frame, inserted just above the closing </body> tag.

 

<iframe name="LogFrame" src="" width="0" height= "0"></iframe>

 

Here's the javascript code that tracks the mouse:

 

// THIS PIECE OF CODE TRACKS THE MOUSE, AND FIRES CODE TO DETERMINE WHETHER THE USER HAS SCROLLED DOWN THE PAGE OR NOT
// Detect if the browser is IE or not.
// If it is not IE, we assume that the browser is NS.
var IE = document.all?true:false

// If NS -- that is, !IE -- then set up for mouse capture
if (!IE) document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEMOVE)

//Set-up to use getMouseXY function onMouseMove
document.onmousemove = getMouseXY;

// Temporary variables to hold mouse x-y pos.s
var tempX = 0
var tempY = 0
var LogIt = 0

// Main function to retrieve mouse x-y pos.s

function getMouseXY(e) {
if (IE) { // grab the x-y pos.s if browser is IE
 tempX = event.clientX + document.body.scrollLeft
 tempY = event.clientY + document.body.scrollTop
} else {  // grab the x-y pos.s if browser is NS
 tempX = e.pageX
 tempY = e.pageY
} 

if (LogIt == 0 && tempY > 1500)
{  //this is where the frame is submitted with the page that will insert the record into the DB

 window.LogFrame.location.href = "ebook/LogScrollDown.aspx";
 LogIt = 1
}
 
return true
}

This method of scroll-tracking is far from perfect.  If the person is using a non-supported browser, or if cookies are turned off, it won't work.  If the person uses only their down arrows to scroll and never move the mouse, it won't work either.  But, it will work for around 95% of people, and that won't change from sales letter mod-to-mod, so it's a good test.

This technique has been very informative for me so far...

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>> There are only 10 kinds of people in the world - those that know binary and those that don't.

Tracking sales

I just added a "sales letter version" key to one of my sales pages.  I wanted to track the conversion percentages for each modification I made to the sales letter, now matter how miniscule.  I was tracking conversion percentages by day, but now I'm also tracking by "version."

 

Here's the breakdown:

 

Sales Letter Version (the version number of the text that's currently active)

Version Date (date the current version went into effect)

Splash Count (number of people that saw the sales letter)

Scroll Count (number of people that scrolled down, and presumably read, the sales letter)

Scroll % (scroll count / splash count)

Checkout Page Count (number of people that saw the checkout page)

Checkout Page % (checkout count / splash count)

Purchase Count (number of people that purchased)

Purchase % (purchase count / splash count)

 

With this quick overview, I can run a new headline for a day or two and see if it's more or less effective than the previous headline.  If I make changes frequently to my sales copy (which I do, daily), this method isn't very scientific.  First of all, it doesn't gather a large sample size if you change it too frequently, secondly, it doesn't take into account things like seasonal or day-of-week shopping patterns (like Wednesday sales traditionally greater than Monday sales).  The better way to do this would have been to run an A-B test for a longer period of time, sending some customers to each version of the sales letter and measuring them against each other.  But... this will do for now!

--

>> There are only 10 kinds of people in the world - those that know binary and those that don't.

Advanced Link Campaigns

I read an excellent SEO article about building a link farm by Andrew Goodman today.  The blog post covers a link campaign started by Autoblog to build massive backlinks.  They're giving away a free iPod Nano plus an FM transmitter to somebody who enters their contest.  In order enter their contest, you must link to at least 10 posts on their site, using your own words about why you liked those links.  Smart.  Deep links, expressive link text, massive backlinks from some quality places, all for a couple hundred dollars.

 

This type of campaign is most certainly not going to be smiled upon by Google, or any of the search engines, because it creates artificial cloudiness of link relevance.  Would any of those people have posted the links naturally if they didn't have the chance to win an iPod?  I don't think so - and this is a nightmare for G in much the same fashion that purchased links are controversial right now... 

 

Andrew speaks of the consequences to the SEO industry if this type of stuff catches on.  He's right - it muddies the waters for everyone involved - but I guarantee that webmasters don't think about the future consequences of their linking actions - they just want to rank better!  Google will have to figure out a way to exclude the links that come from un-natural sources, because as it stands they use " computer programs that rank web pages in large part by examining the number and relative popularity of the sites that link to them" and the text that's used in the link.

 

Watch out for this tactic - it's gonna get ugly!

 

TG

--

>> There are only 10 kinds of people in the world - those that know binary and those that don't.

Never sell your product - always sell service. Any obvious sales language in a sales letter will create a corresponding amount of purchase resistance. These are the wise words of Claude Hopkins in his books My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising. These books were written in the mid 1920's but the principals are still valid today.

In the real world, this is a free tasting of cheese at the grocery store, or a coupon for a free can of beans. In the Internet world, it's a free match.com account - you don't pay until it's proven to you that it's worth it. It could also be a free trial period for some software. It could be online banking. It could be a content site that provides information, and makes money on hosting PPC ads.

If you're selling something on the Internet - information in particular - give a little away to get a lot in return. Build some confidence and credibility with the customer and they'll reward you with a purchase.

For example, if you're selling an e-book, give away a top 10 list (or a white paper, or a taste of your software) in exchange for an email address. You build cred with the customer, and get the ability to send a couple of email marketing messages to them.

Measuring Conversion

Everyone these days talks so much about advertising, PPC, SEO, pop this and blog that.  I guess everyone is just realizing that you can pay to send people to your site... woo hoo!  Big deal - you've always been able to do this, it's just becoming available to the masses now.

 

The real question, as far as I'm concerned, is how many of those people buy something!  Or, in some cases, how many perform the desired action (filling out a form to become a lead, for instance.)  You can send a lot of traffic to your site, but the only way to know whether it's effective traffic is to measure, measure, tweak, and measure.

 

On nearly all of my e-commerce sites that sell an item with a sales copy letter, I measure the following items.

1. Number of people that landed on the sales page, and where they came from

2. Number (and %) of people that actually scrolled down to near the bottom of the sales page

3. Number (and %) of people that clicked through to the checkout page

4. Number (and %) of people that purchase

 

From these numbers I can tweak my sales letter constantly and monitor the resulting customer actions.  If the % goes up, the change becomes permanent, if it goes down, it's rolled back.  This allows me to send a small amount of traffic to the site and tweak the copy until I know that my larger (more $$, more risk) advertising campaign will not be wasted.

 

Sales copy doesn't come naturally to me the way it does to some people, but my ability to be patient and measure the success of each mod ensures my eventual success.

--

>> There are only 10 kinds of people in the world - those that know binary and those that don't.

mann's chinese

I guess Johnny Depp is a big draw these days. Usually they only close down Hollywood Blvd for movie premiers and awards ceremonies... You can't read it very well, but there is a sign hung over the Mann Chinese that says says Johnny Depp will be there tomorrow to put his hands and feet into cement.


Good Afternoon All,

Please be advised that Johnny Depp will be making his mark on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Friday, 9/16/05. Due to this event, the following streets and curb closures will be in effect:

Temporary closure of curb lane on North side of Hollywood Blvd. from Orange Avenue to Highland Avenue from 4:00AM to 3:00PM

Temporary closure of curb lane on South side of Hollywood Blvd. from Orange Avenue to mid-block east to crosswalk from 4:00AM to 3:00PM

North sidewalk of Hollywood Blvd. closed to pedestrian traffic from the northeast corner of Orange Avenue east to Awards Walk at Hollywood & Highland, beginning at 4:00AM and re-opening at 3:00PM. During this closure, pedestrian access will be available for the Hollywood & Highland facility from Awards Walk to the western entrance into H&H.

what the?

Finding an Online Marketing Consultant

I've got a web site that needs some paid traffic.  I'm willing to pay the right person to manage that flow of traffic for me.  I'm having a very hard time finding the right person for the job...

 

I can find all kinds of people/companies that specialize in adwords.  It's pretty easy to find someone that does direct mail.  There are lots of companies out there that will start a popup campaign for you.  But I can't find anyone that will manage an online advertising campaign across all avenues.  I'm looking for all PPC (adwords, overture, mamma, findwhat, etc...), banners, popups, classifieds, email, sponsored e-zines, purchased links, and everything else.  I need someone that can review the product, implement the campaign, and measure the conversions and ROI.  At some point it would be nice to test the waters with offline marketing - some direct mail, flyers, postcards, etc.

 

This sort of person/company must exist somewhere, and my money is burning a hole in my pocket... guess I'll keep searching.

--

>> There are only 10 kinds of people in the world - those that know binary and those that don't.

Smokey and Max

Here's a picture of my two dogs... if you've ever met my dogs, you know the irony of the devil and angel costumes... Smokey is the lab, and maximus is the maltese.

Blog One

This is the first post to travis.giggy.com. Hopefully there will be many more. I hope to stay up-to-date with the things that I'm most interested in. SEO, internet marketing, e-business, technology, programming, to name a few.

I'll post when I can, when I should - this is a journal for myself to keep track of the cool tools and tricks that I occasionally find to help me with my job. I may also post a rant now and then when I gain some insight to what works for e-biz. Also, Hollywood can be interesting at times so I may post a picture or two of the happenings around where I live.

Here's to learning lots about this wacky web...

TG