Direct Response Copywriting – Boost Your Headline’s Effectiveness (Easy!)

David Ogilvy in his book Ogilvy On Advertising – 80% of advertising success (and failure) is the headline. My experience says it is about the same.
Based on this idea, a fractional increase in the power of the headline will affect response as much as a quantum leap in the performance of the body copy.
There are lots of ways that you can increase the effectiveness of your headlines.
The first thing I would look at for a headline is the big promise. Can it be tweaked or changed to me made even more compelling? Think “Corns Gone in 30 days or your money back” or “Burn Disease Out of Your Body Using Nothing but the Palm of Your Hand.” Both have a compelling promise right in the headline.
If you can’t find a new big promise to create a headline around then the next thing I would do is look at presenting the promise in a different headline.
You have two options for doing this. The first thing you can do is sit around and try and think up a new headline all on your own. But the second and better option is to find new better headline idea in the mail. Somebody spend a lot of money to get that campaign in the mail so it warrants careful study.
Same with national magazines and newspapers. Free media like the internet is often treated with less care and respect by marketers so swiping from the internet is often a case of buyer beware. If a headline repeatedly appears in a magazine or in a direct mail you know it works. It is harder to be sure on the internet.
So play the odds. Between your mailbox and your magazine subscriptions you’ll get something to model off.
Headlines can evolve – so be sure to have a few sessions where you do nothing but write headlines. Aim to write at least 25. To give you an idea a working headline I used for the report I wrote for Newsletter Marketing Systems evolved from:
“Get More Repeat Business and Referrals.”
Into
“The Business Owners Guide To:
Getting More Repeat Business and Referrals Simply and Easily in the Next 12 Months Written by Two Entrepreneurs Who Have Done It Themselves and Grown Their Businesses As a Result”
The idea evolved over 3 or 4 sessions from a simple promise into a strong headline.
Headline writing takes practice and study and lots of it. Otherwise the only other option is to pay a copywriter to do take it off your hands.