Insider Advertising Report

Chapter 6: Headline

In advertising, no headline = no Sales.

Yes, it's that serious.

Remember, you don't have much time with your prospect when it comes to advertising.

In a few seconds, you must be able to capture their attentions so that they will seriously look at your offer.

The only way to do that is by having a powerful headline.

What is a powerful headline?

A powerful headline is one that can achieve 2 main objectives:

1. It highlights the Unique Selling Preposition (USP) of your offer.
   
   USP is the uniqueness of your product or service that make you different.
2. It answers the question, "What's in it for ME?".
   
   'ME' refers to the visitor.

Let's look at some successful headlines I've come across...

USP : They are Singaporean who managed to make money online.

What's in it for me? : They will show the visitors how to do it.

This ad has generated thousands of leads to the advertiser.

Here's another good headline:

USP : Making money in the bull market is what everybody knows. What many people do not know is they can also make money in bear and flat market, and it only takes them 15 minutes a day!

What's in it for me? : They will show the visitors how to do it.

This ad has helped to fill the seats of the advertiser's seminars.

What if your product or service has no USP?

Actually, that is impossible.

USP is something you choose to focus on, to make your product stand out.

For example, if you are selling a seminar teaching people how to make money from the stock market only in a bull market, you can say something like

Your trading method may not be able to trade in a bear or flat market, but it is simple to follow and easy to understand. That will be your USP!

Does A Headline Degrade Your Corporate Image?

Some people feel that a big prominent headline looks ugly and low class.

Many of them prefer to hide the headline in some colorful pictures or make it blend into the rest of the content of their sales pages.

I've seen such ads again and again and none of them have made it through!

Let me repeat this. If you do not have a prominent headline, you are prepared to lose a lot of sales.

Moreover, the idea that having a big and prominent headline looks ugly and low class is 100% not true.

Let me prove to you with the following case study.......

Case Study - BIG headline degrades corporate image?

I remembered having an advertiser telling me that they cannot have a headline because it looks unprofessional and it affects their corporate image.

In their first advertisement with us, they chose to advertise their nice advertising page as shown below:


Looks like one of those advertisements you see in newspapers or flyers isn't it?

This ad may work in print media such as newspaper or flyers, but it will not work in online advertising.

I told the advertiser that a sales page should have a headline and a call to action.

They said the headline is there - "Free. Join to Win $2000!"

The call to action is also there - "67755800".

Not wanting to argue, we rolled out the ad.

The response was disappointing.

As I've said in Chapter 2, people are busy. They are not going to search for your headline or figure out which of the many texts is your headline. Neither are they going to figure out which is the call to action.

If they look at your sales page and can't relate it to themselves or their needs, they will leave.

I didn't want to lose a big customer like them. So I told them that I'll write them a sales page. If they think the sales copy looks unprofessional and it doesn't reflect their corporate image, they can choose not to use it.

Before I prepared their sales page, I asked them one important question:

"There are so many chatline services out there in the market. What makes you different from the rest?"

They thought about it and told me that they are the first chatline service in Singapore.

First chatline service in Singapore. That's a good USP, but still not good enough because there are so many in Singapore now.

So I asked them "Can I say it is also the most established and the most happening chatline service in Singapore?"

They said yes.

With the information given, I created the following sales page for them.


I hope you can see from this example that having a headline will not degrade your company's image.

The advertiser was happy with the design and we rolled out the ad. The response this time was overwhelming and the advertiser had since been advertising with us again and again.

Let's look at the ad again and see if we can learn something from it.

USP : Fasttalk is the most happening chat party in Singapore. For those who like to chat, this is exactly what they are looking for. Who wants to join a party with no crowd?

What's in it for me? : Chat for free, make new friends and win $2000 cash.

Being the first and most established chat line service in Singapore is not only a USP, but also a great confidence booster.

This brings us to the next component of a sales page, the Content.