The One Line That Makes Or Breaks An Ad

95% of ads out there don’t work. They are losing money. And more often than not, it takes a single line to destroy all hopes of converting the reader into a paying customer.

In this article, I will show you how to avoid that common pitfall and make your ads beat the absolute majority of your competition’s ads instead. Let’s get into it.

The reason most ads don’t work is simple…

...They never get read.

Just because we put an ad on the internet doesn’t mean people will read it.

And even if you have the best ad in the world… If it gets ignored, it won’t get you any sales.

Force People to Read Your Ads

We need to grab their attention and make them unable to resist reading the ad.

And we have to do that in the very first line - the headline.

Just by writing a good headline, we can significantly increase the amount of responses the ad gets. This is the low hanging fruit of marketing.

Here is the exact process I use to write headlines that force people to read the ad:

Step 1 - Pick a Target

The harsh truth is… Not everyone will buy your product :(

That’s why we don’t sell to everyone. We sell to the people that are likely to buy from us.

If you were a car salesman, it wouldn't make much sense to go into a kindergarten to sell cars.

Little children will never buy a car. They don’t have the money and in most countries, it’s also illegal for them to drive.

So picture the perfect customer. The person who would definitely buy from you.

Not sure who that would be? Take a look at your existing customers. What kind of people buy from you? What do they have in common?

Step 2 - Let Them Know You’re Talking Exactly to THEM

One of the best pieces of marketing advice I ever got was at a CPR class. And yes, by CPR I mean the thing you do to prevent people from dying.

They told us that when you need one of the bystanders to call an ambulance, you don’t shout: “Someone call an ambulance!”

You pick one person from the crowd and say: “You in the red jacket, call an ambulance!”

And in marketing, we do the exact same thing. We get their attention by making it clear that we’re talking exactly to them.

Step 3 - Give Them a Reason to Read the Ad

Few people read ads for amusement. (Those who do rarely make the best customers.)

So we’ll need to make them want to read the ad. We need to address something they care about. They need to know what's in it for them.

How will our product/service benefit them?

Examples

Online Fitness and Nutrition Package

What do you think? Is that a good headline?

Not really...

Who is it for? People trying to lose weight, or gain muscle? And what age? Men, or women?

What's in it for me? What can I expect from this package?

Do you see how it fails to give people a reason to read on? And yet, this is how most ads look like.

Does Your Back Hurt?

I wrote this one a while back for a chiropractor. And although it’s not really that interesting, it works. Here’s why:

1. We’re selling to a specific group of people that makes the perfect customers for a chiropractor - people with back pain.

2. The headline makes it clear who it’s for. If you’re suffering from back pain, you know it’s aimed exactly at you.

3. If you see an ad that starts with “Does your back hurt?” you would assume it’s gonna tell you how to get rid of it. So you want to keep on reading.

Real Estate Agents, here’s how you can convincingly attract buyers

Pretty straightforward. Again, it’s aimed at a specific audience that makes the perfect buyers. It lets them know that it’s for them, and it tells them exactly why they should read the rest.

Headlines really aren’t too complicated. They shouldn’t be. Keep things simple and always ask yourself: “If I were the ideal customer, would that headline make me want to read more?”.

If the answer is “No”, create another one using the 3 steps I gave you. It usually takes me a couple of bad ideas before I figure out a headline that I’m confident will do its job.

Talk soon,

Marian

P.S. If you want us to look at your marketing plan and see what we could do for you, get in touch: https://www.mmrleads.com/free-marketing-analysis