Headlines That Sell

Effective Email Headlines

Today’s guest post comes from David Murphy.  David is the founder of Bewater Marketing Concepts.  Bewater Marketing Concepts specializes in working with small businesses not only to survive, but to thrive using straight-forward and very effective marketing strategies. Prior to Bewater Marketing Concepts, David was part of the Sage  and Intuit teams working with resellers on creating a customized marketing plan, then helping with the launching, tracking, and optimization of each individual campaign.

 

 

Email continues to be a major focus in terms of marketing vehicles for Sage business partners, and why not? It’s still a very valuable and effective way to reach clients and prospective clients in a very efficient way. An aspect of email marketing that also hasn’t changed is the frustration with open rates – even watching the opens and clicks from customers that you know and have a really good relationship with. You may be asking...”Why are they not opening my email?”

Are you satisfied with the open rate of your marketing? (I sincerely hope you said “No” – There’s always room for improvement!)

Whether you're using email, direct mail, cost-per-click advertising...getting the attention of your prospective customers is getting incredibly difficult! You’ve most likely experienced the same thing. It’s not a matter of inviting people to learn about new features or service offerings. (Here’s a hint, your clients and prospective clients most likely don’t give a hoot about the latest features).

Smart marketing is about solving problems and people need to be hooked from your headline. They need to know right away what frustrations, problems and issues you can help solve.

To help get your marketing material noticed, I’ve listed the framework for 25 headlines that will improve your email open rates. If you have others you’d like to share, please send them my way!

1.) When (type of business) Fail – This Is What They Do. This works very well if you can focus your marketing efforts to a specific industry and of course, list the industry in the headline.

2.) 3 Inside Secrets To (list benefit) Remember to focus on the benefit. Stay away from features

3.) What It Takes To…Create an image here. What does the ideal situation look like to your customer?

4.) How To Improve Your…See #3

5.) How To Start…See #4

6.) How To Have…See #5

7.) Learn How to Change (problem) Into (benefit) You may need to speak directly to your clients on this and learn what some of their major problems are. In other words, don’t guess.

8.) How To Get (goal) From – Highlight a very specific issue with your clients and what the solution is

9.) How To Accomplish (benefit) In (time frame) – Being able to quantify results in a time frame or dollar amount is incredibly powerful!

10.) (Frustration) – How to Solve It – Quick and easy!

11.) How (type of business) Solved (problem) - - can also add (In Time Frame)- See #9

12.) How You Can (accomplishment) in the next (Time Frame) – Changing to focus to “You” is a great way to grab the reader’s attention.

13.) How To Avoid (problem) – Make sure you list a very specific and prevalent problem.

14.) (number) of Ways To Beat/Avoid (problem) – This lets people know exactly what they're getting. When using this try and keep to odd number of items. It leaves the reader thinking there’s more as opposed to even numbers that seem more complete.

15.) Don’t Buy (software type) Till You’ve Seen (software name) – Let the reader know there may be more critical information they haven’t yet seen.

16.) Read This Report / Attend This Event And (make promise)

17.) Read This Report / Attend This Event Or (make threat)

18.) Do You Make These Typical Mistakes? – Feel free to throw in a number to prep the reader to exactly what they’ll get. e.g. Do You Make These 5 Typical Mistakes?

19.) Fed Up With (problem) 

20.) How to Choose An…Sage has been successfully using this for years! 

21.) What You Need To Know About…See #20 

22.) What Every (type of business) Should Know About (solution)

23.) Inside Tips For…The more specific the better

24.) The Secret Of (solution) – Anything that says “Secret” or “Inside Information” is a great way to get someone’s attention

25.) The Right and Wrong Way to…If you choose this example, you’ll want to make sure your piece delivers both the right AND wrong samples. Don’t just talk about the right way…you promised both in the headline, you need to deliver both.

What have I left out? Probably a lot! So chime in. Send me a reply with your ideas for headlines that grab the attention of your prospects.

Remember, your clients and prospective clients want to be educated and learn ways to make their lives easier. Your marketing should always give value – not be used as a strong-arm sales tactic. If your headline reads like a sales pitch, you’ll have a hard time getting folks to ever open the piece. If your headline teases the reader with a little must-have business building information, you’ll surely improve your open rates.