7 Deadly Mistakes In Your Headline That Could Be Killing Sales (And How To Fix Them Instantly)
Many businesses have a great product or service. But for some reason, these businesses seem to lose a large chunk their market share to other companies with “lesser” or inferior offers.
If your responsible for the performance of your company (as a business owner or in a position with executive responsibilities), then this could really put you on edge. Especially if you spent years of refining and R&D to get your offer as stellar as possible.
Why does this happen?
Most likely because these businesses with great products fail to market their offers right way.
Excuse me for being blunt here, but even the perfect product or service means nothing if your customers don’t see your product the same way you do. If your marketing is not done right.
And one of the most important things in marketing is your headline for any copy.
When my clients call on me to fix and optimize their marketing, I always look at the headline first. Here are 7 most common mistakes in your headline that could be causing you to lose out to the competition, and how to fix them so your sales can begin skyrocketing.
- Relatedness and connection
Imagine you were your own cold prospect. Would you feel like your headline relates and connects with you?
If your answer is no, then one instant trick you can instantly deploy is to call out to your target audience. Be as specific as possible.
Example: “A Solution For Young Children” versus “Health Warning: Mothers With Toddlers Under The Age Of 3”.
It’s a world of difference.
- Lack of pain points
This is linked closely with relating and connecting to your audience in the previous point.
If you don’t bring out the things that cause them to worry and lose sleep at night, then they won’t feel like they can trust you to deliver you promise.
Put yourself into the shoes of your target demographic and think about what bothers them the most, and insert the most critical pain points into your headline!
- Misconstrued benefits
When writing headlines, most people innately understand the need to include benefits in their headlines.
But what most people think are benefits, are actually features instead… but features don’t sell, only benefits do. Here’s an example (notice the specificity as well).
Feature: “This car has 9 nine airbags. Want to buy one?”
Benefit: “2017 Top Safety Rating: If your family was in this SUV and it hits a bus head-on at 90 kilometers an hour, and flips 720 degrees, each one of your loved ones will be able to walk away without a scratch. Want to buy one?”
I think we can both agree that the second copy would churn out more sales and more ROI.
- Keyword spamming
You’re not talking to search engine crawlers or robots, so don’t expect a human reader to feel compelled to buy your product just because your headline reads “How To Make More Money, Working From Home, Live The Life Of Your Dreams.”
Gunning for search engine rankings isn’t the game here, it’s customer psychology that you have to win over. And even if SEO was your main goal, Google’s ever changing algorithm won’t reward your ability to cram keywords into your content.
Concentrate instead on one keyword or driving point as the central focus, and use the other tips in this post to really power-pack your headline.
- Jargons and bombastic words
I’ve found that this happens often when clients of mine try to create copy to establish themselves as an industry leader.
Big words help with that kind of branding, right?
Not at all. Jargons and bombastic words only serve to confuse your readers and your copy will quickly fade away from their memory, never to be recalled again.
Some headlines are so filled with complex words and little-known terms that most readers will flip out and leave before they’ve finished reading your headline.
The simple fix? Write it so clearly and simply that your mother (or someone that is outside of your industry) would understand and feel compelled to click on.
- Trust building
Trust can be a very delicate thing, and difficult to earn. More so for Singaporeans! By nature, we are skeptical people who don’t trust easily… least of all a stranger!
To get your cold prospects to begin to trust you, you need two things: authenticity and reassurance.
Authenticity means that you are your own person. You have a unique voice, and you should be standing out of the crowd instead of sounding like another deadbeat advertisement. Talk to your audience as if it were face to face.
The art of reassurance is not just about putting down a guarantee (which could also work wonders), but also to pre-emptively think of the objections a potential customer would have, and counter them strategically and empathetically.
Be authentic and reassure your readers, and you’ll be able to build a growing band of loyal followers who trust you enough to buy almost anything you offer!
- Desire
Word from the wise: Ignore human desire at your own risk.
Desire is a powerful thing. Without it, your headline can be so bland and “run-of-the-mill” that it falls to the background as “one of those other ads”. With it, your copy can engage psychologically triggers and turn a total stranger to someone who would beg you to take their money from them.
How do you ignite the passions and desire of another human being?
Curiosity. Set the right expectations. Tease a little.
Easier said than done, right? If you’re having trouble with this, think about yourself. What would make you curious? What kind of expectations and “tease” trigger you to click on that link?
Imagine your prospect. If those things appeal to them too, you might just have a winning angle right there!
So, there you go. 7 deadly mistakes you could be making in your headlines that are losing you tons of customers… and how to instantly fix them.
Go ahead and apply what you just learned. If you implemented the 7 points correctly, you might just surprise yourself at the jump in sales you’ll be getting!
But I understand. Not everyone has the luxury of time to spend on tweaking their headline for more clicks… optimizing their copy to increase sales… or improving marketing efforts for better ROI.
Those things take time.
Months to get it right. Years to get it perfect.
There are easier and more cost-effective ways to get your marketing on track, instead of spending months or years for trial and error.
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