Headlines Subheads and Value Propositions COPY HACKERS 2nd Edition for 2014

WHAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO BY THE TIME YOU’RE DONE THIS EBOOK          

Write headlines for even the most skeptical audiences Improve your message matching (which can lower your bounce rate) Avoid relying on lame-o lame- o headlines like, “The future of accounting just got better!” Punctuate and capitalize headlines for better readability Support your headline with a subhead that’s more likely to perform well Answer pesky questions like, “So what is i t that you guys do?” Use so-called cheesy headline formulas to write non-cheesy headlines Grade your headline using a checklist Create a high-performing high-performing headline… without ‘writing’ at all Use crossheads to say more than you can in the average subhead

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Headlines, Subheads & Value Propositio Propositions ns

IN THIS EBOOK 1. Why You Must Spend 90% of Your Copywriting Time on the Headline ............................... 4 2. High-Converting Headlines for a Skeptical World ................................................................ 9 3. The 7 Secrets of Attention-Grabbing Headlines ................................................................. 15 4. 9 Formulas You Can Use Us e to Write Headlines That Get Read and Convert ......................... 22 5. Subheads: The Powerful Opportunity You’re Ignoring ...................................................... Ignoring ...................................................... 30 6. Quick Headline & Subhead Power Tips .............................................................................. 41 7. The Value Proposition – Proposition – Your Your Ticket to Converting More Visitors ..................................... 44 BONUS: Headline Hall of Shame ............................................................................................ 60

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joanna Wiebe is the original conversion copywriter and a m essaging strategist specializing in persuasive writing that turns visitors into happy, repeat customers. Since 2003, she has been writing, e diting & proofreading online and offline copy and designing interactions for tech companies as we ll as startups. She also consults and teaches writing for professionals. She holds an MA in Communications & Technology with specialization in persuasion in ecommerce environments. The co-founder of Disco Surveys, Joanna lives with her hub-bub in Victoria, British Columbia.

Twitter: @copyhackers

Website: copyhackers.com

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1. Why You Must Spend 90% of Your Copywriting Time on the Headline

Advertising maven David Ogilvy claimed that 5 times as many people read the headline as read the body copy, which means that once you’ve written your headline, you’ve spent eighty cents out of your dollar. Ogilvy was referring to print advertising, but the same statement may hold true today. Because, no matter what the media, people read the headline first. It’s true for PPC ads. Landing pages. Product pages. Even pricing pages. You know it. I know it. Ogilvy knew it. Hell, even the customer may know it.

The headline is the most important copy on your page. It’s the first message your visitor will see, and it has one task: to stop visitors in their tracks. Let me repeat that:

Your headline’s first job is to stop visitors in their tracks. Your headline can mean the difference between a person staying on your site or bouncing. If it’s good enough to keep people around, it will also set the tone for the brand of your company, the credibility of your site and the rest of a user’s experience on your site.

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Headlines, Subheads & Value Propositions

Your headline will impact whether people read the next line. It will impact whether people click on your call to action or not. It affects bounce, engagement, clicks, overall conversion – and even likelihood to return. In fact, on average, 8 out of 10 people will read your headline… but only 2 of those people will actually continue on to read the copy below. So your headline has to do a ton of heavy lifting. That said, how much time do you really spend working on your headline? If you want your copy to be effective – that is, if you want it to help make you money – you need to give it due attention. You need to make it your new partner. Spend your valuable time with it. Wine and dine it. Flatter it. Let it turn you into its bitch for a while. Coax it, massage it, stroke it until it gives you exactly the explosion of genius you’re looking for. If you plan on spending 3 days knocking out the copy for your site, expect to spend at least 2 of those days on headlines for your pages. (Here you’d thought that big ol’ Tour page was going to take up all your time! Nope. It’ll be the headlines.)

NO SMALL TASK FOR A HANDFUL OF WORDS… The burden of keeping people on your page – rather than bouncing – is almost entirely on your headline. Each headline has to do a ton of work in as few words as possible. It must: I.

II.

III. IV. V.

Match visitor expectations , which means closely matching the language used in the call to action – be it a button or PPC ad – that the visitor clicked to land on the page. People want to find the useful info they’re looking for. That means lower bounce. Intrigue the visitor enough to keep them moving down the page, be it by highlighting value or incentives or promising something that is both enticing and believable. The outcome of this is increased time on page. Communicate clearly what the visitor can/should do on this page (i.e., page goal). The outcome of this is qualifying visitors. Get to the visitor’s point . That is, write what the visitor needs to see, succinctly – ideally in 12 or fewer words. The outcome of this is improved conversion. Highlight a benefit . What 1 key outcome will the visitor enjoy after or while using your solution?

Oh, and it needs to make people want to read the next line, too…

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And if your headline is an H1, it should also solve for SEO (as much as it can), such as by using the optimum keyword phrase for the page. See? It’s got a lotta work to do! Use this free scorecard from Copy Hackers to assess your own headline options on a pageby-page basis. So you can filter out the blah from the ya!

THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE. THE HEADLINE DOESN’T. Your headline can work so hard that nothing else on the page even matters. But that’s rarely the case. That might be true on your beta sign up page – but not post-launch. Because a headline is actually just a way into the page, a way into the message. Think of your headline as step numero uno in an engagement process that may – and should – result in conversion, whether a sale or a sign-up or a referral/like.

Step 1: Headline draws visitor in Step 2: Subhead holds their attention, builds on headline, and compels them to continue down page Each element on your page is a part of this step-by-step scanning process. And at each step, you have a new opportunity to hold or lose your visitor. But it all starts with the headline – at least, 9 times out of 10 it does. Keeping reading for details on how to write subheads.

DIFFERENT HEADLINES FOR DIFFERENT PAGES In most cases, your home page headline should be your ‘value proposition’, or your single statement that describes what is unique and highly desirable about your offering. ( See Chapter 7, and check out Copy Hackers: The Great Value Proposition Test ) Your landing pages should have headlines that effectively balance intriguing the visitor, reflecting the call to action that likely sent them there, and incorporating SEO keywords. That means that when you write your How It Works page, the headline should NOT be “How It Works”. It should speak to how your product works while being intriguing. Your Plans & Pricing page should also have a headline that does more than simply remind the visitor what page they’re on.

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Your headlines aren’t stand-ins for navigation. They should match expectations… but they shouldn’t stop at that alone. There’s a lot more work for you headline to do than just that , and you’ll be doing yourself a favor if you remember that point when it comes time to write each and every page of your site. This book will reinforce this point again and again. You’ve been warned.

NEXT STEPS ~ APPLY WHAT YOU’VE LEARNED NOW ~

Choose any page of your site – whether you’ve already written it or you’re about to write it – and write 10 headlines for that page. Yes, 10. At least 10! Then measure each of those headlines in this free Copy Hackers headline scorecard, which is also shown on the next page… Assess each headline against the 5 criteria. Be critical! Don’t give a high rating on the scorecard if a third party wouldn’t agree with you. Instead, use the handy ‘share’ f eature to get a link you can use to invite your coworkers and friends to score your headlines with you. May the best headline win…

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SCORE YOUR HEADLINES Visit http://headlines.copyhackers.com/scorecard/ to use the following FREE headline scorecard to measure your headlines against the criteria described in this chapter.

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2. High-Converting Headlines for a Skeptical World Let’s be clear: skeptical people have always existed. There have been and always will be people who proudly declare, “Advertising doesn’t work on me!” If you write your headline with those people in mind, you’ll probably end up with a shy, tentative little weakling of a headline that says nothing and takes no stand. On the other hand, if you write headlines as if a large percentage of your prospects will happily consume whatever slickster, huckster stuff you send their way, your headlines will probably trigger alarms in your visitors’ minds and result in really high bounce rates. So before we talk about writing the test-worthy headlines of your dreams – which we’ll do in the next two chapters – let’s start with the more universally palatable ones…

SWIPE HEADLINE COPY FROM YOUR PROSPECTS AND CUSTOMERS If you read Copy Hackers Book 1: Where Stellar Messages Come From , you’ll recall learning that the best messages come from your prospects, not from your own head. The best headlines, then, are likely to come from your prospects. In 2013, I rewrote the copy for the winning treatment in a Crazy Egg home page test. Here’s the headline and subhead from that treatment (see next page):

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I swiped that headline from a phrase that several survey respondents – who were all users of Crazy Egg – had written to describe the key benefit they derived from using Crazy Egg maps. The phrase most commonly appeared in the data like this: I love that a Crazy Egg picture tells a story

So where did the word “stunning” come from? In the same survey, I asked Crazy Egg users to choose 2 or 3 words to describe Crazy Egg. The word that appeared most frequently? “Stunning.” Can that headline be improved on? Sure! Every headline can. But here’s what’s great about this headline for you, dear copy hacker: when you use the same phrasing that your existing customers use – assuming your existing customers are similar to your prospects – you rarely have to worry that you’re going to turn off your more skeptical visitors.

QUOTE SOMEONE ELSE Ever notice how hard it is to believe someone’s funny once they’ve told you they’re funny? Or how hard it is to see someone as good-looking when they’ve said they’re good-looking? Some claims are more credible when a third-party says them. In life. In comedy. And in business. That’s one reason why headlines in quotation marks can work so well. (Another reason is because quotation marks catch our eye and can signal human interaction, which we, as social beings, seek out.) For Flow by MetaLab (2014), I recommended quoting Business Insider instead of using a traditional headline:

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When quoting someone else, keep in mind that you’re writing a headline – and, as you already learned, a headline has the burden of matching expectations, among other things. So do your best to use quotes that incorporate keywords your prospects need to see. In the case of Flow, the phrase “task management app” matched expectations. On LetsFreckle.com (2014), Amy Hoy quotes her own customer in her headline:

That headline matches expectations for visitors seeking a time tracking solution. It also explicitly references a challenge that good prospects will be likely to relate to.

HighriseHQ.com (2014) also uses customer testimonials as headlines:

On QuickSprout.com/pro (2014), I wrote a headline that appears to quote someone else… but in fact just takes a common prospect problem and puts it in quotation marks :

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It’s preceded by a line that helps explain who’s likely to say such a thing. And it’s followed by supporting bullets that expand on the “but”, which intentionally hangs on the headline. As you may be starting to notice, these headlines don’t necessarily fo llow any formulas you may be familiar with, and they’re not jaw-dropping heart-stoppers. Sure, they tick the boxes referenced in Chapter 1 – but the reason they’re so good for skeptical audiences is because they let someone else do the talking. Skeptical audiences are skeptical of marketers and sales people. That doesn’t mean that they are closed off to hearing your message. They just need it to be somewhat more credible than your average hard-hitting headline is.

MAKE A BELIEVABLE PROMISE Promises and guarantees are great for boosting conversion… but they can come off as skeezy sometimes. You have to make a promise elegantly, without trying too hard or thinking too much like a slickster copywriter might. How do you know if you’re being a slickster? I use the Nana Rule:

THE NANA RULE If I learned that my sweet, wonderful nana had purchased something with this headline, would I worry that she’d been ripped off?

You can leverage the power of promises without breaking the Nana Rule. For App Design Vault (2014), we saw over 51% more paid conversions from the home page with the treatment that used this headline:

Notice the promise we make in that headline? We don’t explicitly promise anything; instead, we make a realistic and implied ‘promise’ of value: you’re going to stand out in the

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App Store if you use App Design Vault templates.

HIGHLIGHT THE BENEFIT If you haven’t yet heard that you should lead with the benefit, let me be the first to tell you. And please don’t ever forget it. Although there are some rare cases in which leading with a feature is the best method, leading with a benefit is almost always better – and leading with a clear, uber-tangible benefit is best of all. Take a look at this headline, from Australia’s Health Insurance Comparisons (2014):

Now compare that headline to this one, which we tested against the one above:

See the difference? The word “Save” in the Control is replaced with the phrase “Get the Right Policy at the Right Price” in Variation B. The only other element that changed on this page was a tweak to the button copy, where we went from “Get My Quotes” to “Show Me My Quotes”. Can you guess which one won? The longer version beat the Control, bringing in 21.1% more form submissions. People will tell you that you need to edit your headline until it’s fewer than 7 words. But repeated experiments show that breaking up summary words, like save, and highlighting the benefits hidden within those summary words can lead to higher-converting copy. You don’t have to make dramatic claims or shock-and-awe people for your headline to perform well. Some of the most palatable headlines bring in amazing results… without raising the ire of skeptics and, importantly, without compromising brands.

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That said, when you push yourself beyond your comfort zone, you usually either see incredible results or take away great insights. So check out the next two chapters – and commit to testing the headlines and subheads of your pages using the techniques you’re about to learn…


Whether you have customers or not, you should, dear copy hacker, have at least a little market research. What are the top pains your prospects are experiencing? Write 1 pain out in the first person (“I”) or first-person plural (“We”) with quotation marks around it. You’ve just written the first draft of a home page or landing page headline.

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3. The 7 Secrets of Attention-Grabbing Headlines

Amazing headlines don’t happen by accident. They take work. But what kind of work? How do you get to the point of having an amazing, attention-grabbing headline? – the kind that will stop visitors in their tracks? Well, you’ll be happy to know t here are a few tricks the best copywriters know and employ repeatedly. Secret tricks that can lure visitors in. Secret tricks that not only can but will be the difference between boring copy and memorable copy. Those tricks are here. They’re the ones you’ll want to test to see how your audience responds to them… and exactly how much money they’re bringing in. And each trick is supported by headline examples that reflect some of the copywriting and direct-response masters, like Eugene Schwartz, Gary B encivenga and Lawrence Bernstein.

SECRET TRICK #1: MAKE AN ALMOST UNBELIEVABLE PROMISE OR CLAIM. The goal here is to make one – just one – intriguing promise that’s so appealing to your target audience, they can’t help but read on . Even if they’re slightly suspicious. If you want to get this trick right, you’re going to need to be a bit of a tight-rope walker. You’re walking a fine line here between being believable + credible… and coming off as a snake-oil salesman. Keep visitors slightly – but not greatly – suspicious, and you’ll be doing this one right. 15


“How to Build a Memory in 4 Short Weeks – So Powerful It Is Beyond Your Wildest Dreams Today!” “This book could remove your fear of death forever” Don’t forget that there are advertising standards preventing lies or gross exaggerations. So be sure that any claim you make is a claim you can support – and do support on the page.

SECRET TRICK #2: GIVE A TIME LIMIT. Let’s say you create an amazing claim. Good work. But you want to drive it home with some extra oomph. Or let’s say you can’t create an amazing claim because your hands are tied by a conservative legal team or partner. But you have a general claim. And now you need to pack that claim full of power. Introducing secret number 2: give people a time limit in which your claim – whether intriguing or not – will be realized. (That is, if you claim your product can do X, add that it will only take 6 days.) Hours, days, maybe weeks. But not months, and definitely not years. For this secret to work, it needs to tap into the same desire that makes the lottery, gambling, and other get-rich-quick schemes so enticing. That is, it needs to happen in a very short period of time.

“Change Your Life by Next Week” “Hollywood plastic surgeon releases 7 -day crash course for new youth and beauty”

SECRET TRICK #3: STOMP JUST 1 OBJECTION TO SMITHEREENS. Your visitors will come to your site with objections. The visitors you want to speak to – that small portion of visitors I discussed in the first book in the Copy Hackers series – will have a handful of key objections. Your headline doesn’t have to overcome all of them. In fact, your headline only has to address one of them. Just one. But that one objection has to be either:  

The most common major objection, or The most curious major or minor objection

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When you stomp the biggest or most curious objection to pieces in your headline alone, people tend to believe you’ll bash the other objections to bits, too. Or they just plain forget about their smaller objections because you’ve taken care of the biggie. Yes, they can forget. If your headline is powerful enough and the copy that supports it is persuasive enough, people – as consumers looking for the least amount of friction possible in life while also looking for a ‘miracle drug’ – people will believe it. They actually want to believe you.

OBJECTION

HEADLINE

Yoga’s too hard – it’s only for really flexible scrawny chicks

Is This the World’s Easiest Yoga?

“When I Was Able to Rattle Off 20 Digits of Pi, I Knew This Memory Course Was Worth Every Penny… And How Cool That I Still Had 18 More Days Left to Try Before Buying!”

This is probably some snake-oil BS where they’re gonna take my money and run

Now, you may think that those sorts of headlines are cheesy or that they feel a bit scammy. And that’s fine. You don’t have to use each trick here. But if your current headline isn’t working… why not A/B test one that makes you uncomfortable? An example of this trick at play comes courtesy of TheSecretOfRaisingMoney.com (2014), which I happily coached Michael Simpson to write. The objection? “Raising money is too hard for me to do.” The headline that stomps it to smithereens?

SECRET TRICK #4: BE UNEXPECTED. Imagine what blogs, newspapers and magazines would be like i f the headlines all sounded just as readers expected them to sound. If there were no surprises. No one would read ‘em!

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When information is just as you expect it to be, it’s not interesting. It’s just research.

Being unexpected with your headline copy usually means going against your natural inclination to be explicit and direct. We’re told to get to the point, and we’re told not to waste time – so we think we must simply relay information. But that’s not entirely true. Winning headlines relay information… but then they go the extra mile. They:    

Use unexpected analogies Reference other known goods that are exciting or unusual Ask unusual questions Make statements that are seemingly unrelated to the product at hand

Consider the following 2 headlines, both for the same product:

“Now Doing Your Taxes Is Easier Than Ever” “What If Doing Your Taxes Felt As Indulgent As Licking Icing Off A Birthday Cake?” Both are trying to make you believe in a product. But only one is unexpected. And guess which one is more memorable? Guess which will stick with more people? To be unexpected, simply start by using interesting words. Any word that you’re not used to seeing is ‘interesting’. Some of the most intriguing words i n marketing include: Mysteriously

Arrogant

Little-known

Curious

Wunderkind

Violent

Unlikely

Pure

Explosive

Fat-Destroyer

Startling

Astronomical

The list could truly go on endlessly. The point is to be aware of unusual words and to use them alongside or in the midst of more typical words. You might also try your hand at unexpected analogies. But how do you arrive at an unexpected analogy? It requires a little skill in contrasting and juxtaposing. Like comparing something beautiful to something painful. Or comparing freedom to capture.

“I’ll Make You a Mental Wizard as Easily as This” “Will This Be the Most Explosive Turn Around in the History of the Stock Market?” “Pick Yourself a Fortune from the Money Trees” 18


Since this book was first published in 2011, ‘tricks’ like this one have become somewhat overused by content curation services like Upworthy.com. I’m personally not against those services or their headlines – but it’s important to recognize the backlash here. Be careful not to overdo any trick. But, on the flip side, don’t be afraid to try using headlines like Upworthy uses just because you think someone will misjudge you for it. The problem people have with Upworthy is not that they have great headlines; it’s that their headlines often fail to reflect the content they’re ‘selling’ accurately:

Upworthy.com (2014)

SECRET TRICK #5: TAP INTO SOMETHING VISCERAL. The adjective “visceral” simply describes a drive that is deeper than reason and is related to core emotions or feelings. Visceral feelings are not things like happiness, joy, sadness, anger. Nothing that could be covered in a kid’s book. They’re deeper than that. They’re human. When you tap into something visceral in your headline, you’re really tapping into ugly but insanely powerful emotions, like:     

Greed Lust Pride Power Revenge

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These are not pretty emotions. But they’re powerful. Which is why they sell.

“Is It Immoral to Make Money This Easily?” “Why Models Stay Young Till Sixty!” “Can You Save Twice What Your Father Retired On… Before You Turn 35?”

SECRET TRICK #6: USE TRIGGER WORDS. The word “secret” carries more power than you may want to admit. The more secret something claims to be, the more intriguing it is. Even when people are suspicious that they’re about to read something secret, they still go ahead and read it – just to satisfy their curiosity. Which is why the word “curious” is also powerful. “Secret” and “curious” are two trigger words. They’re words that pull a trigger in our brains, stopping us and making us grapple through an internal dialogue about whether or not we should stick around and read. The good news is that most people do stick around. Most people believe in their heart of hearts that they’re out of the loop. They believe others have secrets, and they’re curious about those secrets. Other trigger words and phrases include: Instantly

#1

Worth

The reason

One and only

Yes, you really can

While you sleep

Feel

Combine trigger words together to build intriguing headlines. For example, “the little known reason” or “the one and only way to train your brain while you sleep”. And to take things even further, use trigger words in questions that tap into a visceral emotion in an unexpected way.

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THE VISUALIZATION EXERCISE THAT WILL CHANGE HOW YOU WRITE When you’re writing for a group of nameless, faceless visitors to your site, it can be hard to imagine what words or images will resonate best with those people. Should you risk being unexpected? Should you bother emphasizing an almost unbelievable promise and the time in which you guarantee that promise will be realized? Will anyone get it? Will anyone care? It’s easy to talk yourself out of it. But let me tell you the simple trick I use to shove that negative talk out the window, where it belongs. It’s a visualization exercise I do. Visualize 3 of your target customers standing together in a parking lot, looking bored. Just 3 of them. No more than that. These are the 3 people you have to win over with your headline.

Now write a headline that will completely excite – almost to the point of arousal – those 3 people. Focus on just 3 because, if you put 100 people in that visualization, you’ll likely end up diluting your message in an effort to please more people. Write a variety of headlines that use a few of the above tricks. Then visualize putting those headlines in front of those 3 people. Which one or two would they be wowed by? W hich would get their attention and hold it enough that they read the next line? Those are the ones to test against a more straightforward control. And if that doesn’t work, try this: think of what a Fortune 500 company with shareholders would write… and write the opposite.


Take a headline you’ve written, and rewrite it using each of the above secret tricks. You should end up with a handful of headlines; don’t try to cover all the tricks in one headline. Are you ready to go to your site and test a few of these headlines? What’s stopping you?

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4. 9 Formulas You Can Use to Write Headlines That Get Read and Convert

If you had to write every headline on your page from scratch, out of the corners of your brain, you’d probably end up with the usual drab stuff littering ecommerce sites today: Choose from Our Top-Rated Products Online Travel Booking Just Got Fun Welcome to Our Site Product Features & Benefits How It Works Plans & Pricing

It’s hard to keep your creative juices flowing while balancing everything else that’s required in a headline, like motivation, keywords, previous page call to action – the list goes on. (It’s what this whole book is about so, yeah.) Not to mention actually growing your startup into a fully operational, money-making business.

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So why craft a headline from scratch every time? Why put yourself through that torture? As you test headlines on your site, list them on a sticky note or in Notepad or anywhere you want to. But just be sure to document them so you can refer back to them and, where appropriate, replicate them with (hopefully) similar success. Or simply use any of these 9 tried, tested and true formulas for writing your next headline. They all satisfy the ‘stop visitors in their tracks’ requirement of any great headline.

TIP:

Don’t worry about getting your headline right immediately. In fact, try not to start a page by writing your headline at all. Write everything else, then the headline! If you’re compelled to write a headline first, use a placeholder. Whatever you do, don’t fixate on it. There’ll be plenty of time to stress about your headline later.

FORMULA 1: THE TIMED “OR ELSE” PROMISE

FORMULA: Highly desirable thing + time limit + consequence if highly desirable thing not delivered

“Your Dream House Blueprints in 7 Days or They’re Free” “Setup Your Next A/B Test in 15 Minutes… or We’ll Do It for You”

FORMULA 2: THE “EVEN-IF” OBJECTION-STOMPER

FORMULA: “Now” + highly desirable thing you can do + “even if” objection

“Now You Can Build an iPhone App Even If You’re Not a Programmer” “Now You Can Run User Tests Even If You Have Almost No Budget”

FORMULA 3: THE HOW-TO

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FORMULA: “How to” + [verb + noun] + benefit

“How to Support Customers 7x Faster with GizmoJo” “How to Transform Your iPad into a Money -Making Machine”

FORMULA 4: THE QUANTITY FORMULA A: [Numeral + noun(s)] + verb + object

“64,456 People Have Already Told Their Friends about Blastobot” FORMULA B: Verb + [numeral + noun]

“Made with a Special Blend of 11 Herbs & Spices” “Get 1,000+ New Twitter Followers”

FORMULA 5: THE LIST FORMULA A: [Numeral + noun] + pronoun + big, scary problem

“7 Signs You’re Trapped in a Contract” “The Top 16 Reasons Business Owners Choose to Bleed Time Using Spreadsheets”

FORMULA B: [Numeral + noun] + “to” verb + benefit

“3 Insanely Satisfying Ways to Put Your Analytics to Immediate Use”

FORMULA C: “Do You” + verb + [numeral + noun] + subject of intense curiosity?

“Do You Know the 11 Things Your Kids Are Doing on Facebook?”

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FORMULA 6: THE WHY, WHEN OR HOW FORMULA: “Why”, “When” or “How” + statement of great intrigue

“Why SEO Is No Longer a Mystery” “When GalleyHoo Had IBM Shaking in Its Big, Fat, Expensive Boots” “How Mint Is Saving Consumers $300 Each Month in Credit Card Charges”

FORMULA 7: “THE ULTIMATE” FORMULA: “The Ultimate” X

“The Ultimate WordPress Theme Gallery” “The Ultimate FREE Anti -Virus Software” “The Ultimate in Customization and Happiness ”

FORMULA 8: THE NO-HOLDS-BARRED FORMULA: “The” + [Adjective, Adjective + “Way”] + desirable but difficult thing

“The Brilliant, Hassle -Free Way to Tweet Every Day” “The Lightning Fast, Easy Way to Run Free Background Checks”

FORMULA 9: THE SIMILE FORMULA A: Do X + “like” + Y

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“Expertly Manage Your Books Like an Accountant” “Save Money Like Scrooge”

FORMULA B: X + “that’s as amazing as” + Y

“Email Support That’s as Amazing as In -Person Help”

4 FORMULAS I’D AVOID… BUT YOU MAY WANT TO TRY I admit that I can be a copy snob. So I may read some headlines that come off as formulaic and scoff at them, thinking how I’d never write such a clichéd thing as that. But sometimes – for some markets – clichéd headlines work wonders. Who am I to stifle your boosted conversion rates just because I am fundamentally bothered by a formula? Here are a few formulas you may recognize and either love or loathe, with some examples pulled straight from startup sites. Most of these are evil because they’re so overused.

EVIL FORMULA 1: THE FUTURE FORMULA: “The future of X is here”

“The future of home contracting is here” “The future of online gold sales is here”

EVIL FORMULA 2: WELCOME TO FORMULA A: “Welcome to” + anything FORMULA B: “Welcome to the next generation of” + anything FORMULA C: “Welcome to the future of” + anything

“Welcome to the future of radio”

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EVIL FORMULA 3: (I TRULY DETEST THIS ONE) THE “JUST GOT” FORMULA: Noun + “just got” + adjective

“Internal cross promotion just got exciting” “Creating videos just got better ”

EVIL FORMULA 4: THE MISPLACED TAGLINE Note: There’s nothing wrong with taglines. But they shouldn’t be used as headlines.

FORMULA: Word. Word. Word.

“Play. Laugh. Achieve.” “Don’t. Stop. Believing.”

WHEN INTRIGUE GOES TOO FAR When you’re writing copy, you need to stay CREDIBLE. Yes, you want to intrigue and entice. But don’t let things go so far that your visitors start to think you’re messing with them. The moment people realize they’re dealing with a salesman, they back away.

The clarity, relevance and credibility of your headlines are critical to keeping people on the page, helping them to trust you, and converting more of them. In a Marketing Experiments test conducted in 2008, six headlines were tested on a landing page. The offering was a service that tracks sex offenders in neighborhoods; the topic has intrigue baked into it. But that intrigue also comes with fear, anger and worry – powerful emotions that can be hard to get under control once they’re unleashed. Of the six headlines tested, the winner – which converted 34% better than the next best headline – was the one that lead with a clear call to action and an implied benefit. It did not attempt to amplify intrigue by using a question or playing into fear. It was simply this:

“Identify Registered Sex Offenders Living Near You”

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This proves that, in times when intrigue is already high, the best strategy may be to stick to these basics rather than push emotions even higher: 1. What can a person do on this page? 2. What benefit will they derive from doing so? Don’t overdo it. Do it just enough.

ARE TODAY’S STARTUPS WRITING HEADLINES THIS WAY? In the first edition of this book, I used an example from Basecamp. As a 37signals/Basecamp nerd, I can’t help but want to compare the old Basecamp headline to the new:

BasecampHQ.com (2011) It’s hard to believe that projects will manage themselves , but Basecamp makes the claim.

Basecamp.com (2014) Basecamp has moved away from a harder-hitting claim to social proof.

Although Basecamp is no longer taking the big-claim approach, other tech businesses are.

Feed.fm (2014)

TheZebra.com (2014)

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CopyHackers.com (2014)

Yes, startups are actually using these techniques to write their headlines and subheads. They’re just doing it with better design than anyone ever saw in the old-school Donald Draper-esque days that first made these headline formulas popular. Startups are making their headlines more believable than traditional ‘intriguing’ headlines by putting them in websites that look gorgeous. And they’re supporting their claims with great social proof, like Facebook likes, testimonials, and PR mentions.


There are 2 things you need to do now.

The first: Go to your site and identify any of the previously mentioned ‘evil formulas’. Here’s hoping you don’t have any on your site. But, if you do, your task is to replace those headlines – by testing them, of course – with headlines that follow the proven formulas . The second: In your analytics, find some “low-hanging fruit” (that is, an easy opportunity) by locating a page with very high traffic but rather low conversion. Take the headline on that page, and rewrite it using any of the formulas you learned in this chapter. If you can, also add in elements from the most recent 2 chapters. Now test one or more revised headlines against the control on that page . If you’re working on a headline on your home page, consider reading the chapter on value propositions before running this test.

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5. Subheads: The Powerful Opportunity You’re Ignoring When we talk about subheads, we’re talking about two different things:

1. The supporting line of text beneath the headline at the top of the page 2. The small headlines that introduce copy chunks or sections down the page Those two types of subheads are similar in that their chief goal is to compel readers down the page. But not in many other ways. And, after all, isn’t the goal of almost all your copy, except maybe your call to action, to move people down to the next line of copy? Yes, it is. So those two types of subheads actually have very little in common… other than their name. That’s why, to get the most out of your subheads, you need to learn how to write each type. Why? Because subheads are for scanners. Making them insanely powerful copy.

SUBHEADS AS SUPPORTING LINES BELOW HEADLINES Subheads are where most startups put the message they really wanted to use as a headline but didn’t think was “clever enough”. There’s this terrible rumor going around, it seems, that a headline needs to be a short, almost poetic line – and the subhead is where the meat goes.

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To see what I mean, take a look at the following example, which is taken from PayByGroup.com (2014), a solution that lets groups of people pool their funds to pay for something:

Between the headline and the subhead, which tells you what PayByGroup does? Does it actually “bring people together”? No. Trains do that. Busses do that. Cars do that. Here’s what PayByGroup, as a service, lets you do:

Organize and Collect Money From Friends and Family For Anything You Dream of Doing

That’s the subhead. But isn’t it a much clearer headline than “Bring People Together”? So why do so many people insist on pushing all their best stuff into the subhead… and leaving the headline to do so-called emotional work? After all, “Bring People Together” isn’t even attention-grabbing. What’s it trying to do as a headline?—fade into the background? The subhead here is one of many examples of being far better copy than the headline. So the first thing you should take away from this chapter is this: Do not hide your best stuff in your subhead. Test your existing subhead as your headline. Take the following example from a site that otherwise kicks butt:

That headline falls into “Evil Formula 4” – it is really just a tagline. The goods are stuffed into a rather nice line that comprises the subhead.

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If you swapped the headline and subhead, you’d have:

The Best Way to Find & Compare Parking Find, Park and Go

Obviously the subhead would need to be worked on. (We’ll get to that right away.) But the headline is suddenly great . It matches expectations, intrigues and clearly communicates the value the visitor wants to see… With that headline in place, fleshing out the subhead to make it as clear and benefit-y as it is short would be straightforward. Now, if you were to turn your existing subhead into your headline, what would you do to write your new subhead? What should go under a headline like “The Best Way to Find & Compare Parking” or “Organize and Collect Money From Friends and Family For Anything You Dream of Doing”? Well, given that we’re trying to overcome objections, neutralize anxieties and highlight value in our copy – so we’ll see more stuff – it makes sense to write a subhead that addresses any objections or anxieties the headline may introduce… and/or highlights the value that comes from that headline. At least as a starting point. So you might fill this in:

The Best Way to Find & Compare Parking

Organize and Collect Money From Friends and Family For Anything You Dream of Doing

What objections might a prospect have after reading this headline? What makes it the “best” way? What do you know about my current parking challenges? I can already collect with email money transfers – what makes this easier or better?

What anxieties might this introduce that need prompt neutralizing? Am I going to have to install an app? Is it free?

Can something delightful, beneficial or valuable be added? Tell them how much money users have saved on average with our app.

I don’t want my family to think I’m cheap. My uncle isn’t tech savvy; this’ll be too hard.

Give examples of when this can be particularly valuable, like for milestone gifts.

When you’re completing your table, you may find you’ve got a lot more objections to list off. You may also want to prioritize them as some messages are going to be more important than others. (See the worksheet at the end of this chapter.)

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I’ve found that countering objections and highlighting value make for great subheads. Many anxieties don’t need to be addressed until your prospect is closer to the point of purchasing, but test subheads that address anxieties nonetheless to be sure.

ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO CREATING A SUBHEAD FOR A HEADLINE

Sometimes your headline will introduce something so huge, it can’t be addressed in the subhead. It might, instead, be the subject that your entire page will be trying to support. Take, for example, the headline I created for CrazyEgg.com (2014):

What questions or objections might that headline raise? So many that half the page was, in fact, dedicated to addressing those questions. After all, the Crazy Egg “picture” referenced is actually any of 4 maps in Crazy Egg… and the “stunning story” can be 30 or more insights you’ll derive from a Crazy Egg map. Now, the reason I didn’t directly address objections associated with the headline wasn’t simply that the objections were vast and numerous. Rather, I found, during research, that people often didn’t know quite when to use a Crazy Egg heatmap. That was a product objection: When will I even use it? It wasn’t an objection necessarily raised by the headline. So instead of directly supporting the headline, I directly addressed a common objection to signing up for Crazy Egg: When will I even use it?

If you know you have a major objection to address, don’t hesitate to test it in your subhead. In this case, it may also have been something to address in the headline – but that wasn’t the route we took. (And we had a winner with the above copy. Of course, there’s always room for improvement!)

Another option is not to have a “subhead” at all.

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When you have a particularly lengthy headline, you may not fi nd it needs any sort of support. Or you may introduce it with a shorter line that needs to be said above the fold but doesn’t need to be positioned as a subhead usually is: under the headline. For example, Magisto.com (2011) positions a supporting point above the intriguing headline.

And check out AppDesignVault.com (2014), which has no subhead:

This page brought in 51% more paid conversions for App Design Vault than the previous home page, which spoke more to money-savings, did. It’s based on the value that App Design Vault customers said they derived from using these “clean and modern” templates. Now, to look at this headline, you might quickly come up with an objection that a subhead could address – such as, “If it’ll set me apart, prove it! Give me the name of an app I’d know that it’s worked for.” We could have added a few well-known names to a subhead because, in fact, founder Tope Abayomi has tons of representative apps on his site. But such a subhead actually felt like a bit of an unnecessary tangent. The goal of your subhead is not to close the story. It’s to move people to the next line with confidence that they can trust what you’re going to say. So don’t feel the need to say everything in your subhead.

Subheads as Small Headlines Down the Page The second type of subhead is the kind that introduces copy chunks or groups down the page.

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Every time you transition from one point to another, you should use a subhead to introduce the new point. Which means every block of text you use and every callout box you have should be introduced by this type of subhead. These subheads often act like mini-headlines. Their goal is to draw the visitor’s eye and get them intrigued enough to keep reading. That said, you rarely want to employ the ‘headline secrets’ taught earlier in this ebook when you’re writing these mini-headlines. You want to build credibility and prove the depth of your solution by writing subheads that are:    

Short Clear Benefit-focused Sometimes slightly cute or clever

If your subheads sound too salesy, you may run the risk of compromising your credibility. If they’re too cute, though, you run the risk of confusing your prospect; of course, if they’re bland, you may lose the opportunity to develop a brand voice with which people can connect. That said, experienced copywriters and long-form copywriters can write subheads that have all the power of primary headlines with a hint of humor or levity. And you can, too. But I caution you to do so carefully and intentionally – and always with your customer hat on. After all, if every subhead you write expressly communicates a really valuable benefit, then you will be doing what all the great headlines do, anyway. And then it becomes the job of the body copy below your subhead – the chunk of text, the bullets, the numbered lists, the testimonial or data point – to support that subhead.

So, a reminder: effective subheads in this category are short, clear and benefit-focused, with only a touch of cleverness. Let’s look at a few examples of startups that get this really right.

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FreshBooks.com (2011)

FreshBooks.com (2014)

KISSinsights.com (2011)

Qualaroo.com (2014)

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Of course, there is always going to be a plethora of examples of startups that fail to appreciate the power of a good subhead and just throw down a few boring words. The following shows a subhead that can only be described as lazy because, although it’s short, it’s unclear and it’s benefit-free. It’s an example of what not to do.

The next example is simply one of failing to think of the benefit of ‘security’ as a feature. It’s fine to lead with a feature sometimes, but this particular startup leads with the feature every time and never touches on the benefit. Shame, shame, double- shame.

Have You Tried Crossheads? As I discuss in Copy Hackers Book 5: The Dark Art of Writing Long-Form Sales Pages , crossheads are powerful subheads that are centered in the middle of the page. They’ve been traditionally used in long-form sales letters, but they’re making their way into more progressive, conversion-optimized one-pager sites – which is something I’ll dare to take a small bit of credit for, given that I use crossheads on the pages of every client I’ve got.

What is a crosshead? It’s your subhead, centered and bolded, but made much, much better. It’s written just like a page headline. Imagine that every section or group you’re introducing has had its own page written for it. That page needs a headline. That headline is your crosshead. Take a look at crossheads on a few hybrid long-copy pages I’ve worked on.

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QuickSprout.com/pro (2014)

InspirePay.com (2014)

Flow by MetaLab (2014)

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CrazyEgg.com (2014)

Instead of trying to squeeze your best messages into a little subhead shoved to the right or left of a screenshot, why not allow your visitors the ease of reading a high-impact crosshead that says so much more than a subhead ever could?


Refer back to one of the headlines you worked on in the last few chapters. Now complete the table on the following page to get closer to finding the message you should cover in the subhead that goes below a headline. With your table complete, write at least 2 variations of a subhead for a headline.

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WRITE BETTER SUBHEADS Print this page from your PDF copy, or visit CopyHackers.com for a full selection of printable worksheets, including this one.

PAGE: ______________________________________________ HEADLINE: __________________________________________

What objections might a prospect have after reading this headline?

What anxieties might this introduce that need prompt neutralizing?

Can something delightful, beneficial or valuable be added?

SUBHEAD OPTION A: _______________________________________ SUBHEAD OPTION B: _______________________________________

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6. Quick Headline & Subhead Power Tips

I realize that sometimes I make assumptions about how much people already know about writing copy. Sometimes I’m wrong. After all, a lot of it is pretty common-sense. But then there’s the stuff that’s not. Or the stuff that’s important enough that it bears repeating. That’s what this chapter will cover off: the bits and pieces you need to know to write great headlines, crossheads, subheads – and, hell, any copy!

Test Your Headlines Headline tests are among the easiest tests you can run – right up there with buttons. Because so much is riding on your headline, it behooves you to always be running a headline test. Always. Why not? Just do it! Your business will thank you for it.

ABC: Always Be Clear If you have a choice between being clear and being clever, be clear. B ut don’t forget that a great analogy, simile or metaphor can be both clear and clever at the same time.

Target Pain The best headlines hit on a real customer pain in clear, powerful language that proves that each and every customer must have your solution if they’re ever to be happy again.

Don’t Be Tentative! Make a statement that someone might later describe as “rocking their socks off”. Give it a shot! If you test it, you’ll know fairly quickly if your risk will pay off or not. 41


Think Twice about Punctuating Headlines Periods at the end of a headline have been shown to mentally jar your visitor’s reading experience. This causes an interruptive pause. Not good. So avoid periods and even exclamation marks at the end of your headlines. But use question marks for questions.

Don’t Overpromise Don’t overpromise with your headline or you will be quickly found out and your credibility may be irreparably tarnished.

Consistently Capitalize You can capitalize all the words in your headline (i.e., use “Title Case”) or you can capitalize just the first word (i.e., use “Sentence case”). But whatever you do, do it consistently.

Questions Aren’t Questionable Yes, you can – and often should – use questions for headlines. Be careful not to go overboard and make every headline into a question. Oh, and some of the best questions are those that the reader will answer in agreement with you, like rhetorical questions. You want your visitor nodding with you, not sitting there and pondering a question.

Don’t Be Too On-the-Nose If you’re using a list-formula headline, consider using an odd or ‘imperfect’ number – rather than a 10 or 20. Perfect numbers come off as contrived, compared to odd numbers, which can feel more organic and less like marketing.

The Number 7 Is More Noticeable Than Seven If you’re using a list-formula headline, use a numeral (e.g., 5) instead of the written number (i.e., five) to draw more attention to the number in the midst of letters. The written word is, after all, just a bunch of symbols. Some of those – like numerals – stand out more.

Mirror Language from the Previous Call to Action To reinforce for users that they’re on the page they wish to be on – and to reduce bounce – mirror in your headline (or your subhead, if your headline just won’t work) the language from the call to action that drove visitors there. AKA message matching.

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THE ULTIMATE CHECKLIST FOR HEADLINES & SUBHEADS All the tips I’ve covered for headlines and subheads are included in this checklist. Print this page from your PDF copy, or visit CopyHackers.com for a full selection of printable worksheets, including this one.

HEADLINE: ___________________________________________________________________ SUBHEAD: ___________________________________________________________________

  

  

   



  

I am 99.9% confident this headline will stop visitors in their tracks My subhead is not an afterthought but a power-packed mini-headline The message my visitor wants to see is clearly communicated in a way that will make sense to anyone with a grade 6 reading level I address a specific pain – with a tangible benefit – but I don’t overpromise I highlight a value or incentive in an enticing, believable way The most likely call to action that will lead visitors here is reflected in the headline or subhead I’m either asking a question or making a bold statement If I’m using a list, my numbers are believably imperfect All numbers that appear in my headline are written as numerals Any included SEO keyword phrases read naturally – not like they’ve been jammed into an otherwise good headline The headline is less than 12 words – or, if it’s more, it’s intentionally more and cannot be shortened without losing its impact Interesting words are interspersed with normal words for impact My punctuation and capitalization are intentional The headline makes people want to read the subhead, and the subhead makes people want to read the next line of copy

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7. THE VALUE PROPOSITION – YOUR TICKET TO CONVERTING MORE VISITORS

Your value proposition is possibly the most important headline you will write. One of the primary recommendations I make to every startup that reaches out to me is that they use their value proposition as their home page headline. And I’m making the same recommendation to you now. A value proposition is essentially a succinct, specific, sticky statement describing what’s unique and highly desirable about your solution. It can be a headline. Or a headline and subhead. Or a headline, subhead and bullet points. Value propositions don’t use gimmicks. Or tricks. The secrets to getting it right are not hidden at all. And yet a good value proposition is almost impossible to find. Why is that? Why don’t startups, agencies or large organizations alike use value propositions on their home page to communicate the core of their value? Because it’s deadly difficult to get the value proposition right.

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(How’s that for motivating?) Let me rephrase: if you don’t know your product’s value, if you have no differentiators, and if you don’t know what your customers truly want, it can be deadly difficult to get your value proposition into a shareable condition. The point of the remainder of this book will be to do exactly that.

So you end up with a value proposition that wins on your home page and primary landing pages – and unmistakably sells the value of your solution to the people you want to convert.

Value propositions are so important, we dedicated an entire book to them. Copy Hackers Book 7: The Great Value Proposition Test

AN INTRO TO VALUE PROPOSITIONS When I first started working with my friend Shereef Bishay over at BetterMeans.com (and ClassParrot.com), he needed a reminder that he’s writing for visitors who may not be as techie or brilliant as he is. At least, I wasn’t tech-savvy or brilliant enough to understand his messages. (Being slow on the draw tech-wise has helped me as a copywriter in a tech world. Amazing that a low attention span and trouble with big words can actually be a good thing.) The headline on the BetterMeans home page was this:

open, democratic, decentralized social enterprise management The only word I didn’t have to think about was “open”, and that’s because I was misinterpreting his use of the word. So imagine my concern when I first landed on that page and saw that headline sitting there, staring me down, reminding me of how simple my brain is. A message like that has a deep, ominous voice for people like me. A message like that sends me scurrying under my desk, praying it’ll be gone when I look again, praying it’ll be replaced by something friendlier. It was my job, as his copy consultant, to find that friendlier version of what was trying to be a value proposition for what is an insanely cool project ‘management’ tool – one that just so happens to be targeted to people who also might not understand those words .

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So here’s what I recommended Shereef do to improve his headline, and here’s what I’d recommend you do with your value proposition, for starters: 

 



Use words that would be easy for a grade 6 student to grasp instantly, without flinching or re-reading Give up on trying to cram in everything you think is important Use words people recognize and would associate with your product, like “project management tool” (bonus: this also helps with SEO) Incorporate words that indicate who your product is best for (e.g., “ideal for startups”)

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of people – maybe you’re one of them – who might read that 6-word headline and not break out in a cold sweat. I’m just not one of them. And I’m willing to bet that the majority of people looking for project management software would be just as dumbfounded by that headline as I was. Of course, I’m not one to point out a problem without recommending a solution – except with my hubby, but that’s what keeps him on his toes. After thoroughly reviewing Shereef’s site and the sites of his main competitors, as well as watching his fantastic demos, I offered him these value propositions to test against his scary would-be value proposition:

Vote up the best project ideas. And make every team member a key contributor.

The innovative project management solution for innovative small businesses

The smart, affordable – and democratic – way to tackle complex problems in your org

Rethink command & control in your organization Why did I think those messages were better than what Shereef had? 46


Do I have a superiority complex? Am I a picky SOB? Worse, am I unable to see the flaws in my own work? Yes to all of the above, but that has nothing to do with why I proposed those 4 messages. I proposed them because they communicate What visitors want to see without compromising What Shereef wanted to say about his offering. As the first message on bettermeans.com, a service that was new at the time and had no brand equity, that single statement was – and is – the most important statement Shereef could communicate. The same is true for any startup… which means it’s true for your startup.

In the absence of universal awareness of your brand, you need the headline on your home page – or your highest-traffic landing page – to do the heaviest lifting. That one headline can be the difference between an 80% and a 60% bounce rate. That one headline can keep visitors on your site longer. And that one headline can, in the end, cause more visitors to convert into customers. The headline on your home page should be your value proposition. Let me remind you what a value proposition is:

Your value proposition is a succinct, specific, sticky st atement describing what’s unique and highly desirable about your solution. It can be a headline. A value proposition is closely related to a “unique benefit statement”, and you could call it that if it makes you feel better. More importantly, it is the single statement that will signal to your visitors what you do best and what about what you do they both need and want .

For a startup, your value prop will normally appear as your headline on your home page and/or on the page that receives the most traffic. (This could include your blog.) If I look at your site, I want to see it there. Because potential customers need to see it there. Which means that all that work you’re putting into your headline – the 90% of your time I recommended you dedicate to writing headlines on your website – overlaps with your value prop writing time. (Yay efficiency.)

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THE 5 QUALITIES OF AN EFFECTIVE VALUE PROPOSITION In the first edition of this book, I recommended you think about just four things when you’re working on your value proposition – proposition – but, but, after running 11 A/B tests on value props in 2013, I added a fifth. Here are the 5 qualities: 1. UNIQUE: The part of your solution or the outcome of your solution that your competitors can’t say or that they don’t say 2. DESIRABLE: How much much do your prospects want what’s unique about your offering? 3. SPECIFIC: It includes something definite and graspable, such as an identifiable reference to your niche or something quantified 4. SUCCINCT: It’s not as wordy as a mission statement, but it’s not as a s short as one of those awful four-word taglines 5. STICKY: It’s likely that your visitor will remember it – not – not recite it, but recall it You’ll notice that the definition written in green on the previous page covers off all five of these points. The first three points comprise what should should go into your value proposition, and the final two will help you with how to to write your value prop. Of all five qualities, two are the most critical – critical – and your value prop won’t even qualify as a value prop without them. They are: unique, and desirable.

1. UNIQUE BENEFITS OR FEATURES Please pay very special attention to what I’m about to tell you: If your product has no exclusive element, you will have a very hard time selling it. A very hard time. Like, we’re talking George McFly trying to get with hottie-mctottie hottie -mctottie Lorraine. Hard. Selling your product will not happen unless your future son flies through time to save your butt. Hard.

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The good news is that, even if you can’t see on the surface what’s exclusive about your product, something must be. be. It really must – must – or, unless you’re a robot, you would’ve stopped building it by now. That exclusive something might be your execution, such as your kick-ass visual design. Or your customer service. Or how lightningfast your app is. Or its low cost. There’s gotta be something. Look for it. And if you can’t find it, build it in now – now – before it’s too it’s too late. Just make sure it’s something your prospect desires… or it’s not worth bothering with.

Find what’s different about your solution! Check out Copy Hackers Book 6: The Startup Guide to Differentiation

For your value proposition to work, it will need to include the one highly desirable benefit that is essentially exclusive exclusive to you.

2. DESIRABLE BENEFITS OR FEATURES In Copy Hackers Book 1: Where Stellar Messages Come From , I discuss the importance of listing your features, finding their benefits, and then ranking both – both – as as well as comparing them against competitor features and benefits. I also encourage you to create a ‘product positioning document’ document’ that documents exactly those things. So if you haven’t read that book yet, I encourage you to. Understanding your features and benefits are fundamental – fundamental – and and they will help you through exercises like this one. That said, if you haven’t and can’t buy the book (FYI, you can go to CopyHackers.com right now and download it in seconds), all you really need to do is determine what your customers desperately want.

ASSESSING POPULAR VALUE PROPOSITIONS So, here are some things that a value prop isn’t :    

A discount you’re offering A slick marketing message that could apply to anyone A paragraph explaining all the odds and ends of y our offering A list of features 49


  

A list of benefits An “about us” statement A mission statement

It is unique. It speaks to value (and that doesn’t mean price!). And it is a proposition, which means a suggestion for another person’s consideration. tagline – but but keep in mind that most taglines are so soft and Sometimes, it can be your tagline – flavorless, they don’t meet the exclusivity criteria for a value prop. Here are some well-known examples of companies/brands with clear value props.

Wendy’s Fresh, quality, great-tasting fast food made with real ingredients. M&Ms The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in i n your hands. Kayak Compare hundreds of travel sites at once to find the deal that’s right for you. Some of those brands have translated their value proposition into a tagline. For example, M&Ms actually used their value proposition word-for-word as their tagline. (Interesting fact, M&Ms is the first company ever to have a value proposition, and its founder, Forrest Mars Sr., is the character on whom Donald Draper in the Mad Men TV series is based.) Kayak, on the other hand, morphs their value prop into their tagline: Search One and Done . The coffee brewing system Tassimo has a fantastic tagline that is also its value proposition: The barcode brews it better . You may be wondering right now – now – and I wouldn’t blame you – who – who the Helsinki Joanna Wiebe is to come in here and say who has a good value prop and who doesn’t. So let’s unpack the M&Ms and the Tassimo tagline-cum-value propositions so you can see if i f I’m a total nut-job or if I may be on to something here. Remember I said that a value proposition, to be effective, needs to do 4 things: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Highlights the benefits or values of your offering that are most desirable to visitors Applies only to your brand or offering – that is, it’s exclusive to you Is stated in a single, succinct, meaningful and clear statement Gets specific Is memorable or sticky 50


Using those four points as criteria, let’s assess a few of my favorite value propositions.

The milk chocolate melts in

UNIQUE

DESIRABLE

SPECIFIC

SUCCINCT

STICKY

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

your mouth, not in your hands. The barcode brews it better.

The M&Ms value prop is a no-brainer. It’s perfect. If you want to model yourself after one product’s value prop, that’s the one to copy. It hits all 5 points and stands the test of time. Let’s move on to Tassimo. As a coffee drinker who gets very, very annoyed at family functions, church events, etc. where the coffee tastes like dirty water, I was and am thrilled by the idea of the Tassimo brewer. I’m their target customer – no question about it. If Tassimo actually does brew a better cup of coffee [desirable] thanks to its barcode system [exclusive], I’m sold. (And as soon as my espresso maker is toast, I’ll be heading to Tassimo.) Which brings me to the other 2 important parts of crafting a value proposition and writing all copy in general: 1. Your message must be honest. You can’t make something up that you wish were true of your product and expect that not to backfire on you. It will. 2. Your message must be believable. If I didn’t believe the technology existed to read brewing directions from a barcode, I’d have a hard time buying the Tassimo value prop.

BACK TO THE BETTERMEANS VALUE PROP: ASSESSING IT Let’s see how Shereef’s original value proposition does against the five criteria.

open, democratic,

UNIQUE

DESIRABLE

SPECIFIC

SUCCINCT

STICKY

-

-

X

X

-

decentralized social enterprise management Although the solution itself is desirable, the value prop doesn’t give anybody the chance to understand that desirability – that inherent value – at a glance. As it is, the words, though specific, aren’t remotely sticky, and there’s no sense of whether others offer what they do.

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To get this value prop to a place where it can be successful requires working on the copy again and again until the average sixth grader could read it and get it. As someone external to BetterMeans and basing my assumptions of the BetterMeans offering on the copy already on the website – and on nothing else – I proposed the 4 value props that I discussed a few pages back. They’re in the leftmost column of the following table, ready to be assessed against the 5 criteria.

UNIQUE

DESIRABLE

SPECIFIC

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Vote up the best project ideas.

SUCCINCT

STICKY

And make every team member a key contributor. The innovative project management tool for innovative small businesses The smart, affordable – and democratic – way to tackle complex problems in your org Rethink command & control in

X

X

your organization Although the first and fourth value propositions may flow well and read like decent copy, when measured objectively, neither satisfies a critical component of a well-crafted value proposition: uniqueness.

If your value proposition does not easily state what is uniquely different about your company and/or offering, throw it out and start from scratch. There are better value props out there; you just have to work harder on finding yours. In some cases, that may be identifying a gap in the marketplace and a ctually adapting your product so it is the only offering that does X – making it exclusive and, bingo, valuable. Your customers need to want what you offer. Your customers need to understand what you offer. Your customers – and your competitors’ customers – need to know that you’re the only one to go to if they want what you offer. And your customers need to remember your value today… and ten years from now. With those criteria in mind, only one of the proposed value props could work: The innovative project management tool for innovative small businesses . I’d push that value 52


prop further to make it clearer and crisper, but you can see it’s an improvement.

THE 2 MAIN REASONS YOU NEED A GREAT VALUE PROP Shared on your home page and primary landing pages (e.g., PPC), your value proposition will help your visitors stick around while also building your brand in their minds and giving them a reason to convert. That’s reason number one. It’s the obvious one. Reason number two is less obvious but just as critical. And it is this: a clear value proposition keeps your team on track. Once you have defined the absolute best value proposition for your offering, you should post that value proposition on the wall by your monitor. Or carve it into your desk. Or get it tattooed on your forehead and put a mirror on your desk that you stare into every 5 minutes. Whatever helps you and your team keep it front-of-mind. A well-defined value prop for your solution can help your team:  

Recognize and recall your key differentiator(s) Assess your possibility for ongoing success as competitors encroach on your territory, diluting the uniqueness of your offering

TIP: If you want to find a company’s value proposition and it’s not visible on their site, check out the meta-description for their home page. It’s usually there. TIP: If TechCrunch has already written about you, check out the line they use to describe your product or service – and use that for your value proposition. Nine times out of 10, the writers at TechCrunch home in on the most desirable and exclusive elements of your offering in clear, succinct statements.

VALUE PROPOSITION OVERHAUL EXERCISE: PICLYF.COM In November of 2010, I worked with Eric Su on assessing and revising the PicLyf.com value proposition.

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PicLyf is this richly layered way to take your photos and turn them into stories. The only problem is that, as fun as “stories” should be and as wicked as the stories actually look in the end, it can sound like a lot of work to craft a story out of your photos.

PicLyf.com is now Lifebit.com

Other photo-sharing sites let you do little more than upload, organize and tag photos – but they’ve trained users to share their photos quickly. So PicLyf needed a way to express their value in visitor-centric language that highlights just how desirable the solution is. When I started the project, the PicLyf home page had this as the solution’s value proposition:

The easiest way to turn your pictures into STORIES. You look at that value prop and you think, sure, looks good. Short, snappy, readable. But that’s only solving for 1 of the 5 characteristics of an effective value proposition. What about desirability? Do visitors to PicLyf want an easier way to share their photos? Seems to me that most photo-sharing sites are totally easy. And what about exclusivity? It felt a bit like “STORIES” was trying to do a lot of work… but falling short. And what about lasting? Could anyone read that phrase, walk away, and remember it later when telling their friends about PicLyf? It’s nearly impossible to know, but my gut told me no. Because I couldn’t remember it, for starters.

I explained to Eric that his value prop was too marketing-focused, using words that people’s eyes glaze over, such as “easiest” (overused!) and “stories” (unspecific!). He needed to think more about what his solution’s users actually wanted… and less about what he thought sounded good. So we listed out his 4 key differentiators: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Contextualizing pictures Optimized user interface ideal for social networking Game mechanics, like badges Intelligent integration with social networks

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Unfortunately, only “game mechanics” seemed to have the potential to be sexy enough to garner any attention… but we doubted that it was desirable enough to hold up a whole value prop. In fact, we determined that the best differentiator was the ability to contextualize pictures. We just needed an interesting way to express this. We also determined that, given how innovative the PicLyf solution is, the value prop might work best alongside a strong demo that explains how PicLyf works. Finally, we forced ourselves to answer 2 key questions before proceeding:

1. Why would visitors switch from their current photo-sharing tool? 2. Who are the early adopters we should be speaking to? Thankfully, Eric understood his visitors well. We determined that the PicLyf value prop would need to express the PicLyf value versus that of its competitors and that it would need to speak to women organizing family photos and teenagers marking up photos with friends. But sometimes, you just need a brainwave. It occurred to me, while wading through tech jargon about interfaces and integration, that you may take tons of photos today, thanks to digital photography, but the ones you keep and share are the ones that capture a truly fun event. Like rolling your kayak in Hawaii. Or watching your boss breakdance at happy hour. Or dressing up for an Ugly Christmas Sweater party. That, with everything else, led me to the following PicLyf value prop proposals:

Layer captions, tags, notes & more on your fave photos. And share ‘em! Where photo-sharing is almost as fun as being there. Seriously fun ways to tag & share your photo stories. Make your pics tell better stories – easily + for free. Your life isn’t boring. Why should your photos be?

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I assessed and ranked all proposals, and I recommended “Seriously fun ways to tag & share your photo stories” because, although it did not speak to exclusivity, it satisfied the other 4 criteria and suggested the difficult-to-pinpoint value of contextualizing pictures. Eric tested my value proposition against his control, and I am happy to report that mine beat the control. It became the new headline – the value prop on the home page.

EXAMPLES OF BRILLIANT VALUE PROPS THAT STARTUPS ARE USING Assistly “The all-in-one system for delivering awesomely responsive customer support.”     

Unique (“The all-in-one system”, where “the” suggests others don’t do the same) Desirable Specific Succinct Sticky

BackupMyTree.com “The easiest way to preserve your family’s history.”     

Unique (“easiest”) Desirable Specific Succinct Sticky

Fingerprint (FingerPrintPlay .com) “The first mobile learning & play network for kids and their grown-ups!” 56


    

Unique (“the first”) Desirable Specific Succinct Sticky (especially with the interesting twist on ‘parents’)

LendingClub “Investors earn better returns, borrowers pay lower rates.”     

Unique (“better”, where “better” suggests the competition can’t match them) Desirable Specific Succinct Sticky

Verious “The world’s first marketplace for mobile app components”     

Unique (“world’s first”) Desirable Specific Succinct Sticky

Zendesk “The Fastest Way to Great Customer Support”    

Unique (“fastest way”) Desirable Succinct Sticky

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You need a value proposition on your home page. Not just any value prop, though. You need one that hits all the marks. Your task now is to list out the top distinguishing features of your solution and their emotional benefits; highlight the features that are unique to your product. If you’ve already completed Copy Hackers Book 1: Where Stellar Messages Come From , then you can refer to your product positioning document here and save yourself a heap of time. With your features and benefits in hand, brainstorm 6 to 10 value propositions. Then, use the table on the next page to assess each value prop. If none of them come close to meeting the mark, start all over again. This exercise is worth the time it will take! Once you find a value prop that hits 3 of the 4 points, simply revise that value prop until it’s just right. (Refer back to the ‘secrets’ and formulas in the headline chapters for help breathing life into your value prop.) And then – this is the most important part – test it as the headline on your home page.

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Value Proposition Template Print this page from your PDF copy, or visit CopyHackers.com for a full selection of printable worksheets, including this one.

UNIQUE

DESIRABLE

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SPECIFIC

SUCCINCT

STICKY

BONUS: HEADLINE HALL OF SHAME

Sometimes the best way to learn what to do is to see what not to do. That’s what this bonus power-chapter is for. The identities of the shame-worthy sites have been eliminated ‘cos I’m sure they’re perfectly nice people who meant to write well…

What?? Please, I don’t care how savvy you think your audience is, it’s almost never okay to use words like “monetize”. Especially not if you follow those with “cross promotion” and “direct deals”. I’m in the biz, and I don’t even know what “direct deals” means.

~

I’m sorry, but this is a headline? It’s a sentence. A sentence filled with lots of boring words, which totally negates the coolness of the solution they’re offering. ~

High-definition what meets high-speed what ? Come on. Tell me. Yes, I can fill in the blanks myself. But if we went around writing copy that demanded the visitor fill in gaps, we’d be wasting everyone’s time. Fill in the blanks for potential customers . It’s the least you can do.

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Okay, but why ? Just because? Using authority like “largest professional network” and “Facebook” should not be the basis of either a solution or a headline on a home page. ~

Really? That’s it? Snoozefest . Surely they have some sort of benefit or differentiator to communicate in the headline on their home page, no? ~

It’s almost hard to believe that someone who offers something so potentially useful – that is, desirable and valuable – would fail to note a single benefit in their headline. Even worse? There’s no supportive subhead! Just a button to sign up now. Oy! ~

I wish I could say the subhead or other supporting points clarify what this headline is trying to communicate, but nothing on the site in question helps. Unfortunately. I’m lost. ~

Too clever. It’s using parallelism well, which is probably why the writer and/or approver thought it was ‘good copy’. But it doesn’t make immediate sense.

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Founded in 2011 by Joanna Wiebe and Lance Jones, Copy Hackers started like most startups: as a minimum viable product that launched on Hacker News. Nearly three years later, we’re pleased to see that the market has validated our idea – and then some. Copy Hackers books are on the Kindles and laptops of over 10,000 startup founders and, based on the emails we get almost daily, are responsible for helping busy programmers and marketers write higher-converting copy with greater confidence. You don’t have to become a copywriter. But you can write like one. And sell like one. For more to help you grow your startup or small biz, visit www.CopyHackers.com

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Headlines Subheads and Value Propositions COPY HACKERS 2nd Edition for 2014

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