Why Nobody is Reading Your Ads or Opening Your Emails

In today’s fast moving internet community it is all one can do to keep with the latest changes.

But one thing remains the same. You must have a good message to bring people into your marketing funnel. I remember back in the 1980s when I was running a small Advertising Agency in NY I became a student of legendary advertising greats John Caples and David Ogilvy. In fact, I was digging through my old boxes of books the other day and blew the dust off a few of them. I am such a pack rat!

While reviewing some of their writings it gave me the inspiration to write this post. You see back in the 80’s I was writing ads for the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsday etc.. and at $15-30k per ad they had to work. It was very difficult back then to really track their effectiveness. Today with google adwords, analytics and capture page opt in forms we can review stats and compare them with conversions to determine if our ads are working.

If you are getting traffic, but no opt ins or responses you need to take a hard look at your message. If you are using google analytics and notice that the length of time on your page is short it is probably your headline. Writing bad headlines is probably the most common mistake internet marketers make when designing ads.

Don’t believe me? Just go into Craigslist Small biz Ads section and start reading down the page. How many of those headlines move you to action?

Next time you are deleting an email without opening it ask yourself, what in that subject line made me decide to delete?

Next time you get to a capture page and hit the back button before reading on, what in the headline killed your desire to read further?

I learned very quickly that the headline was the determining factor as to whether my ads were even read by people.

Advertising legend David Ogilvy, wrote: “When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar.” That is because scientific tests have shown that 80% of the effectiveness of an ad is in the headline.

One of my favorite books written by John Caples is called, Tested Advertising Methods, He wrote, “In a print ad, 75% of the buying decisions are made in the headline alone.”

How does all this apply to your online marketing?

*  If you are writing emails your subject line is your headline. If you fail to move a person to take action through your subject line they will never read your email regardless of how well it is written.

*  If you are placing classified ads in craigslist your headline is the only thing people see. If they do not click your headline they will never see your ad.

*  On your capture pages your headline will determine if the reader moves further down on your page and will greatly influence if they opt in to your form.

Entire books have been written on Headlines and writing copy, but I will give you a few tips to help you create better headlines.

First of all let’s make one thing perfectly clear. Your headline MUST grab the readers attention and compel them to read the copy or click on the email. It is a fact that 5 times as many people read the headline as read the ad. Fail in your headline and your response level will be low.

1. What is the objective of your headline? What do you want to create in the mind of the reader? The 2 biggest attention grabbers are to Gain Pleasure or Avoid Pain. Are you trying to solve a problem?

2. Who is your target audience? If you are targeting a specific person your headline must address their needs or wants. If a person is struggling in network marketing and needs additional training you need to address their problem and your solution right away to get them to read further.

Answer this question, “What’s in it for me.” What reward will I receive by reading further or opening this email? Remember, writing copy is all about emotion, so use emotional words.

Here is the best way to get started.

Go online and create a text file on your desktop. Look at as many headlines as you can and cut and paste the ones that really stand out, on to your text file. Keep adding as many headlines as possible until you have hundreds of them. This is where you can refer to for inspiration.

Sit down and write 10-20 headlines using different approaches.

Put the page aside for one day. Reread your headlines the next day and ask yourself how can I make this better. Just changing one word or phrase in your headline can be the difference between success and failure.

Get a list of power words and action statements.

How To, Discover, Free, Put an end to, Finally, At Last, impress, improve, create

Put your headline in quotations. It has been proven that putting your headline in quotations can increase readership by as much as 28%. Why? Because the ad appears more important because it gives the impression someone is being quotes and adds credibility.

Here are a few ideas when putting your headline together:

Make a strong promise

Highlight the benefits to the reader

Explain exactly what you are offering

Arouse curiosity

Make an announcement

Ask a question

Explain How To

You must always keep in mind that your headline is the front door to your message. It must grab the reader and give them a reason to read further. You want that person to just move down the page because they feel they are missing something if they don’t. Take your time, write lots of headlines and Test, Test, Test!

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Good luck!

Tags: capture page design, mlm, Network Marketing Training, writing copy, writing headlines