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5 Secrets to Compelling Headlines: The Fish of 10,000 Casts

Written by: Caroline Melberg

Article Overview: If you want to reel in your prospects, here are 5 secrets for writing compelling headlines.

5 Secrets to Compelling Headlines: The Fish of 10,000 Casts

If you are an avid reader of Blue Chip Tips, you’ll know
that I spend a good deal of time on the water, and a portion
of that time on the water is spent fishing. Living in The
Land of 10,000 Lakes makes this not too difficult to do, but
I also enjoy fishing everywhere our travels take us (hence
our recent fishing and photographic expedition to Alaska).

Over the course of my lifetime, I am pretty sure I’ve reeled
in just about every type of freshwater fish available in our
northern lakes – except one. The Musky.

Walleye and bass and northern pike – all day long. Sunfish
and crappie and bluegill – no problem. But muskies? Not one.

I’ve had what is referred to in fishing parlance as “a
follow” – where you look down at your lure as you reel it
toward the boat just in time to catch a splash and hear the
water ripple as a giant musky is tempted by your lure – only
to turn and swim away at the last minute. But I’ve never
reeled one in.

Muskies are a sport fish – they can grow to be huge – the
world record muskie, caught in Hayward, Wisconsin, was
63-1/2” long and weighed 69 lbs. – and just in case you
aren’t into fishing - that’s a big freshwater fish. But you
wouldn’t want to eat one.

Muskies don’t just bite at anything you throw at them – they
take work. While you can go out and catch walleye with
little effort, the musky is the fish of 10,000 casts. If you
haven’t put in your time on the water, you won’t catch one.
Muskies take sweat equity.

Advertising headlines are a lot like the elusive musky.
While writing body copy comes fairly easily, the most
important element of your ad or direct mail piece – the
headline – takes hard work. You’ve got to put your time in
“on the water” to nail one – and even the experts
consistently write over 100 unique headlines for each
promotion before they settle on the most compelling choice.

Fortunately – just like fishing pros use all sorts of
“special tricks” to improve their musky-catching odds –
copywriters use secrets of their own to consistently craft
powerful, arresting headlines.

That said, here are 5 secrets you can use immediately to
improve your headlines and improve your odds of reeling in
your prospect:

1. Keep it Simple! The best headlines are difficult to write
because you must eliminate every unnecessary word and focus
on one compelling idea – one and only one. Too many ideas
will confuse your reader and you’ll lose your prospect.

2. Focus on Now - Your headline needs to create a sense of
urgency to break through the clutter and get your prospect
to focus on what you have to say. Something isn’t going to
happen – it IS happening.

3. Benefits – By reading your ad or direct mail piece, your
prospect should learn something they didn’t know before. By
providing an inherent benefit in your headline, you build
trust with your prospect which encourages them to read
further.

4. Useful – Make sure the information conveyed in your
headline is useful to your prospect – implying or referring
to information that they need or want to know.

5. Specific – Tell your reader what you are talking about –
what will your product or service specifically do for your
prospect that your competitor’s product or service will not?
Tell your prospect and watch your sales grow!

Related Articles
  Fishing for Prospects: Why Headlines are Important
  Are You Making These 5 Mistakes with Your Headlines?
  What do Fishing & Selling have in Common?
  Small Business Owners - Why You Must ACT As IF You Have Achieved Your Financial Goal
  Dont Teach A Man to Fish

Article Tags: fishing, freshwater fish, Muskies



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Re: Playing sports or games with clients - I say, "Give it all you have!" If you win you'll get to see his/her true character in how he/she handles it. You can learn a lot about a person from how they react to situations. If this caused friction in your work environment, then you probably weren't really enjoying working there anyway and life is too short to work at a JOB. I know it's easy for me to say I'd quit if I was uncomfortable with my boss. Sometimes it's much easier said than done in reality. You just have to strive to be happy whatever you do. Read the books, Fish and Fish, too..... or Fish, Two. Can't remember the exact name, but they are great books.
Re: Keep your image or avatar distorted for more click-throughs - [quote="Kevin":1rxz4jk2]Keep your images or avatars distorted on your social networking site or forum for more click-throughs? Apparently this strategy actually works. In Jan/Feb 2009's issue of "Inc." magazine, writer Max Chafkin says "Fixing the wonky images, for instance (on PlentyOfFish.com), might actually hurt Plenty of Fish. Right now, users are compelled to click on people's profiles in order to get to the next screen and view proper headshots. That causes people to view more profiles and allows Frind, who gets paid by the page view, to serve more ads" (pg 68).[/quote:1rxz4jk2] I don't think what Plenty of Fish is doing is good. People had been compelled to click which is what google will tell you not to do when you are applying for adsense for your website
Re: When is your interest peaked by unsolicited mail? - I rarely ever read the headlines of unsolicited email. I know when it's something I haven't signed up for and delete it right away. I get so much crap it's sickening. I may browse over the headlines as I delete them, but that's it. I haven't really noticed any that have caught my interest. As many have already suggested, I'm so calloused when it comes to headlines because I see them all the time and know what to expect. As a marketer, it makes it easy to sniff out the sales pitches. Headlines such as "can you help me?" usually get my attention, but in the end I know they want me to buy something. At least that's the case for most of the newsletters I get. Case in point, even if it isn't unsolicited, it better have a headline that's going to get me to click on it. Otherwise it'll never get read.
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Unable to continue! - Thanks Kevin for your reply! Its just that I find it sort of difficult that if ever I want out, I must leave the technology behind and I am unable to continue other products using the patented technology. After all, I did invent it didn't I? Now, I know that the management side is just as important as the R&D, but lets face it, if I (the inventor) has invested 10000 unpaid personal hours in developing all this technology, all the good management in the world would be worth nothing without my innitial invested effort which went into the product! I sort of feel a little trapped! Thankyou for your warm greeting and hope to chat with you again! PS thanks for the tip about the clause that would depict really not wanting to work with someone I dislike. with regards Robert


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