I was in London last week, visiting my mum.
While lounging around and watching a little TeeVee (I don’t have one at home), I couldn’t help but criticise the vast majority of what’s supposed to pass for advertising.
My younger brother, a lawyer and much more intellingent than I could hope to be, couldn’t understand why.
You see, like too many people, my brothers have the notion that if an advert looks good and wins awards, then it’s a success.
So I asked my brother one simple question…
“Assume you’ve just paid an agency to create an ad for you. It’s looks good; it entertains its audience; and it even wins awards. But… it fails to get you any sales. You make no money from it. Basically, that agency has just used your money to improve its own profile. How would you feel?”
He replied he wouldn’t be too pleased.
Then I asked him if he understood the difference between a good ad and a bad one. And he replied he did.
A good ad is one which makes money for the advertiser. A bad ad is one which doesn’t.
End of story.
Filed under Advert, Advertiser, advertising, Money, Success by on Apr 10th, 2010. Comment. 
I’m sitting here tired and falling asleep. Too tired to write but, here goes nothing…
When you write a headline, make sure it’s alive.
Give the reader a reason to feel restless… stir his emotions… pique his interest till he can’t bear it, and he just has to read on to see what’s coming next.
A headline, of course, is… AN AD FOR YOUR AD! Gary Halbert
Your headline should demand to be read. It should stop your reader in his tracks and create an irresistible desire to read further and find out more.
On the average, 5 times as many people read the headlines as the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells, you’ve wasted 90% of your money. David Ogilvy
The right headline can mean the difference between doubling your readership, and more. According to John Caples, one headline increased sales by 19 times against another.
When one advert brings in twice as many responses as another, despite the only difference being the headline, it stands to reason one headline is alive and the other is dead. And, when something is alive it can go to work and get results. If it’s dead, it can’t do anything.
…Your headline is the most important part of your website Michel Fortin
This is a fact regardless of where your advertising is – whether it’s online, in a magazine or a newspaper, or anywhere else. The principles of advertising are the same everywhere. There may be minor changes required from one medium to another, as in print or on television, but the principles will remain the same.
What your headline must do is to grab your prospect by the eyeballs and keep them glued to your advert. And, by the law of averages, if more people read your ad, then more will respond.
When writing your headline you always need to keep in mind that everyone is busy. Especially with the internet, no one really wants to read any more as they used to.
So you will have to ensure your headline is like the proverbial arrow that hits your reader right between the eyes. It’s got to be so interesting to your reader he can’t tear his eyes away. When you can manage that, you know you’ve hit the bullseye.
And you don’t get a second chance to hit that bullseye. Once your prospect loses interest and leaves – that’s it, end of story.
So here’s what you need to do – according to John Caples there are three types of headlines you should be looking to write if you want it to be successful:
- Self-interest – This type of headline is the best as it involves something that appeals to his interest, his desires. Remember that all he cares about is what he gets out of it.
- News – This can be something that is new, or a new angle on something old. Combine this one with something which is of interest to your reader and you could have a home run.
- Curiosity – As the name suggest, this is the type of headline which piques the interest of your reader. This type of headline, while it can work, is more of a gamble. If the reader is curious he may or may not bother to read it as it does not appeal to his selfish wants.
Remember that the headline needs to make a big promise. You can’t afford to mess around here by trying to be funny — or clever — or arrogant – and you certainly should not make any assumptions of your reader. He doesn’t have to read your copy at all. So you need to give him a bloody good reason to take time out of his busy day to read your ad.
Take a look at these headlines (taken from John Caples’ Tested Advertising Methods)
- “NO… NO… DON’T CALL ON ME!”
- THE ODDS ARE 9 TO 1 AGAINST YOU
- “I’LL NEVER GIVE ANOTHER PARTY,” SHE SOBBED
- A TEST OF HOW “WELL READ” YOU ARE
- IS WORRYING ROBBING YOU OF THE GOOD THINGS OF LIFE?
And how about Yahoo!’s latest offering:
This time it’s personal. It’s y!ou
Now, I don’t know about you, but the only thing to go through my mind when I saw that was, “What!?“
When you think that this excuse for an ad is actually competing with successful one’s it makes you wonder how long this company will stay in business with advertising like that.
I’ll bet the advertising agency has made enough to survive for some time, though.
What it boils down to is this, if these adverts fail to capture the attention of the intended audience, then the ad has failed. That’s all there is to it.
Not one of these headlines makes any big promises. None contains anything that promises any benefit to the reader, nor do they offer any news.
So keep that in mind – if you want your headline to succeed, make sure it promises something to the reader. Make sure it works on his emotions – his wants and his desires.
Oh, one last thing, unlike with my blog, when I write a sales letter I take a heck of a lot longer to come up with a healined. Not a few minutes, or even a few hours. It can take days… and involve a LOT of writing.
Best,
Rezbi
Filed under Advert, advertising, copywriting, David Ogilvy, Emotions, Gary Halbert, Headlines, Irresistible Desire, John Caples, Michel Fortin, Money by on Nov 14th, 2009. 4 Comments.
No one reads your advert just for the sake of reading it. If you want your reader to continue to read your advertising, give him a reason to do so. Otherwise he will take one look and switch off. You’d be surprised by the numbers of ads which actually do just that.
When you write a sales letter, don’t make it so blatantly obvious you’re selling something. And certainly do NOT make it dull.
You cannot bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it. David Ogilvy
What you want to ensure is to write your advert in such a way as to ensure your reader’s attention is grabbed… and kept. This is what increases the value of your advert: The fact that people actually remain interested in it from the headline to the subhead; from the subhead to the first paragraph; from the first paragraph to the next. And so on.
As you can see from the paragraph, the sales message begins with the headline. If your headline can grab your reader’s attention by the eyeballs, and keep hold of it, 80 to 90 percent of the job of the ad is accomplished.
… the headline is 50 to 75 percent of the advert. John Caples
David Ogilvy went even further. He said:
On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.
When you take into account the fact your headline is competing with other headlines, especially if your advert is in a print magazine or newspaper, you can see why it’s even more important to get it right.
One way to ensure you have a successful headline is to ensure it contains some news element. You could announce a new product; a new way of doing something which already exists or a new way of making use of it; a new way of saving money. Or basically anything with news which pulls at the heartstrings of your reader: An emotional desire.
Whatever it is you say you need to make a big promise. As far as your reader is concerned it has to be worth his while taking the time to stop everything else and reading your message.
Leave your comments and let me know what you think.
Best,
Rezbi
Filed under Advert, advertising, copywriting, David Ogilvy, Desire, Headlines, Heartstrings, John Caples, Reason, Sales Message by on Nov 1st, 2009. Comment.
I’ve got to ask you, how does a rookie, as so many of us are, know a scam from a great gift, and for nothing? Smells like an elephant to many of us, high and stinky. How do you know wats great or con?
That’s the specific question one of my readers asked me via email.
Now, it’s not usual that I reprint anything form emails word for word, but in this case I thought it necessary.
You see, for a long time I resisted writing a post like this… and… even if I did write one I tended to delete it almost immediately after.
The reason for that is there seems to be an almost unwritten rule that no one writes negative things about other marketers no matter what… or suffer the consequences.
And, being only human, that kinda made me a little nervous.
However, after receiving numerous emails similar to the one above, I figure I owe it to my readers to say something.
The good thing is, the scam artists are fewer than I originally believed.
The bad news is, the ones who do exist are… how can I put it… scum.
And they probably deserve to get locked up, not for just conning people, but for the hardship they put those people through.
Not everyone who gets conned suffers as they probably do have enough cash, jobs, etc. which means they’re still okay.
There are those, however, who don’t have backup and tend to dive into something through desperation.
Believe me I know… I was one of them.
Anyway, I’m going to describe one incident which really made me think about internet marketers, and which initially led me to believe they were all scum.
Of course, I don’t think that any more as I’ve educated myself and know a little more than I did.
It was in 2005, when I saw an advert by a very prominent internet marketer promoting their coaching and promising much, with amazing testimonials.
These testimonials were written and video… of real people… or so I thought.
I found out later, when it was too late and by accident, that those same people in those videos were working for a number of other people.
Some of them even had their pictures on various other sites advertising myriad other things.
In effect, their testimonials were outright lies and they were probably paid to do them.
Anyway, going back to the coaching…
This coaching cost me $4,000.
The thing is, once I was on there, I realised it wasn’t being run by the internet marketer promoting it…
It was outsourced to a different company.
I couldn’t believe it.
However, being fairly new to the industry I figured maybe this is how it’s done.
Cutting a long story short, I knew I’d been totally conned when I sent a specific email asking for advice, and received a generalised reply.
In fact, here’s a few excerpts from those emails…
Hello *****,
I’m sorry I feel that I am not getting the service that I signed up for. I realise that this is a coaching program but, the first session consisted of a recorded video telling me how to get myself set up as a business/sole trader, in my case, when I was expecting to be coached on how to start and internet business. I was told that after each session I just need to be patient until the next session.
I feel that I have paid a lot of money for this and “to be patient” is not something I was expecting to be told. When I spoke to you guys (not you particularly) I did mention that I really need to get going with this as I was paying for it with a credit card and I do not have a job to make the repayments. As a result, I need to be earning rapidly. I was told by the person who called regarding the coaching that I will not even be setting up a web site for at least two months. In fact, I would not even start working on one until then.
I cannot wait that long. I am in a lot of trouble right now if I can’t make these payments to my card. I would really appreciate it if you would please issue me with a refund as I have a family to feed as well as making these rapayments.
Thank you,
Rezbi
They knew my situation before I got on their ‘coaching’ course.
Here’s another…
Hello,
This is a message for S*** L***: I was told I should be receiving a call from, I think it was J***, on Monday regarding my particular situation. I have not received that call. Please let me know if he will still be calling.
I have been going through the lessons that are available online but they are quite limited. I am emailing my coach to see if there is anything further I can do meanwhile.
Thanks,
Rezbi
You can see on the second one I was so angry I didn’t even feel like putting anyone’s name in the salutation.
Here’s a couple of others…
Hi,
I’ve sent emails before trying to get in touch with a coach with no luck and have tried phoning but can’t get through on the advisory line for some reason. Would someone please call me back ASAP. I am on **********.
Thanks,
Rezbi
I don’t know about you, but for $4,000 I expect a teensy weensy little bit more.
And this is the once which really sealed it for me…
Hi,
If your product ideas fit the suggestions that we gave you in course 3 and you can find a supplier, then go with it.
J*** R***
ihelp@*****.com
8*******—–Original Message—–
From: G N Rezbi [mailto:rezbi@feelinglazy.co.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 11:20 AM
To: J*** R***(icoach)
Subject: Re: ProductHi J***,
Thanks for that, I’ll do that. Just wondering what your thought are regarding my ideas?
Thanks,
Rezbi
If my product ideas fit the suggestions!?
I was a complete beginner and all I was looking for was the guy to take a look and give me his ‘expert’ opinion on whether or not it was a good market to go into.
For $4,000 of ‘coaching’ was that too much to ask for?
Now, fast forward a couple of years and I’m looking at another internet marketer promoting something similar.
Just out of curiosity I decide to give them a call.
A guy answered the phone and mentioned the name of the promoting company – seemed fair.
However, something didn’t sound right, so I asked the guy straight if they were the same company I had been with before.
Obviously I didn’t use those words, they didn’t know who I was.
He replied that, indeed, they were.
I don’t know what happened, but I’m guessing they got found out, wound up their old company, and started a new one…
Doing the exact same thing.
Suffice to say I wouldn’t have gone with them even if I needed to.
The really funny thing is, the internet marketer promoting their ‘coaching’ is another very highly regarded company just like the first one.
Or, are all those testimonials for them lies, too?
Now, I can’t tell you for sure how you can know who’s out there to con you and who’s not.
What I can tell you is, the majority seem to be okay.
So, my suggestion is, get on a few lists and begin to build a relationship with those people – find out who you can trust through the way they ’speak’ to you through their emails.
See if their recommendations for products are any good.
You may end up getting some of those products, if you feel they’re something you need, but please don’t buy anything unless you’re sure…
Especially if they cost a lot of money.
Also, please, please, please… don’t buy anything if you don’t have the money.
If someone tells you to ‘leverage’ your credit cards to ‘invest’ in your business, just assume you’re leveraging your credit card to grow theirs… and run a mile.
Or, just delete the email or put the phone down.
Whatever it is you do to stop yourself getting scammed, do it.
Here’s what P. T. Barnum wrote in his excellent book ‘The Art of Money Getting’
Young men starting in life should avoid running into debt. There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt.
I would advise you to heed those words.
Filed under Advert, Internet Marketer, Internet Marketers, Scam Artists, Testimonials by on May 30th, 2009. Comment.
