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In Practice: Juliet's Marketing Wisdom:
Creating Powerful Headlines for Your Promotional Materials
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by Juliet Austin |
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If you are like many healing professionals, you probably write your own marketing materials without really knowing what you are doing. While this may appear to save you money in the short term, in the long run, it could actually be costing you money.
How can this be so? It is because copywriting, the science and art of writing for the purpose of selling, is not something most healing professionals know how to do, and yet, it plays a huge role in how people make their decisions when buying products and services.
This article discusses one aspect of effective copywriting: your opening headline--the first words you use on any of your promotional materials.
Effective headlines grab people’s attention in the increasingly crowded market. Strong headlines set your readers up to want more. They draw your prospects in and convince them to stay around and read the rest of your copy.
Statistics vary, although some have found that about 80% of prospects will read your headlines, but only about 20% of them will read the rest of your copy. In fact, many people will make their decision whether or not to follow through on your offer based on the headline alone. Headlines are seen as being the key to well written copy so much so that experienced copywriters often spend as much time crafting a headline as they do writing the body of the copy.
Writing an effective headline is not any easy task if you don’t understand the principles involved. Following the points below will provide you with a beginning understanding of how to write a strong headline.
Know your Audience
Headlines that are directed towards a specific audience bring the best results. When you understand the market you are writing for, you can pinpoint the problems, concerns and desires they have. You are likely wasting your time and money if you gear your headline towards a general audience, as you can’t possibly address the needs and desires of everyone in a single headline.
Focus on a Core Problem or Benefit
Your potential clients are usually seeking relief for some kind of discomfort or pain. Your headlines should show that you understand this pain. For example, if you target people with chronic back pain, you might focus on the fact that these people feel frustrated and fed-up with their inability to find relief, are unable to sleep at night, are not functioning well at work, or are short tempered with family members.
Alternately, you could focus your headline on the solution your audience is seeking. In the example of people with back pain, your headline would mention how good they could feel after treatments with you and how this will benefit them in their life.
Focus on One Idea
Once you have the core idea that you want to convey in your headline, stick with it and don’t muddle it by trying to combine other ideas. If you try to address too much, your headline will be diluted and consequently ineffective. This can be challenging, as you really have to commit to one area of focus and not get sidetracked by other points regardless of how important they seem.
Make Your Headline Simple and to the Point
Your headline should get to the point immediately. Don’t make your prospective clients struggle to understand its meaning. Avoid jargon words that are used in your profession. Stick to plain, simple language that a twelve year old can easily understand.
Make it Compelling
Your headline should compel people to want to read more of your copy. Make it exciting. Evoke curiosity, or intrigue. When your ideal clients read your headline, they should sit up and pay attention. Persuade them right off the bat that there is a high chance that they might want to know more about your product or service.
Make it Believable
While you want your headline to be compelling, it’s important that it’s also believable. Don’t make claims that sound too good to be true or people won’t take you seriously. Having said this, in my experience, most healing professionals undersell their services and are consequently more prone to not making their headline compelling enough, as opposed to pushing it beyond the limits of believability.
Speak to Your Prospective Clients’ Emotions
People make their buying decisions based on their emotions and then use their logic to rationalize their decisions. Identifying the core emotions people are feeling shows that you understand them and helps increase trust that you know what you are talking about, thus illustrating that you have something to offer them.
Track the Results of your Headlines
Experienced marketers test different headlines and then track the results of each one. You will never know what impact a headline will have until you test it. Once you find one that is working, you can always improve it until you get even better results. There are many ways to test your headlines depending on where you are using them. You can set up what is called a “split test” where you track the conversion rates of different headlines.
If you don’t know how to set up a split test and don’t want to spend the time learning how to do this, at the very minimum, always ask your prospective clients where they heard about you and why they called. Then make sure you track this information.
Writing strong headlines takes knowledge, practice and skill. If you feel stuck or want to get the best results possible, hire an experienced copywriter to write your headlines for you. |
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Juliet Austin, MA
Marketing Coach, Consultant & Copywriter
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Juliet Austin has a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology and worked as an educator, researcher and counselor for over 20 years.
In the late 90's Juliet completed a career change into the field of marketing when she Graduated from CoachU, The Institute of Life Coach Training and became a member of the School of Coaching at Coachville. Juliet also completed numerous courses and classes on marketing, Internet marketing and website copywriting and promotion.
She is a member of several professional organizations including The International Association of Coaches, The Canadian Counselling Association, Healers in Business and The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies.
As a Marketing Coach, Consultant and Copywriter, Juliet assists healing professionals and socially responsible business owners who are struggling to attract clients or sell their products. She helps her clients in overcoming resistances to marketing, develop and implement no or low-cost marketing strategies for both on and off the Internet, write compelling website copy and promote their websites.
Juliet writes for several publications both on and off the Internet. Her articles have appeared in publications in Canada, the US and in Australia. In addition, she is also co-author with Sue Bond of the ebook: How To Become A Coach: A Guide for Therapists and Counselors.
Juliet also leads workshops and teleclasses on various marketing topics for those involved in the spiritual, metaphysical and healing arts.
Assisting healing professionals in marketing a practice has become a creative and intellectual form of self-expression for Juliet. Being an ideas person who thrives on change and variety, she is constantly developing new projects. Her ongoing quest for knowledge as well as the passion she has for marketing and her work with her clients ensures that she stays current with cutting-edge on and off-line marketing methods.
Juliet is the author of the Free Report, " 67 Surefire Ways To Attract Clients" which you can get at:
www.julietaustin.com
For more information about Juliet's services, visit her website at:
www.julietaustin.com
or one of her blogs at:
www.marketingaprivate
practice.com
and:
www.websitedesignand
promotion.com
Juliet can also be reached at:
604.730.1838
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