Direct Mail Copywriting – The Secret To Crazy Conversions!

In this article I want to talk to you about what I see as the most important factor in direct mail copywriting.
As you may have guessed I’m talking about the headline… because no prospect in the world is going to buy your stuff if your headline sucks. It needs to call out to the perfect person for your offer, and disqualify all the rest in the process. I sometimes write more than a hundred headlines in one sitting, and then test them on Google AdWords to see which one pulls the most clicks.
Only then do I know it’s something that’s really going to work for the copy.
But you need to be aware right off the bat that no headline in the word is going to guarantee a sale…unless you’re making a ridiculous free money type offer that you can back up with some truth.
NEVER LIE!
However the headline is the difference between having your stuff read and having in deleted. That’s why it deserves so much attention.
The buying process for most people is simple and you may have done this yourself.
1. They will look at the headline
2. Then they will look at the prices
If everything looks good it will then be time for your prospect to skim the rest of your stuff and decide if they want to buy of not.
It’s that simple, and some people even buy right away if the headline is that strong. Headlines build a relationship with your prospect right away, they take them by the hand and guide them through the buying process. The fact is that most people have a super high marketing shield up these days, because well all see so many advertisements each day. This means the start of your copy needs to be like an atom bomb in the mind of the reader and jolt them into action.
You can do this by talking to them so directly and so closely that they cannot possibly go on living without reading what you have to say.
Headlines are everywhere…
We use them in blog posts and we use them on Twitter…
We use them when we want to get an email opened, and with use them in radio ads when we want to stop the listener humming their favorite new song and take notice of what we have to offer. The question I get asked all the time is “do you really need a headline on everything you put out?”
…and the answer as far as we’re concerned is a big fat => YES!
Now it’s true that there have been some very successful sales letters in the past that have skipped out on the headline completely. But I’m talking very few, and only the copywriting gods are able to pull off that trick. For most of us a headline is crucial because it gives you massive leverage and makes every word of your copy more important. (Because it might actually get read for once.)