Become a Home Based Travel Agent

Wow! I want to open that email advertisement…
By Joanie Ogg, CTC, MCC

It is no surprise.  Studies have proven that 5 times as many people who look at ads are primarily reading the headlines and sometimes completely ignore the body of the ad or the copy altogether.  I am guilty of this on a daily basis and I am sure you also have found yourself skimming right over email ads that do not tempt you with the headline.  It is pretty scary when you think of how much effort and cost goes into the creation of the “meat” of most advertising and yet much of it is simply ignored.

We do email broadcasting for some of our supplier and host agency partners and I encourage them to come up with catchy subject lines that will really speak to the potential customer. This is not an easy task and is certainly one where choosing words carefully is the key to the success of a campaign.  In fact, it really does not matter what kind of advertising it is, the most important time spent on the message should be the subject line or headline.

This, of course, is easy to say, but much more difficult to actually acomplish. I have always relied on a book that I call my “word bible”.  I have had this book for many years and the dog-eared pages and coffee stained cover proves it.  If you do not buy any other book this year, please buy this one. The author is Richard Bayan and the title of the book is “Words That Sell”.  The cost is about $13.95 but, knowing how invaluable the book has been to me over the last 15 years, I would have gladly paid much more. I even bought the newer release by Richard Bayan entitled “More Words That Sell”, but I have not found it to be as useful and would much prefer to flip open my original find.

So, what can you use this book for? It is referred to as a thesaurus to help you promote your products, services and ideas, however it is more then that. I find that when I am having a “block” and am not able to come up with the right word for a letter to someone, words for a speech, or simply a better way to say something,  This book opens my mind and makes me more creative. It is magic!

I figured there had to be other tools like this out there to help with marketing phrases and catchy words to use, so I did some research. I found a software program called Headline Creator Pro, which can be found at www.headlinecreatorpro.net that is really cool. It is not MAC friendly which bummed me out but I still have a dusty PC so I purchased and downloaded it to check it out. The cost was only $9.97 and after filling in a few simple lines, it created some very catchy headlines for me. I am still working with it so I am on a learning curve. However, for less then $10 it is clearly worth the investment. I have a feeling it will be a great tool.

The headline of whatever marketing message you are sending must grab the reader’s attention in around 5 seconds or it is too late and you will have likely lost them.

Here are some tips I have uncovered.

• Know your target audience both in terms of demographics and psychographics.

• What does your service or product answer to in terms of their needs and desires?

• What is your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)? 

• Your headline should make the reader want to act immediately by reading further.

• You have to communicate value to the reader to get them engaged in the WIFM (What’s in it for me, the reader that is).

Above all, be honest. Never use a subject like that acts as a Bait and Switch. If you trick a reader once, you can be pretty sure they won’t ever bother to open your messages again.

I hope you enjoy the books and software I have shared here and that your advertising simply knocks your customer’s socks off!