Stop Thief! Headlines Increase Open Rates

Have you ever had someone yell "stop thief" on a street you near where you were standing? What do you do? You stop and take a look to see what is going on, right?

Well, good sales copy headlines produce the same result: people stop and open the email. Yet, how many salespeople pay attention to their email headlines? Most do not.

Sales executives often get lazy, too. They simply say what it is...

For example:

"Following up about ____"
"Here's my report for your review"
"Read our white paper on ____"
"Check out our new blabber widget"

Isn't this how most sales emails read that come across your inbox? Do these work for you? Or do you think they're boring? There's a better way. I've been studying email marketing and personally developing email campaigns for about ten years now. The first thing I notice about an email is the headline. Without a good headline, your open rate, or "opens", is low. With a good headline, your open rate increases.

The quality of your list can also dictate your success with open rates, too. However, for now, let us just say you have an average quality list of prospects that both know you and do not know you and you are trying to build a relationship so that over time, they decide to move in deeper and buy your products and services. That is why you have a list, right? How can you influence your success with that list?

Well, if they only read 20% of your emails, the odds of them making it to "buy" go down dramatically. You need your prospects to open your emails. PERIOD. Your headlines matter!

So, think about your headlines. If you are wondering what headlines work, watch what other marketers do - especially Internet Marketers. Study the best: Frank Kern, John Reese, David DeAngelo, Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero, and John Carlton. Learn from them. In addition, especially, pay attention to what they teach about headlines. I "borrowed" the phrase "Stop Thief" from a headline Frank Kern used a few months ago. And, I'm pretty sure he borrowed it from another great writer. It works, right? You would not be reading this free training right now, if it didn't work for you. Of course, the headline ALSO must apply to your topic, so make sure to use relevant headlines, too.

This is part of what I teach in Cold to Gold. I help you understand the types of headlines that work, and those that do not (and why).

What do you think is better:

"Check out my keynote on 'The Biggest Mistakes Sales Executives Make'"

or "Oops! You just fouled up!"

Hey- maybe I'll use that one! Haha...

When you start to understand your headlines, you will approach your email in a completely new way. A previous manager (a CEO, no less) get mad at me for teaching my team how to write better letters. Frankly, he was crazy! If your team cannot write a good letter, how do you know they can communicate with their email, or follow up properly? Seriously! Improving our communication skills is the number one way to improve our ability to sell. Writing powerful headlines means you know the right words and phrases that convey ideas, trigger people to buy, and excite people to take their sales engine, ignite that engine, and send it zipping down the racetrack!

So, how is your sales engine? Is it zippy? Or, does it feel a quart low on oil? The best way to keep the sales engine firing on all cylinders is to maintain it properly. In the world of selling, that means education. You can read it in a book, or you can get the information from direct from the trainer.

Right now, for a limited time, you have an opportunity to learn more about how to shift thinking, what you say does matter, and more in Cold to Gold Mind Spark Sessions TM (http://www.coldtogold.com/). Visit the website, or call me and we will talk about how to work with your team to impact higher results.

Until then, enjoy the free training I just gave you and have a great day!

Your friend in selling and life success,

Scott Andrews, CEO
ARRiiVE Business Solutions
http://www.coldtogold.com/

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Liz Taylor Murdered: The power of SPAM going too far

Today's #4 highest search term at Google Trends is "Liz Taylor Murdered". Out of curiosity, I clicked on it, as this is quite a shocking story.

From Google: Hot Trends (USA)

Aug 14, 2008 - change date Updated 25 minutes ago 1. electric vehicles of... 2. beijing 2008 olympic... 3. julia child 4. liz taylor murdered

Guess what: the story about "Liz Taylor murdered" is a FAKE!

Don't you hate when you chase a story to learn what's happening, only to find out you've been duped by EMAIL SPAM? It happens to the best of us. However, I figured this one must be a fake because the Today show hadn't mentioned it, and "Liz Taylor murdered" would be one of those national stories to hit ALL the airwaves very quickly. As of last time I checked, Liz Taylor is now 76 and is still making appearances in glittery gowns with that wonderful smile of hers.

Frankly, I think it is a sick tactic by email spammers to use a celebrity murder to draw more traffic to their site. Worse than that, this email purportedly contains a VIRUS. Icky, huh?

So, why am I writing about it?

The first reason I'm writing about Liz Taylor murdered: To illustrate the power of EMAIL MARKETING If you're not yet dialed into ETHICAL email marketing, you might consider it. I help people design email campaigns and also offer a powerful email marketing software solution for anyone who is serious about doing massive email campaigns without SPAMMING people.

The second reason I'm discussing Liz Taylor murdered: To illustrate the power of KEY WORD PHRASES. If you haven't optimized your website key word phrases you might consider hiring an expert (hint, hint) to help you optimize your website for more traffic.

The third reason I'm talking about Liz Taylor murdered: Because I'm running a simple article marketing test to see if this article draws traffic just by discussing the email spam of a fake story. How crazy is that? I thought it made for an interesting research angle, so that's how I'm approaching it.

We'll see what happens and I'll report back to you on my findings soon.
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Liz Taylor "Cleopatra" photo from Wikipedia.
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