Use a Guarantee In Your Headline To Increase Trust
Sometimes you can use a guarantee effectively in your headline. Doing so often creates increased trust in the reader. After all, if you guarantee it, you must believe in whatever it is you are guaranteeing.
Remember Domino Pizza's unique selling proposition (USP), which was also used as a headline? 'Fresh Hot Pizza, Delivered To Your Door In 30 Minutes Or Less - Guaranteed!'
That headline worked great for Domino's, could a similar headline work for you? Think about your product or service. Do you have a USP that would make a great headline? Can you guarantee it? If so, test putting a guarantee in your headline and see what kind of response you get.
You don't have to use the specific word 'guarantee' in your headline, other similar words or phrases will work just as well, for example Brian Keith Voiles, a famous copywriter, gives as an example of a guarantee type headline, the following:
'Try Moose Skin Care System For 30 Days, If Your Skin Isn't Softer And Glowing, Return It For A Complete Refund!'
Don't forget, keep testing your headlines. Don't fall in love with any particular headline. If your headline does not produce results, trash it and use another. Use your best headline as your control and try other headlines to see if you can beat its' results. George Dodge has been working on the Internet since December 1994 and has developed, and served as webmaster for, numerous government and commercial websites for the past ten years. Two of his commercial sites focusing on copywriting include Winning Website Sales Letters that is a great resource for entrepreneurs and webmasters trying to write Web Copy to sell on the Internet, and http://www.Headline-Creator-Pro.com which is a software site where you can get your copy of the amazing headline generating software tool that enables you to create winning headlines quickly with push button ease. Headline Creator Pro can generate 100 winning headline ideas in just 17 seconds flat!
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Every January, trade publications put out a list of predictions for the coming year. They discuss products, services and trends that they think will change the way business is done, labeling these "disruptive technologies."
The idea of disruptive technologies comes from Clayton Christensen's 1997 book, The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. A disruptive technology is a method, procedure, skill, device, or material that redefines the competitive standards. Note that the technology doesn't have to be a physical item and that it often forces us to re-examine the way we work.
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For starters, it's worth describing what a Weblog is. Basically, a Weblog or "blog" is a personally created, online, time-stamped web page that includes the thoughts, ideas, and comments of the "blogger." The musings are usually brief, but they are published frequently and consistently. People can subscribe to receive the blog updates via e-mail. Often, the blogger is an expert on the subject he/she is discussing.
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Whenever a new tool or process-such as e-mail- expands communications, the effects are far-reaching and dramatic. Even though blogs have been around for 3-4 years, they could be the next big thing.
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Often, when information goes through a formal marketing or PR process, the end result is an attractive, expensive, stale, diluted document written in corporate speak. This result is generally due to the processes that evolved to accommodate the costs and standards of print technology, rather than to the incompetence or malevolence of corporate communicators. The edge, the authenticity, and the voice of the professional speaking to his fellow professionals is lost.
Blogs offer the human voice that can be loud, controversial, and even wacky. But the realness of the blog inspires trust and piques people's curiosity. A blog can create a community and a dynamic discussion.
If you are a product manager working in the chemical products industry, chances are that you would rather hear about the real experiences of other product managers in your industry than read a glossy marketing piece put out by the marcom department. Blogs fit this communications requirement perfectly.
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Think of your channel and the information needs of your partners. Your company has a wealth of information that would help them sell your products more effectively. There is much insight within your partner community that could be leveraged throughout the channel. And your technical experts and engineers have critical knowledge and understanding that everyone could utilize.
What's often missing is an easy way for the "know-how" keepers to capture their knowledge, organize it, and deliver it. The best e-newsletters are written in a real voice, not in corporate speak.
Two years ago, the book The Cluetrain Manifesto shook up the business community (see http://www.cluetrain.com/book.html). The revelation? That business is about humans. As Wall Street Journal columnist Thomas Petzinger Jr. writes in the foreword: "I was dumbstruck. There in a few pages, I read a startlingly concise summary of everything I'd seen in twenty-one years as a reporter, editor, bureau chief and columnist for my newspaper. The idea that business, at bottom, is fundamentally human. That engineering remains second-rate without aesthetics. That natural, human conversation is the true language of commerce. That corporations work best when the people on the inside have the fullest contact possible with people on the outside."
It turns out that the human "voice" is an underserved or ignored need. In a world of 6+ billion inhabitants, the individual craves to speak and to be heard.
References
Blogs As Disruptive Tech: How Weblogs Are Flying Under The Radar Of The Content Management Giants, By John Hiler, CEO, Webcrimson, http://www.webcrimson.com/ourstories/blogsdisruptivetech.Htm
Making Room For Disruptive And Emergent Technologies, By Hugh Blackmer, Science Librarian, Washington & Lee University, http://home.wlu.edu/~blackmerh/sabb/nitle2.html*
Blogs As Disruptive Innovation: What A Brave New World Blogging Is Building!, by Dr. James V. McGee, Professor, The Kellogg School Of Management,
http://www.mcgeesmusings.net/2002/05/15.html
Weblogs At Harvard Law, Bookmark List For ABCD Weblogs Meeting, By Dave Winer,
http://Blogs.Law.Harvard.Edu/Stories/Storyreader$199
The Benefits of a Marketing Plan
What is a Marketing Plan?
Marketing is to do with matching the features and benefits that your products and services are able to provide with specific customers and then telling those customers why they should buy them from you. Your marketing plan details how to do this. A Marketing Plan is a document that supplements your business plan and brings together all your market research so that you can work out exactly where your business is going and how it is going to get there.
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