In a recent consultation a client, who is a business owner, asked questions about writing compelling letters and adverts.

Here are some of the questions he asked about headlines for Sales Letters and the answers I gave…

Question:You advise people to spend the majority of their time creating headlines - in fact you recommend writing 100 before choosing the ones to test.

What are the crucial points to take into account when formulating a headline and why are these key to gaining the highest response from your letter or advert?

Answer:

There are 7 crucial points you should bear in mind when developing your headlines:

1 - Be results focussed. Clearly indicate the benefits the reader can expect to get by taking up this offer. For example increased sales; weight loss; feeling fitter; reduced productivity costs etc.

2 - Be specific, quote actual figures if appropriate, e.g. “How to Increase Your Productivity by 23% within 28 Days“

3 - Use 1 or more proven response words or phrases. Certain words attract people; such as Announcing; Revolutionary; Unique; Valuable; At Last; First Time Ever; Phenomenal, amongst others. Creating headlines using 1 or more of these words makes them compelling and eye-catching.

4 - Don’t restrict the length of your headline. It should be as long as it needs to be to get your important sales message across, even if that is 3 or 4 lines. Fi the headline seems excessively long, see if it can be sensibly split into two, with the first leading onto the second.

5 - Avoid asking questions that can be answered “No!” or elicit a glib comment without drawing your reader into the letter.

Let me give you an example:

My Father received a letter from the local water company with the headline “What would you do if you had a burst pipe?” This headline had obviously been thought about before being sent out and was probably considered to be a good one. My Father said “Fix it!” and he threw the letter away. Perhaps a better headline may have been “Here’s What To Do if Your Water Pipe Bursts.”

However, there are certain types of questions that can be powerful in a headline:

“Who Else Would Like to…” implies someone else has benefited and perhaps the reader could too.

6 - Avoid trying to be clever, cute or obscure - if people have to think about what you mean, you’ve lost them. Don’t use clichés - people often ignore these type of headlines.

7 - Your headline must be relevant to the people you are writing to. And to what is being offered - an inappropriate or curiosity headline that doesn’t relate to the rest of the letter or advert makes your reader feel cheated and they won’t trust the rest of your message - even if they bother to read it!

Question:How do you get started on writing 100 headlines - it seems an insurmountable task?

For people who are new to writing sales letters and adverts it can seem a bit daunting. And as with any big task it is easier when it is broken down. When I’m running my copywriting workshops I get students to take the response words I mentioned in point 3 of the previous question, and another 72 I give them, and write a headline for each response word.

It doesn’t matter how crazy each headline seems at this stage, the process gets your brain working and the headlines you do write act as a catalyst to bring out the real winning headlines for you.

After you’ve done this exercise for a few letters you’ll find that you start to write headlines without having to use this technique.

Question:Where else do these techniques apply?

1 - Use headlines you’ve created, but not used as your main headline, within your sub-headlines - they catch the reader’s eye - especially if he or she is skimming your letter - it can pull them back into reading it. As a minimum they should deliver the main points of your message… a bit like a telegram.

2 - Creating 100 headlines often throws up a good P.S. The P.S. is usually the third thing that people read in a letter. First the reader checks the letter is addressed correctly; name; spelling etc. Then he or she looks at the end of the letter to find out who sent it - and that’s when your P.S. is seen.

The intention is to encourage your prospect to actually read the letter as well as remind them of the main benefit of responding. Encapsulate your offer, the real benefit the reader gains by responding and any bonuses they will receive in your P.S.

©2005 Original Work by Carol Bentley

Do you have a Question you want answered? Visit http://www.CarolBentley.com and Click on Got a Question?. I’ll send you an answer and might include your Q&A in a future article.

Carol Bentley; author of ‘I Want to Buy Your Product… Have You Sent Me a Letter Yet? (How to create powerful sales letters, advertisements, flyers, brochures, web pages and newsletters that persuade hundreds, or even thousands, of additional customers and clients to buy from you!)***** Rated 5-star on Amazon.co.uk by 7 reviewers.

If you want help with a current copywriting project contact Carol through the contact form on her website: http://www.CarolBentley.com/contact.asp

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My dad was wrong. I just discovered that I am good for nuthin’ after all. In fact I’ve been good for nuthin’ all along. I am 100% biodegradable and that means I can be recycled into nuthin’. It also means that no matter how much I waste, no matter how much I consume, no matter how much I pollute, in the end I am environment-friendly. Best of all, I now have an end use.

Now that’s something to put on my resume!

This comes as particularly good news to somebody who is not sure what his purpose is. Sometimes I write these humor columns, pretending to be funny. Sometimes people even laugh, and I worry that it might be the start of an ominous trend.

Sometimes I am selling my happiness book, pretending to be a successful author. With 2,000 copies of my book keeping the floor from floating upwards, perhaps I AM successful. Levitating floors are generally not considered signs of success in this part of the country.

Sometimes I am optimizing websites for search engine rankings. “What exactly does that mean?” I am often asked.

“Well…it means that I get my clients’ site high up in the searches.” Blank stare.

I try again. “It means that I help Google show you my clients’ web sites. Blank stare.

“Well…I’m not sure how to explain it. But I get paid to do it.” People understand that.

“I turn on a machine that defluctuates the turbo-rotating modulator down at the spare parts plant,” someone adds.

“What exactly does that mean?” I ask.

“Beats me. But I get paid to do it.” We are soulmates.

Sometimes I write for pay, because people seem to want something written. They hope that if they can’t say it themselves, I might be able to find just the right words.

“C’mon, David. You have lots of words. Why don’t you lend me some? Why, just last week you promised to ‘defenestrate’ me, whatever that means.” They want me to put their thoughts into words, and occasionally they want me to create their thoughts. I worked for a politician years ago. I vaguely remember how to write somebody else’s thoughts before he knew he had them.

“So what do you write?”

“Web site copy, mostly.”

“Really? Not another book?”

“No, I still have 2,000 copies of the last book piled up in my office.”

“I’m sure they’ll sell quickly, David.”

“Really? Want one?”

“Uh…gotta go. It’s time for my pet goldfish’s nap.”

I also write this humor column faithfully every week. But people actually PAY me to write website copy. Now, dear reader, answer me this question. Would you rather be reading this hilarious column, loaded with frosting and topped with chocolate syrup, or would you rather read plain vanilla website copy.

OK, go ahead and read the website copy, then. See if I care.

One thing my website copy and this column have in common is that they are not biodegradable. Remember how computers would save the environment as they replace the three gazillion tones of paper we trash every few hours in offices around the world and elsewhere?

Now we discover that all that paper at least was biodegradable, recyclable, reusable. It wasn’t all that bad for the environment, after all. But the monitor you are reading this on will last forever. (SFX: evil laughter) Adventure seekers from the planet Zorgoppppt will land here in the year 2304 and discover all these abandoned monitors scattered around.

One Zorgopppptian will say to the other, “prrg, ddyte h hthp oooo djudu” (Translation: “Groovy paper weights!”)

But they won’t find me, thanks to my lifetime achievement. I’ll be long gone, because I am (chest swells with pride) biodegradable.

About The Author

David Leonhardt is biodegradable and happy at: http://www.thehappyguy.com

He is author of Inspiration & Motivation To Go: http://www.thehappyguy.com/l/daily-motivation-inspiration.php

The Get Happy Workbook: http://www.thehappyguy.com/happiness-work-book.html

and Climb Your Stairway to Heaven: the 9 habits of maximum happiness: http://www.thehappyguy.com/happiness-self-help-book.html

To write your website copy, newsletter or award winning biodegradable cereal box copy, email him at: Info@thehappyguy.com

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I would imagine that when someone mentions a bear rug, your first thought is one of a dead animal skin lying on the floor in front of a fireplace. While that can still be true today to some extent, the fact of the matter is that there are now numerous different ways to have a very similar look, without having the actual bearskin in the house.

It has become commonplace to find bear rugs that are actually made out of cotton, wool, or even synthetics. And of course, most of them are not exactly shaped like a bear either! Many of these rugs even have designs, words, or other types of prints on them that you wouldn’t exactly find on the average bear in the forest.

Wool might be the most common substitute used for the real fur of a bear these days. While this of course, preserves the bear, it can present problems for the buyer if you aren’t careful. Many people are allergic to wool, so before you purchase, make that you either not allergic to wool, or that you check the material before buying. If you are allergic to wool, there are still others options out there for you like cotton.

Most people can tolerate cotton bear rugs without a problem, and these of course lend themselves to all kinds of different designs, patterns and prints. Color is, of course, another advantage to buying some sort of synthetic bear rug. This allows you to properly match whatever type of decor you currently have in your home.

Of course, we’re now getting completely away from what makes a bear rug so unique in the first place - the bear part! Though more difficult to come by, and often fraught with numerous difficulties, genuine bearskin rugs are still available to purchase. For some people, nothing will ever replace the comfort and warmth of the genuine articles.

One last option with genuine bear rugs is coloration. While most shops sell their rugs in their natural color, some will offer to dye them a different color for you. Once again, make sure that any sort of allergic reaction is something that won’t happen before you make your buying decision.

Both types of rugs can be purchased online at numerous outlets. Again, be sure to do your due diligence to make sure that you know exactly what you’re getting. Though most rugs shops are highly reputable, there will always be a few out there to watch out for. As always, education is key.

Mike Long is the author of SeagrassRugs.net.

Inside, you will find informative, up-to-date articles on topics such as hearth rugs, rug runners, and seagrass rugs.

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Cash life insurance settlement refers to a cash settlement for relinquishing the life insurance policy of a person for several reasons, like medical treatment, incapacity to afford premiums, poor performance of the policy, and so on. Generally Cash Life Insurance Settlement companies purchase life insurance policies from individuals, trusts and companies and award a fixed percentage of the policy amount to the policy seller. Then the Company will become the owner and beneficiary of the policy and when the policy owner dies or when the policy matures, the Company collects the full amount of the policy. Therefore obviously, the difference between the amount that the Company has paid to the policy owner and the amount it has received from the Insurance Company will be the income to the Company on that particular insurance settlement transaction. Cash Life Insurance settlement companies offer higher amounts on the insurance settlements than the insurance companies.

Owing to several reasons, insurance policy owners may go for cash life settlements. If the policy owner is in great need of money for emergency situations or for meeting expensive medical treatment, he/she may choose cash life settlements. Similarly if the policy owner thinks that the policy is no longer serving his needs, if he wants to invest that amount in some other better policy or if he wants to supplement the policy amount along with his other retirement benefits, then he can opt for cash life settlements. On the other hand, some policyholders wish to have inheritance cash advances in which the heirs of the policyholder receive a portion of the policy amount now itself instead of waiting until the holder dies.

Generally cash life insurance settlements are availed by only those people who carry life insurance policy worth of minimum one hundred thousand dollars in U.S.A. Moreover senior cash life settlements are availed by those people whose age is above sixty-five years and whose policy amount exceeds one hundred thousand dollars. There are some cash life settlement brokers who will bid on the policy. However it is up to the policy owner to accept or reject the offer made by the broker. Before selecting the cash life settlement company, the policyholder should be very careful and should do thorough prior research about the genuineness of the company.

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