Etika Marketing

Tag: copywriting

  • How to Write Kick-Ass Blog Headlines

    How to Write Kick-Ass Blog Headlines

    A powerful headline is more than a sexy phrase or sentence. It’s the hardest working collection of words in your entire blog post or article. Think of your headline as the gateway to your article.

    But, before we get into what goes into writing a powerful headline. I’d like to offer some advice: Write your blog post first and save the headline for later.

    An easy way to vapor-lock your brain with writer’s block is to obsess on the headline before writing your article. If you’re uncomfortable writing a blog post without something up top pretending to be a headline, then go ahead and write a placeholder. Even something silly, like “The Blog Post about Writing Headlines,” will do just fine.

    Direct response copywriters (people who sell using only persuasive words on the page) usually leave the headline for last, because they know that nothing else they wrote matters if the reader never gets past the headline. So it needs to be perfect. In fact, many of these same copywriters force themselves to write more than 100 headlines before selecting the one they believe will most likely succeed (assuming they can’t perform an A/B split test, which is hard to do with a blog post).

    Am I suggesting you write 100 blog post headlines? No, but you get the point (I hope). Now, back to the basics of what every strong headline needs.

    Put Your Topic In Your Headline (Yeah, it’s that simple)

    Otherwise, what’s the point? This is the promise or contract you make with your potential reader, as in “Here’s a blog post about writing headlines.” That potential reader will reasonably assume that they will see an article about writing headlines if they click the link.

    If you attempt to be cute and serve up an article that isn’t about writing headlines, then your reader will feel deceived, leave your site immediately, never share your content, never subscribe and—most importantly—never become a customer.

    Ideally, your headline should incorporate the primary keyword phrase that relates to your topic. Including your primary keyword phrase isn’t always possible, but give it a shot.

    Remember, your headline is often the first—and sometimes only—piece of content a potential reader will see in search engine results or on social media. So make your topic obvious.

    Use Specifics To Strengthen Your Promise and Draw Them In

    Okay, you now have your topic, but are you providing enough specifics so your potential reader can decide if they want to spend time with your content?

    What title sounds more appealing to you?

    Some Thoughts about Blog Post Headlines

    or

    How to Write Kick-Ass Blog Headlines

    “How to” implies useful, actionable information, as opposed to philosophical musings about the nature of headlines.

    Even better (if my blog post was structured this way):

    8 Tips for Writing Kick-Ass Blog Headlines

    In copywriting, specific numbers are your friend. “8 Tips” elaborates on your promise to provide useful information about writing headlines by the very fact you are giving your reader 8 tips.

    Specificity builds credibility.

    A weaker headline would be the vague and non-committal “Some Tips for Writing Kick-Ass Blog Headlines.”

    Grab Attention With Sexy Headlines

    Now, more than ever, your content is competing against a tsunami of content, all fighting for your audience’s eyeballs.

    The sexier you make your headline, the more people will read and share it. Strangely enough, people will often share a piece of content with a sexy title without even reading it first, simply because the headline sounds cool or provocative.

    So, what makes a headline sexy?

    The best headlines

    • Offer something desirable. (The Complete Formula For Creating Killer Offers)
    • Tease, arousing curiosity. (Double Your Traffic With This 5-Minute Trick)
    • Provoke, shock and challenge—and sometimes piss people off. (Content Marketing Is Dead)
    • Play against expectations. (Triple Your Leads By Writing Fewer Blog Posts)
    • Play off familiar or popular subjects. (Inbound Marketing’s Hogwarts Is Now In Session)
    • Use edgy language. (Why Your Blog Posts Suck)
    • Have fun and generate smiles. (Never Post Content While Drunk: A True Story)
    • NEVER, EVER use weak language, make vague promises or evoke a bored “so what?” response.

    If you want examples of sexy headlines, check out the covers of Cosmopolitan magazine and The National Enquirer. You might not be a fan of these publications, but the story headlines jump out at you.

    Keep It Tight And Punch It Up

    Cut all excess verbiage, use strong, active verbs when possible, and employ visual, compelling words that jump off the page.

    Here’s my first stab at one of the sample headlines I used above:

    The 5-Minute Trick You Can Use to Double Your Traffic

    “Can Use” is a weak verb choice, especially when I have a perfectly good verb available with “Double.”

    A little cutting and mixing yields:

    Double Your Website Traffic With This 5-Minute Trick

    It’s shorter and I managed to incorporate a better keyword phrase of “Website Traffic.”

    Deliver on Your Promise

    Finally, make sure your blog post delivers on the promise of your headline. Never over-promise on your headline and under-deliver on your blog post itself.

    Your blog post should be relevant to your headline and contain everything promised by the headline.

    Fail to deliver, and you’ve lost a reader, an advocate, and possibly a customer.

    Don’t Let Google Slash Your Headline

    Back in my days as a direct response (DR) copywriter, before SEO and Tweets chopped headlines into bite-sized morsels, a headline could run several lines long. One of veteran DR copywriter John Carlton’s most successful headlines from a golf info product website has 28 words and more than 170 characters:

    Amazing Secret Discovered By One-Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards To Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks and Slices… And Can Slash Up To 10 Strokes From Your Game Almost Overnight!

    But, Google, Bing, Yahoo and the other search engines now cut off page titles at 70 characters (your headline for a blog post would usually be your page title).

    If John Carlton’s monster classic were a blog post headline, it would appear in the search engine results as

    Amazing Secret Discovered By One-Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards To Your

    That’s it. All the impact is gone—gutted. So limit your blog post headlines to 70 characters or less.

     

    Writing headlines is a topic I’ve barely begun to touch with this blog post and I plan to visit it again in future posts. (In other words, it’s bedtime for me.)

    Please share your favorite headline resources in the comments below.

     

  • How to Recover from a “Marketing Malfunction”

    How to Recover from a “Marketing Malfunction”

    On October 31, I blogged about how one marketer dropped an f-bomb on his mailing list and paid the price with lost subscribers and customers.

    It was more of a “what not to do” post.

    Now I’d like to explore how you can recover from a blunder like this, the marketing equivalent of a “wardrobe malfunction.”

    More cynical people might assume spin doctoring is in order, but the simplest solution usually requires little more than eating a jumbo slice of humble pie. Be honest with your subscribers and customers and admit you screwed up.

    Let’s take a look again at our WordPress consultant’s marketing malfunction, when he dropped the f-bomb in an email subject line, not once, but twice.

    Subject: BYOB Live – How to Fix a WordPress Website that is Totally F**ked Up!

    Karl — Yes, I know that the f-bomb is entirely inappropriate for professional communication. But sometimes a site gets so messed up that polite language simply can’t capture the agony of owning it. Sometimes something happens that screws up a site so much that it makes you despair for your humanity. One of our members has such a site.

    In my previous post I discussed how his blunder cost him customers and subscribers, but let’s explore how he should have responded.

    First, he should have apologized immediately on the same day or no later than the next. This wouldn’t bring back the people who had already unsubscribed, but it might have given him a chance to make good with those on the fence. Maybe even recovered a few paying customers.

    Here’s one possibility for an apology email:

     Subject: BYOB Live – I am So Sorry!

    Karl – I owe you an apology for my earlier email. It was entirely inappropriate and I’m sorry if I offended you.

    I wanted to get your attention for what I truly believe is a critical issue for WordPress site owners. But I went too far. I promise it won’t happen again.

    I still would like you to attend this important webinar and I assure you that I will conduct this webinar in a professional manner with family-friendly language.

    Again, you have my sincerest apology. Here are the details for your webinar:

    The goal is to keep it simple—a sincere apology followed by a renewed invitation for the free webinar.

    Of course, he could have quietly taken his lumps and pretended it never happened. That’s what many businesses do, but I don’t recommend it—especially if you received a number of complaints.

    Yes, it’s damage control (not a bad thing if you’re sincere), but it’s also important for maintaining the relationship between your business and your customers/prospects. As an inbound marketer, your greatest asset is your relationship with your customers and prospects. It’s your job to repair any damage you do.

    Most businesses typically face problems other than profanity in their marketing communications. It’s often a technical glitch or a problem related to order processing, quality control, or customer service. But your response should be the same: Acknowledge your blunder and offer to make good on the problem.

    If it wasn’t your fault (like a major storm delayed product deliveries), then tell your customers that you understand their anger, concern, or inconvenience and are sorry they had to experience it. Acknowledging your customers’ pain or frustration goes a long way toward solving the prolem. Sometimes, people just want to know that they’ve been heard. And always be sincere in your response, not patronizing.

    But, if the screw up truly is yours, then respond according to the severity and your customers’ reactions. Always fix the problem. Then, if you feel that fixing the problem isn’t enough, offer them something of value, like a discount, an extension to a subscription, or a gift. Sure, it’s a bribe, but it’s also a good investment in retaining your customers.

    What stories do you have about marketing blunders and their resolution? Please share them below.

  • How to Lose Clients and Alienate Your Readership

    How to Lose Clients and Alienate Your Readership

    I was preparing this morning for my weekly webinar with the LinkedIn Inbound Networkers Group, where our topic was “Marketing Dos and Don’ts.” I remembered a doozy of a marketing “don’t” from two months ago: A pair of emails sent by a WordPress consultant to his email list. This consultant ran a paid membership site offering WordPress video tutorials, custom plugins and help forums.

    Back in August, when the first of these had emails arrived, I was absolutely stunned by the author’s idiocy. I was going to say “cluelessness,” but “idiocy” is the only word that truly conveys his colossal blunder.

    Here is the first email subject line and opening paragraph (asterisks are mine, not his):

    Subject: BYOB Live – How to Fix a WordPress Website that is Totally F**ked Up!

    Karl — Yes, I know that the f-bomb is entirely inappropriate for professional communication. But sometimes a site gets so messed up that polite language simply can’t capture the agony of owning it. Sometimes something happens that screws up a site so much that it makes you despair for your humanity. One of our members has such a site.

    Now, I’m not prudish and I sometimes use similar language among people who aren’t offended by it. I even worked on a project back in 1994 that resulted in some very profane and funny conversations with a client. That project was The Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Vol. 1: A-G and the client was Random House. Huge project that took most of a year to complete.

    The high-pressure New York City publishing world is infamous for salty language, but the conversations we had with the client during the course of producing this book were priceless. Here’s a snippet of a typical conversation that my wife, my employees or I would have had with the client:

    Client: Go to “f**k your buddy week.”

    Me: Let me open the last “F” file. OK, “f**kwad,” “f**k-you lizard”—here we go, “f**k your buddy week.”

    Client: We need hyphens between the words “f**k your buddy” for the entry and in some of the citations, including “f**ck your friend week” and “f**k your buddy night.”

    And we went on in the same vein. At first, it was hard to resist the desire to giggle a bit at these absurd conversations. But, by the end of the eleven-month-long project, we’d become immune to the power of the f-bomb and other cuss words.

    Thirteen oversized pages of tiny dictionary type were devoted exclusively to variations of the f-bomb in this enormous tome that documented more than 300 years of American slang. I think the f-bomb had the dubious honor of claiming more pages than any other slang term in Volume One.

    My point of this odd segue? There is a time and place that’s appropriate for certain language. I can even think of a few markets where you might need an f-bomb or similar language for authenticity.

    But not for a general business audience.

    Twenty days later I received a follow-up email from this consultant (again, the asterisks are mine):

    Subject: BYOB Live – How to Fix a F**ked WordPress Website Redux!

    Karl — Yes, I know that the f-bomb is entirely inappropriate for professional communication. Hey the last time I sent this out a bunch of people quit! – But that’s how bad it can be sometimes. So bad that the last time I tried this EVERYTHING went wrong. Tomorrow we’re going to take another crack at it.

    He obviously didn’t learn anything! In this email he admits that “a bunch of people quit” after he sent his first email. I assume he lost subscribers to his email list AND paid members of his website. And then he does the same thing again!

    Like I said earlier—idiocy.

    And he paid the price for it with the loss of subscribers and customers. All for a little sensationalism.

    So, is there ever a good reason to shock your audience?

    Sure. Grabbing attention with a provocative email subject line or headline is nothing new. In fact, it’s often critical to cut through the clutter.

    But ALWAYS consider your audience and your credibility with them.

    When I moved from Pennsylvania to Texas, I suffered a bit of culture shock. People back in the northeast tend to throw around mild profanity casually; whereas, people in Texas avoid it. Even a common explicative like “damn it” is often rephrased as “darn it” or even “dag-nab-it.” I’m not kidding! I’ve even heard people refer to “hell” as “H-E-double hockey sticks.”

    So imagine the response you’d get dropping an f-bomb on someone uncomfortable saying “damn it” or “hell.”

    And you’d better believe that our WordPress consultant had such people on his mailing list and as customers. Emphasis on HAD. I’m sure many of them have departed.

    In case you’re wondering, his general tone and language in previous emails was always inoffensive and Rated G—about what you’d expect from someone writing to a general business audience. That made his f-bomb even more shocking because it completely deviated from the persona he’d established in his communications.

    Have you ever received—or used—similar emails or marketing messages that crossed the line? What about ones that shocked but were effective? Please share!