How "creative" should you be?

Today, I'm going to give you a master strategy for writing B2B headlines that work.

I learned these strategies in B2B master David Ariya's program Secrets of Writing High-Performance Business-to-Business Copy.

When writing Business-to-Consumer copy, you can choose from many different types of headlines. But in B2B copywriting, two general types of headlines prevail.
 These are teaser headlines and benefit headlines.


 The idea behind teaser headlines is to tease the prospect into reading the rest of the copy.

They rely on a play on words, joke, puzzle, some type of curiosity, or another bit of "creativity" to grab attention.

Copywriters who take this route bet the prospect will be so intrigued by his cleverness, he won't be able to resist reading the rest the letter.

Here are three examples of teaser headlines from Ariya's program:

 1. Line of Sight (An ad for a logistics firm)
   2   Bring on the Pulsing Zombies (An ad for a high-tech product)
   3  Good to Know You (An ad for an executive search firm) Do these headlines mean anything to you? Not likely.
There's no attempt to appeal to the business buyer's challenges, needs, and interests. The headlines just tease … and nothing more.

They're meaningless. To really understand what they're trying to get at, you have to read the rest of the copy.

And when you rely on the reader finishing the rest of the copy, your headline fails.

Do teaser headlines work? Sometimes. But "sometimes" isn't good enough in copywriting.
    
                    Are you willing to bet long odds on success?

  David Ariya ,   a well-known and very successful copywriter in the software industry, about teaser headlines …

    "Teaser headlines suffer from a fatal flaw. They're essentially a bet. And a bad one at that. The writer bets the reader will check out the body copy simply because the headline is so darned intriguing. Sadly, this is bet is often lost."

 Do you want to bet the success of your promotion — and career — on such low odds?

Ariya urges you to avoid teaser headlines for B2B. Instead, focus on benefit headlines

Grab attention by offering something useful.

 Benefit headline express or imply a benefit to the reader. It's telling the reader that if you read the copy, you can save money, save time, improve productivity, and so on.

Take a look at Steve's examples:

1.    Save $400 per subscriber with a multi-user subscription to WHS Online.
 2.   Double your folding carton production uptime.
 3.   Now you can get at least ONE MORE HOUR of productive time each day than Day-Timer® or other planning systems can give you … GUARANTEED.

Each of these B2B headlines expresses a clear and specific benefit. Even if you know nothing about the business, you still get a strong sense of how it will help.

None is "award-winning" creative. But you're not trying to win awards with B2B headlines.

You're trying to win sales. And that's exactly what well-crafted benefit headlines do in B2B.
 Tomorrow, I will speak to you directly about how not to scare potential clients away. Until then, tell us what you're thinking. Comment here.

Yours for a successful copywriting career,
 
   ROTIMI OSHO
 











 

Secrets Of A Successful Blog!

                                                              

Do you know the characteristics of successful blogs? Successful blogs that make a lot of money have a lot of readers so if you want to have success with your blog, focus on getting lots of readers. There are many ways to go about getting readers, but you should know that only about a handful of them work to get you the readers that you desire.










 



If you didn't already know, you need a blog so that you can propel your business to the next level. I think it's plain to see that having a blog can do a lot for your business growth. In the internet marketing world, there's an old saying that says "the money is in the list", so if you want to earn money with your blog, focus on building a list.
  

 

Popular blogs have a readership level in the thousands. It could take some time to build this up from scratch or you can pay for advertising and set up a capture page to get users to subscribe to your blog. I personally feel that the first option of building a list from scratch is better. With this you are using free advertising. For one these people know you and like you and have grown to listen to your advice. If you think that you can't build a successful blog from scratch, then think again.           

Internet marketing in general is hard, and building a successful blog is even harder. Popular blogs get a lot of traffic on a daily basis but you shouldn't let this discourage you if you're not getting a lot of traffic yet. You want to build successful blogs so that you can be perceived as an obvious expert in your niche. With credibility behind you, it will be easier for you to sell your products and services.

It doesn't matter what you use to monetize your blog - you need a lot of subscribers to make it successful. If you have Google AdSense on your blog, you should know that you will get a lot of clicks, but to repeatedly see the numbers rise in your favor, you need a following of people who will visit your blog on a daily basis. This is something that successful blogs have.


 

I mentioned above that successful blogs have a lot of traffic to their blog. This is important because without a lot of traffic you're dead in the water. You need a lot of traffic if you want to survive in the internet marketing world - that's just marketing 101. There are a ton of ways to get traffic, but only a few of them are worth your time. If you're a beginner, you should stick with the free ways to get traffic since you probably won't have a lot of money for advertising.

One of the best kinds of free advertising is video marketing. All you do is create 3-5 minute long videos and submit them to the top video sites. Sites such as YouTube, Metacafe, and Google Video are all popular sites and get a lot of traffic to them on a daily basis. You can stand to benefit from the traffic that these sites can deliver to you.

Another way to get traffic is with article marketing. Simply write up 300-500 word articles and submit them to the top article directories. Here are a few of my favorites below:

- EzineArticles.com - ArticleDashboard.com - ArticlesBase.com - GoArticles.com - IdeaMarketers.com

All of these sites can deliver a ton of hits to your blog. You will want to write on topics that are related to your blog so that you can get targeted visitors. You get search engine traffic when you write for the article directories, and you also get traffic when website owners publish your article on their website.                




 


Another great way to get free traffic is with forum marketing. Sign up to a forum and post helpful messages on the forums. Reserve your advertising message until your signature line as this is the proper place to put your message - so keep this in mind.

Successful blogs have all of these things in common. If you want a blog that is successful, simply follow the tips in this article.