Carol Bentley

A colleague has just finished recording an interview with me. He wanted to get some ‘behind the scenes tips’ on copywriting - specifically for sales letters. He asked a good many questions - but one came up that I’d never been asked before, or at least not in quite the way he put it.

And I thought it’s a good one to share with you.

Q:

HOW DO YOU BRAINSTORM HEADLINES FOR A GIVEN PROJECT?

A:

For many people, getting started on headlines can be an insurmountable problem. And sometimes I think it is because enough research and thinking about it has not yet happened.

You see, first off I do research on the project so I know everything there is to know about the company I’m writing for, their business; their products (or services) and the specific offer they are making.

I find out who their ideal customers are and what result the customer is looking for. I pore over letters the company has received from customers, including letters of complaints and how they were dealt with. Reading about an unhappy customer who has been turned into a satisfied, sometimes delighted, customer can be a great catalyst for innovative ideas.

I research their competitors to see what else is on the market - not just direct competitors. We are often competing against something completely different when it comes to persuading people to part with their money. For example if you were selling a portable CD player, your competition is not just other makes of CD players it could be MP3 players, iPods - in fact any other technology that can deliver the result the customer wants; to be able to listen to their music on the move.

Then, having decided I want to write some good headlines, I let it brew. The important step here is to state your intention; “I need some cracking headlines” so your sub-conscious knows what it is supposed to be working on.

I move away from the project and go do something else. And the good ideas; the approach to take; the results purchasers gain when they take up the offer start to percolate through my sub-conscious.

This process helps with the letter itself, as well as the headlines.

When things are starting to ‘bubble through’ I create a mindmap of the proven response - or ‘Power’ words as some people call them, starting with the 79 in my book. These words also act as a catalyst as I start to formulate the headlines.

(I’ve shared the next section of this process with you before on this blog) For each response word I write 2 or 3 headlines. Some are absolute rubbish - especially in the early stages - but as I warm up the better ideas start to flow.

By using a mindmap I can go back and forth between the different response words adding more headlines as they occur to me.

Using this method makes it really easy to create the 100 headlines I advocate in my book. And, more importantly, I find the stronger headlines to test as well as good ones that are natural sub-heads to use in the letter itself. And often a good P.S. can come out of this exercise.

So there you have it - my approach to crafting headlines.

If you are stuck on ‘what to write’ for your headlines - review all your material. Even if you are writing for your own product or service, take the time to refresh your mind. Then let your sub-conscious do the work for you. The combination of research and your sub-conscious is a powerful one, if you let it work for you.

~ Carol Bentley

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Date: Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 11:00 am | Category: Copywriting | RSS Feed: RSS 2.0 feed.
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