When it comes to copywriting, one of the most important pieces of the puzzle is your “headline”.  This is the main headline found at the top of your sales letter.  You see, people are busy.  They are busy jumping around from one thing to the next.  Visitors have multiple tabs open on their browsers.  Visitors have “Internet ADD” and they are going a million miles a second.  They switch from one thought to the next thought, to the next — FAST!

You have just a “quick moment” to capture them.  If your headline does it’s job right, the visitors “commit” to reading more.  They subconsiously “commit/invest” in reading the rest of your salesletter, or at least commit to checking it out further.  The headline is critical… paramount… crucial… and the headline is often the one part that most newer marketers screw up.

You see, most newer marketers write the headline first, then carry on writing the rest of their sales copy.  Once they get in the flow of writing, their writing gets better down the salesletter and they actually start writing better headlines further down the salespage.  When I critique copy, I spend most of the time looking at the headline and sub-headline.  I also spend a great deal of time looking at the “main offer”.

The main offer (or main hook) of the sales page is THE MOST IMPORTANT part to making a sale. If your stuff is not converting, then it’s likely the copywriting is bad… or if you have done a lot of hard work on the copy and it’s still not converting, likely your offer is just not compelling and people dont want to buy that thing.  An offer is critical and often times, all you have to do is tweak your “offer/hook/USP” and the thing will start selling.

Back to headlines…

I think most newer marketers screw-up their headlines.  I’ve seen the worst headlines on Earth and I often think those headlines were written in less than 5 minutes… never to be looked at or tweaked again.  I think it’s somewhat human nature to think once you’ve done something, it’s done.  It’s over with, not to be worked on again.  Well, in marketing that’s a big mistake.  HUGE mistake.  The name of the game in marketing is to “convert” and that requires tweaking and testing… it requires putting in a lot of time, effort, energy and even money to get your stuff to convert.  Because once it converts, you can drive traffic from all over the Internet!

Back to headlines…

One of the best ways I’ve ever heard “headlines” explained was from Tony Blake.  He told me years ago that a headline should “disrupt their flow”.  That’s an amazing way to explain “headlines” and it’s dead-spot-on!  Your headline should disrupt your visitors “flow”.  They are looking for answers, looking around, dancing around with “Internet ADD” and when they read your headline, it should disrupt that flow and get them to STOP that flow and read more!  Brilliant

When I write headlines, I write a bunch of them… tweak them… keep tweaking them… keep playing with them…. keep analyzing them… etc.  I’ll write a headline for an hour!  Then, leave it alone for a day, come back and tweak it again.  I’ve written headlines, only to come back a month later and think to myself, “That’s a crappy-ass headline!”  Then, redo it yet AGAIN!  Sometimes changing just one word of a headline can make a huge difference too!

Never.

Stop.

Testing.

And.

Tweaking!

Therefore, here are some of my favorite templates for writing headlines:

(1)   How To _____ Even If You Are _____ And ______.

For example:  How To Write Powerful Headlines Even If You Are Broke And Dumb!

(2)   How I Took A Bunch Of ______ and Showed Them How To ____ And How You Can Do The Exact Same Thing!

Example:  How I took a bunch of clueless newbies and showed them how to write powerful headlines… and how you can do the exact same thing right here and right now!

(4)   What If You Could ______!?!

(5)   Imagine If You Could _____!

Example:  What if you could make money without spending money!?!
this example is a question but I like to use two exclamation points and one question mark like so:  !?!
this is a great sub-headline template to use lower on your salesletter (in the body copy)
I also like using this one on sales videos!

(6)   Who Else ______

Example:  Who Else Wants To Convert Like A Super-Guru And Double Their Income Overnight!?!
Example:  Who Else Wants To Double Their Income Virtually Overnight Using Amazon Kindle!?!

(7)  Here’s A Formula That Is Helping People To _______

Example:  Here’s a formula that is helping newbies earn their first $1000 online the first week!

(8)   If You ________, then _______

Example:  If you want to earn money by this weekend, then this formula works even if you’ve never made squat!

(9)   Now You Can ____ even if you _____

Example: Now you can write converting sales copy, even if you cant spell or have never written a salesletter in your life!

(10)  Revealed!  A ____ Way To _____ Quickly And Easily!

Example:  REVEALED!  A Masterful Way To Earn Passive Income With Social Media, EASILY!

Now, of course there are many other headline templates beyond these listed above.  These just happen to be some of my favorites.  If you have more ideas for templates you like, post them in the comments and I might add them to this main post for you.  I’d also bookmark this post and use it as a reference.  Or you know what to do.

BONUS ADVANCED TIP:

One little known technique I love to use is making your salesletters more like an advertorial.  This is where your salesletter does not start out looking like a salesletter at all.  It looks more like an article you wrote.  These work!  You see, I learned from a great guy (Blair Warren) a little secret on persuasion that is HUGELY powerful!  Blair explains it like this:

“People are resistant to sales attempts”

“People are not resistant to sales attempts they do not detect”

Therefore, if you start out your advertorial or salesletter to seem more like an article (where it educates the reader) and then transitions into a sales pitch… that sales pitch will not seem like a “knock them over the head sales attempt” and seem more like a “recommendation”.  This works beautifully in your auto-responder emails too!  Here’s a little more on how to pull this off and an example:

“How To Write Compelling Headlines And Double Your Conversions Instantly!”
By Eric Louviere

By putting “By Eric Louviere” right under the headline, it already looks more like an article than a sales letter.  From there I’d start off by educating the reader and teaching stuff in my writing.  I’d take them by the hand and steward them through my “article” only to transition into a sales pitch (subtle sales pitch).  I’d use a transition word like “in fact”… like this here:

And that’s how you go about writing compelling headlines and increasing your conversions.  But it does not stop there at either.  There’s other tricks and techniques to increasing your conversions and the more tricks of the trade you know for persuasion, the more money you are going to make, period!  you should spend a great deal of your time learning copywriting, sales and persuasion because it will impact your bank account more than just about anything else you can do as a marketer!

In fact, I have an entire report based on copywriting and it has been a catalyst for thousands of marketers already!  This report covers all sorts of persuasion tricks and copywriting lessons.  Some have said it’s changed their markeketing lives and this report has received so many testimonials I’ve lost track.  you can get it here:

Ad Influence!

(now, that report is free but make believe it was for sale).

that technique of teaching (educating) and then transitioning into a sales pitch can sometimes out-convert the best “knock them over the head” sales pitches around!

All in all, even if you plan on never writing a lick of sales copy yourself, studying sales, copywriting and persuasion is one of the best things you could ever do to increase your income.  Most marketers who enter this industry probably spend less than 10% of their time, resources and energy on studying copywriting, sales, etc. and it should probably be the other way around… where 90% of their time, energy and focus is put on copywriting, persuasion and sales.  And, then, they wonder where all the money is hiding at.

Respectfully,

Eric Louviere

PS - Blair Warren has a book called “Forbidden Keys To Persuasion” and that is one of the best, if not the best book I have ever read on persuasion.  It’s deep… it’s pervocative… but it’s truly facinating and has changed my persuasion/copywriting forever!   In fact, here’s the testimonial I left him for the book and is found on his salesletter:

“This is the most intelligent and articulate book I have ever read on persuasion. It is truly masterful and in the right hands can transform not only your business and marketing, but you!

I give this book my five star endorsement, two thumbs way up and would recommend it to anyone and everyone who is actually ready to discover why people do the things they do, including buying or not buying your products. Just get it and read the living heck out of it.”

Eric Louviere – EricLouviere.com

PPS – You can get that book here (not an affiliate link either):

PERSUASION!