Lessons

Lesson Info

Write Headlines that Get Your Followers to Click and Share

I think you and we're back with lesson ten, which is write headlines that get your followers to click and share, but before we move on to lesson ten let's talk about what we covered in less than nine, the power of video getting started and beyond. We talked about why you should use video in your marketing to grow you're following we talked about my video essentials, we talked about the blawg video blueprint and how I set up my lighting kit and how you could do the same really is really pretty inexpensively so that you know that anybody can really do this stuff, and now we're diving into the writing part of this don't out done. The objective is to write headlines that your followers will click and share what you'll learn. Why headlines air so important to the success of your marketing and growth why you should never use your first headline idea how to use headline starters to write captivating headlines every single time and examples of headlines that make you want to click and we have ...

some fun hot seats in this one. If you don't learn how to write engaging curiosity provoking headlines, you're completely wasting your time writing block posting emails because nobody is clicking and coming over in reading them, so if you're spending all this time. Writing something that's really great and then nobody opens up the email because the subject line isn't very good then you've wasted all that time and if your followers don't share, you want them to share so what's the point you'll continue to struggle to grow your following online if you want to start to grow your followers writing headlines is one of those key components it's gonna help you do just that so let's talk about what copyrighting is I've thrown around those term already a little bit, but copy writing is basically just written content used to sell market or per I laid there trying to persuade somebody to do something like even leave a comment on your vlog or you're trying to sell your product and it's copyrighting and just because let's get real for a second first of all, none of our followers are dumb they don't have to read our stuff they could choose to spend their time, other places and they're busy they have a lot going on. All of you are very busy, I'm busy and they care more about other stuff in their lives than they do about anything we're talking about pretty much very much you guys have other stuff going on like you have families, you have things that you care about other than the things that I am blogging about every week and so therefore you want to be one of those welcome parts to your ideal customers day, and you also have to stand out among all the clutter that's going on in her life, the headlines, the subject lines that's what's going to get that moment for her to click and read and figure out what you're up to. Eight out of ten people read your headline two out of ten read the rest and this is because so many people write terrible headlines I'm guilty of this, I have put up headlines that I have not spent very much time on, and I were read it because it's usually some I'm like pushing I'm on my time crunch it's midnight! I want to get my block post up, I want to get done with it already, and I've done all the work, all the hard work, and now it's time to email my list and I'm like, all right, I've got these two ideas let's, just go with it, and then I regret it because I've put all the time in tow all the rest of it. So why not your headline and first sentence paragraph? Or the most important pieces of your block post landing pages and emails? Without it, you've got nothing, you've got nothing, and if your followers loved the beginning of your block poster your email, they're much more likely to keep breeding so that first sentence that first paragraph is also really important to bring them in, and then they're invested and they want to keep reading your first headline idea is almost never good enough almost every once in a while we really come up with a great idea the first time, but almost always it's not good enough, and it could be better you want to be asking yourself, what does this really look like? I talked about this a lot focusing on what does something really look like? What does this really mean? So the first headline that you write then I want you to say to yourself, what does this really look like? What does this really mean and get more specific? Because often the first headline we write is really general or vague, and I always suggest brainstorming at least ten different options at least ten you should be spending twenty minutes on your headline alone, because without it, the other stuff doesn't really matter now. Once you write the ten different options, ask yourself which one provokes the most curiosity? Because that's what works really well when somebody is curious enough to click on the headline and read the rest and pick the best one and ask what could make this even better? So once you've got your ten options, is there a way to even make that better the first thing you need to do is attempt in provoked curiosity with an intention grabber then you've got to deliver on the promise so you can't just have that attention grabber and then they get to the post we've all done this before we've clicked on something we've gotten to the post him like a man that didn't live up to what I was expecting and then we lose trust in that block post or that blogger that entrepreneur we lose trust in them and so we don't care a cz much when we see them say something else ever like I don't think so you're not tricking me again if you do these two things you'll build a loyal following and they will help you they will want to share your stuff and so to put this in action to see what it looks like we've got ah hot seat well we actually have two hot seats okay the first hot seat is a man to creak amanda creek come on up here enjoying me yes let's give our all bigger a round of applause on that okay, so I pulled this block post from amanda site and the title of it is my big blunders in business thus far I think we can make this better I think we can take this and make it better what do you think? Well yeah that was the first one that I came up way and I really didn't put much thought into it because headlines yeah I'm not so good with headlines that's one of the things that really freaks me out that's what I'm here yeah that's what we're all here so what we're going to do is I want us to work as a group to help her come up with other ideas along thank you because I see underneath the first headline it says big blunder number one tell me how many blunders there are because people love to know that's really great you think that there were four I'm gonna I'm just gonna we're gonna pretend there were four before numbers help when you're writing a list post numbers in the headline help people to know what like you have this expectation of what's happening it makes it feel like its bite size if I see that there's a list of four things I can really quickly read that that I could that something I could d'oh okay so I'm ready to jump into it so let's start with let's just start with adding four to hear more big and business business thus far okay so we've got this one but I still think we can make this better right? I think instead of saying thus far you should say and how you can avoid them because you're telling someone I did this but you don't have to write what you know yeah right, right yeah that makes sense how you can avoid them or what you should do instead I like that a lot so why does thus far not really work for you guys the wrong kind of language yes is its correct grammar girl says this is correct but correct isn't the way that people generally talk right? So usually using words that people would use in conversation and like if you would say to your friend you know, like I've stubbed my toe three times thus far that's not the way that you're gonna have a conversation people right? So using words that air or conversational helps yes yeah and also um you want two people want to learn how to avoid making business blunder so it's helpful that you're exposing yours to them so they can see but you're also telling them how to fix a problem or how to avoid these in the first place, right? Okay, I also picked this block post because it's really a good example it's a really good block post but the problem is is the title doesn't do it justice okay, so I was looking through it and I was like, this is a really good dog pills but I bet it's not getting enough traffic yeah no, it didn't get I don't think you got any comments maybe like a couple yeah, because you're not getting people to it because of that that headline and it's probably because it's the first thing you came up with and everybody makes this mistake everybody uses it because we're at that point we're like we just want to get this done right? We're done with that well, I know that I actually make my headlines before I write the post, which chris has told me recently and working with her that I maybe should try not to do that until I actually know what I'm writing about yeah you they love the titles that you know what you're promising and then as a part of the public talk about it later but it's a part of the publishing step you could go back and like get ready for exactly that like you need to have an idea you need to know if you're giving for blunders that that's the main idea of in but yet going backto editing it after you've written yes always helps and I didn't dude, I just wrote it in the thing in wordpress on dh then wrote the pose and then click to publish I didn't even do any of the writing process was like two d'oh okay, I'm done, I wanted the things that happens to when you do that is when you're writing the post, you may notice that like an inside joke keeps coming up or something like that that ends up making a really great headline so if you limit your headline too the idea before you start exploring you could miss out on some really cool stuff there too yeah, absolutely. One of the things that popped up to me is that you have here not setting up my email mailing list from the beginning so you could potentially say something about that instead of having it be so vague and it could be something about how I potentially lost out on hundreds of female subscribers and three more mistakes that you can avoid yes good thinking thinking thinking good it's getting more specific so saying what does this really look like? What does this really mean? The blunder is that you didn't set up your email list what does that really look like? What does that really mean? It means that you probably lost out on subscribers on then we can get more specific and people are going to be more likely to click people like that kind of specific language like that and it really pops out so that is that that that's my suit anybody else have any other suggestions for this one? We can have multiple suggestions because that always helps now we're good. Yeah, okay. All right e way and we have one more andy you're coming up here with us for a hot seat come on up, girl. Get out of here, okay, so angie's post it says excuse me, I can't what? I also picked this post out because I was reading through it, and it really stuck out to me, it's about somebody who told you that you couldn't write correct. Okay, so tell us a little bit about the post, okay? So I think it was a challenge that chris had, and, um, when I was in college before I went to college, I used to write all the time I usedto just right in journals, and I wanted to be a writer, and then one of my first class, I had freshman year, I tried something, and it was great. I just couldn't wait to get it back and see an a on it, and the professor just had a big o f on it was like, you know what? You can't write, and so I was just, like, tourney up, and I just changed my entire major I was like, I'm not gonna be an english major, forget it. So I changed my whole entire major, and I went to, like, you know, environmental kind of work, and so yeah, so I never really picked up a pen again, so see, I get all kind of, like, choked up about it because now I think it affects me, yeah, of course. Of course who wouldn't not effect well I think this post because I was reading through it and I was like this is really good this is a really good block post and I bet not enough people are reading it and this is the type of blood palace that would make me want to be in your stuff would make me want to join your email list would make me want to get to know you would make me want to follow you on social media and maybe join your mastermind because you feel like a really vulnerable person and also you can right oh yeah thank you well thank smell in the world knows we owe april said so far so good yeah exactly it's official way say professor who yeah ok so we're going to start with this headline excuse name I can't what okay so I think we're already starting out with something that is kind of curiosity provoking so if I saw this on social media but I'm not sure it has enough in it to make me click yet okay I don't think that it's still so vague that I don't know if I would click on this okay so what we need to ask ourselves is what does this really look like what does this really mean and what it would you click on something that's that said maybe uh my professor how my professor got me to change my major and or how my professor, how my professor crushed my dreams and change my life I would click on that. Yeah, all right, so let's let's? Yeah, that's good. I was kind of feeling like the moment how I felt when he said that I was like, excuse me, I can't what? You know, it's not like my reaction. I would know that is a pullout like excuse me, I can't what I would love that as a pullouts are the first line yeah, article starts because it sounds like you have your and maybe even for life, career or something else that is even more specific than that, but they excuse me, I can't what, you could even use that as the very first sentence to the block post that's a that is not a bad thing to include it's just not the right subject, and it goes really well with that headline. So you know how my professor crush my dreams that changed my life? Excuse me, I can't what? It's a fantastic I'm reading like ready to read the rest. Yeah, yeah, I'll go and make some changes. Anybody else have anything? Anything that you think would be better than this and it's okay, it's okay, you guys can come up with better ideas than me, I'm sure of it, no maybe if you were a little shorter, like how one rejection changed my life for something I don't know if it's a kind of a little long for like a title, but I don't know how would you guys working that like I got I don't know headlines are always a little long it's not really great with concessions think was professor from you, and I'm looking at it because, you know, when you go to school, you're expecting your teachers to be, you know, to encourage you in the fact that the professor was like, which, you know down, you know, like what? You know, so so even a good tip would be that you could use this one for the block post title, but if you wanted to keep it shorter for your email list, you could use something like this how one rejection changed my life to keep it shorter as the subject line for email if you were sending it out to your email list. Okay, so that's, another great song titles are good, I just have a really hard time not using long titles, you know, it's good to have the short ones that you can really quickly see it on social media or in a newsletter or whatever, but I'm not I'm this is one of my biggest difficulties is to keep the words down two minutes to find time to be long yeah, I intend to be long, teo, I mean that the advice is shorter, better the shorter the better because it's easier to see on social media and click on it and share in all of that kind of stuff, less characters and but if it's really powerful and I think that matters most, so whatever is the most powerful I would go with that if you can get it shorter and still be powerful, then go with the shorter one and with email as well you don't. I tend to have really long email subject lines to I try to shorten them up, but it's hard for me. I we have the same issue, but yes, shorter is better when you can get it to that point and still make it so that it's something that people want to click on and really powerful, they say like something like ten to thirteen words or something, but I'm not a fan of having, especially with writing, having really specific formulas for that kind of thing. When I taught high school writing english, my students would ask me how long something had to be, and I said when it's finished, it's finished when you've said it properly that's how long it needs to be so yeah, ask yourself if it's powerful enough yeah, and if it is go with it when we when we get to sales pages it's I'm gonna give you the same advice people ask how long it should be it's when you're done explaining what you have then it's done. All right, well, okay, moving right along. One of the suggestions I have for you guys is to test your email headline by sending it to yourself and comparing it to the ones around it does it stand out so send it to yourself. Look at what it looks like and does it stand out among everything else in your inbox? Obviously your inbox isn't your ideal customers inbox, but if it stands out in your inbox, it's probably going to stand out and there's and I'm gonna give you guys some headline starters to make this a little bit easier. First one is make a promise an example you'll double your block readership with these ten tips that's a promise the next one is highlight a benefit an example is learned to write a headline your twitter followers actually click highlighting a benefit that could be I'm highlighting of benefit of this course or this lesson it's not the entire lesson but it could be a piece of it I appeal to your readers emotions an example why I gave up thousands of blah graders and started over this was a headline that I used recently it makes you feel something it makes you want to click because you want to know why gave up thousands of blah graders and started over and what that was about and how that even occurred and why somebody would do that appealed to your reader's curiosity an example the reason no one comments on your block posts if you don't get any comments on your block post and you see something like that you're gonna be curious as to why people aren't commenting and probably want to get more information about it ask a question do you want to double your instagram following here's how when people answer a question they want to when they're answering the question it gets them invested so when you ask people that question as a headline it gets them invested right away if they say yes then they're more likely to click and it rules out the people who are the wrong people anyways you don't want them coming to your blawg because they're not gonna leave a comment there not going to sign up for your email newsletter it doesn't really matter how to how to his work really well how to double your instagram following in one month if I had something very similar to this up on my blogged and it did really well another example is a list people say all the time like list or so old don't use list anymore they work so well ten tips that will make your instagram photos magazine or a v you know what you're going to get and if you're excited about something like that, you're going to click on it headlines that made me stop and read these air some examples of headlines that I picked out that made me stop and read one is from ashley ambridge from the middle finger project and the headline is you can't sell tickets to the titanic ifyou're marketing it as a rowboat she is amazing she yeah she's like the queen that she is the queen of copy if you want to learn happy writing and just check out her blogged you should learn from a lot of people because it's really helpful I love to learn writing and copy writing from a myriad of people one so that I don't sound like anybody else but me but also because they teach it in different ways and sometimes it really clicks for me and sometimes it doesn't but this headline I was I have to read this nothing I've got tio right this minute hilary rushford why instagram is like a padded brought classes today I was clicking on that immediately I said I need to know what this is about you've got me kris carr top five foods that will help you sleep well I sometimes have trouble sleeping so that's why that one got me to click it's not anything extra special it's just I'm the right person for that, so I clicked on it chris in the audience the shocking truth about writer's block I want to know the shocking truth about writer's block that's interesting to me that's curiosity provoking and then I have another example from somebody in our audience of rachelle I loved this rush al is crafter a dirty word however yeah you love it don't you don't tell me it was your first thing that you came up with is that it will just put a knife in my heart but it probably wass wasn't it? Um it was probably like the second thing okay? You're just sparing my feelings right now are to thank you for that s o this works really well because you want to know what this is all about. It provokes curiosity a reason why most headlines work is because of the curiosity factor. So ask yourself, does this make my reader curious? Does this make my ideal customer curious and you want to be pulling in the right people so you want to be writing for your ideal customer as opposed to writing for everybody and trying to make everybody curious. It makes it a lot easier when you've got somebody in your mind and your writing to that person and I have to say that normally my headlines aren't that good, but that post got commented and shared a time I remember when it came up and I remember jumping on it immediately everyone had an opinion on yeah the headline awesome headline pulled people and and made them want to read it and it's a question too, so it covers a couple of those bees exactly so here are some powerful words that you can use in your headlines secret lie you hear this why how what warning new and free but you want to be careful about free in your email headlines because sometimes spam filters don't like that word I use it all the time and it doesn't seem to hurt me but I've heard from other people that it it has affected their the spam so just be aware of that I don't want to give you guys false information telling you everything I know I use it and it works but beware you get lower open rates and you use that word that I would just not use free anymore but you is a big one because we all care about ourselves. Do you guys have any questions so far about headlines and writing really good headlines? Um I'm struggling with headlines because I have a lot of recurring things on my block so for example every friday I haven't inspirational brush lettered quote that I put up and people can download for free I I don't know howto make that interesting every friday that's a good one well, you're gonna have your loyal people who are wanting teo downloaded each friday and knowing that it there that's going to build up that consistency and trust, and they're probably going to be the people that are sharing it, regardless of whether or not you have a great headline so there's that because once you're building up that consistency with people, they get used to coming and downloading. So that's a good thing about that, um and then once you get something good, you can keep working with the same type of thing because then people know, so if you've got free downloadable quote with something else that goes along with it, that makes it a little bit different, so they know it's different but it's okay, it's friday here's my downloadable quote, it helps remind people that this is what I'm supposed to do each time, so those are my first thoughts anybody else have thoughts on that? Um if you named that siri's something so it's like, you know, friday freebie, um, blank and then you have, like, the title of your quote or something. So every time they see that headline it's like, oh, this, I haven't gone this freebie it like because it's all listed is that yeah, yeah it's like twenty feet be number one pated in like a top ten to stay thing and every week it's top ten tuesday but it's like you know this is top ten tuesday ten authors I read the most and so it's top ten tuesday five books I've really been meaning to read you know whatever like that yeah that's one of the things that I encourage people to do with flogging is to come I call it a segment versus a siri's so that you want to build brand segments so it's a recognizable thing that people and you know, there's lots of people who've done it really well the reset girl has the lister's got a list on dso anytime that she announced her less challenge, it has the same name and everybody knows that name and when they see it come they're like ready to get going on it. So if you have something that's it's just another brand recognition thing and it becomes it becomes something that draws people in that consistency rather than I'm just doing the same thing again and again it's like I'm doing it again guys it's something that you love yeah exactly because of it, I feel like if it has like a regular title like if you're there skimming, they wouldn't know that that's where you're printable lives well, I just think it's another post so I have done that right now, it's its presence for you and then it's just the nickname of the author downloadable quote and how is it doing? I don't know. Okay, so look at the statistics and we're going to talk about statistics and you can bring it back up with us and let us know and another lesson if you want to do that and let us know how it's doing and we can help you who likes presents for you do you like that? Or do you? I feel like it's a little bit vague. Yeah it's, I think you need to ask that question. What does this really mean? What does this really look like? And really what it is is it's a downloadable hand lettered quote that is going to get me to click much quicker than presents for you just because I'm your I'm your target market? I'm your ideal customer I love that kind of thing and so if I know what it is, this is one of those times when it's just easy to say what isthe and so that people know it and then they're looking for that consistency over and over again there reminded because you're using the same type of thing you've titled it you've got the front piece of the title that's the same every time that it's the siri's and people are looking forward to it and it's consistent that's. Why we have a group in here because we've come up with amazing ideas together. So today's mission is to use your headline worksheet to brainstorm your next click worthy headline, and you can come up with even more headline ideas. This is just to get you started. I wanted a fun way for you guys to put in some of your headlines so that it kind of gets your right brain involved a little bit more. Share your headline ideas in the private facebook group and get feedback before publishing that can help. So much so olivia could put in. I've got this idea presents for you, and we could say, wait that's a little too vague. I'm your ideal customer, and I would rather see something like this, and it could be really helpful. So put in your idea into the facebook group and get feedback, because that is invaluable and that's what it's there for.