Copywriting Headlines
Finally…it’s ready.
After 6 months of filming, editing, copywriting, and technical delay after technical delay, my latest – and literally greatest – Turbulence Training project is done.
And as ecstatic as I am about the final product, I’m also very pleased with how the sales copy and sales page turned out.
The copy came together as a result of what I’m going to teach you today, and you can read my best sales letter ever at:
www.HomeWorkoutRevolution.com
Thanks to one simple trick, the copy almost wrote itself.
(Big thanks to Mikey “Earnin’ his IHOP Pancakes” Whitfield for his help with that sales letter.)
Now to use this copy trick and kickstart the copywriting process, I had to drop and give myself 50.
No, not pushups.
Save these for later.
I mean 50 headlines.
Before I did anything else, I wrote out 50 possible headlines for this new project, and not only did it give me what I feel is a killer attention grabbing headline, but it also reminded me of the most important benefits to share within the copy.
This exercise gave me dozens of useful sub-headlines as well that could be interspersed throughout the letter.
And so “Write 50 Headlines” is the advice I’m giving to you today. It’s the best thing to do before you write your copy.
Trust me, it will all be worth it in the end…your sales letter will practically write itself once you’ve taken this step.
Here’s why you need to do this for your major copywriting projects…because the best sales messages are buried deeper in your mind than at the superficial level.
Your brain has better answers to your important questions than the ones that first come to mind.
That’s your 10-minute task for today…although it will likely stretch to 30-minutes or more.
If you’re working on new copy, or trying to improve a current sales message, or even thinking of names for your product, then I want you to dig deep and go beyond the wall…past your limit…to the point where you’re fighting to find ideas.
Again, trust me, it will be worth it, just like a marathoner finds a way to carry on in those last 6-8 miles of a race after they have hit the wall.
Go the distance. That’s where the reward lies.
That’s where you’ll find the big HOOK.
And as my mentor, Mark Ford says, “The hook is 80% of the copy.”
You can’t start writing the rest of your copy until you have a killer hook.
Put all of your focus and energy into the headline and into the first 100-300 words of your copy to hook the reader with emotion.
And never underestimate the power of words…the importance of how they are arranged…the emotion they must evoke. That’s why you need to have variation after variation, until you find the particular articulation.
“It’s not the general idea of the promise…but the “particular articulation of the message that matters,” Ford explained.
On that note, he said all of his employees always brought a tape recorder to his office because he would often say things in a particular way that could not be recreated later.
So when you have a big idea, make sure to whip out your iPhone and record the exact articulation of the message that you know contains the BIG HOOK – because that is what matters.
Sometimes you have a great idea that you can never get back, so make sure you always have a net to catch it.
And you’ll know when you have it, because it will have a visceral impact.
My friend Chris Haddad, author of Text The Romance Back, said this about copywriting, “Your message should make people feel like they got punched in the gut.”
So don’t hold anything back. Grab your favorite caffeinated beverage, go to your “happy writing place”, and write out 50 of the best, most creative, and even zaniest (no judging in your happy place!) headlines that come to mind.
There’s gold in this exercise.
Look to put more emotion and connection into creating your big hook. You’ll be amazed at what you find.
Let me know how it goes,
Craig Ballantyne
“Ideas go nowhere if they stay in your head.” – Dennis Crowley, FourSquare