|
Affiliate Marketing: Headlines are the Difference Between Life and Death
As an affiliate marketer, your primary tool is probably the written
word. Most affiliates don't sell via telephone or with audio/video
efforts to the extent they work with written words. Solo ads, sales
pages, auto responders, newsletters. All of them are written materials.
That makes it incredibly important to learn how to use words to your
advantage. Doing that requires many things. You will eventually need to
become part grammarian, party storyteller, part dictionary and part
psychiatrist to get the right words every time. You might opt to bypass
all of that and hire a professional to put words on the page.
Whether you do it yourself or hire a pro, you will certainly need to be
able to separate quality from junk. You will need to develop the power
to almost sense whether something will get the job done or not. One of
the first places to look is at the headline.
The headline for any advertising piece is hyper-critical. People make
the decision whether to keep reading or to push that button with the
green arrow within seconds of reaching your page. That means creating a
powerful first impression is essential. The first thing your visitors
see when they hit a page? The headline. It has to work.
What makes a headline sizzle? First, of course, it must attract
attention. It has to intrigue readers immediately. Remember, the clock
ticks fast. You may have less than a second to convince a visitor to
read on. That headline has to be a perfectly baited hook.
The headline also needs to be strong. Weak headlines result in weak
responses. The headline should be active. Words like "if" and "may"
have no place in headline. The headline is the domain of the power
word--the kind of word that will elicit a strong and almost visceral
response.
The headline has to tell your customers enough to keep them interested.
"Massive Sale" or "Only the Best" may work their way into the ad copy
somewhere, but they are not stand alone headlines. You have to give
customers just enough information to motivate them to keep digging.
That means you cannot go with a short headline and produce a great
response. Going long also creates problems. No one wants to sift
through a 300 word sales pitch as a headline.
There is no magic formula for winning headlines. Beware of anyone who
tells you every single headline should be structured as a question or
that you need a minimum of one adjective per noun. Different situations
call for different strategies. The important part is that the headline
creates a compulsion to keep on reading.
As an affiliate marketer, all you have is your name and your words.
Make the most of both of them by using strong, honest headlines that
capture attention and just won't let go until the prospect has read
everything you have to say!
David Cooper is the editor of the Affiliate Marketing Articles
Newsletter. David specializes in helping affiliate marketers write
winning headlines for their affiliate marketing efforts. Subscribe to
his FREE newsletter at: www.affiliatemarketingarticles.com
| 