A good headline is critical. Its purpose is to captivate your readers' attention and entice them into your body text. If it fails, all your work will be for nought and you won't stand a chance of persuading your would-be readers.

You've only got one chance, so you've got to get it right. But how do you entice readers into your copy?

Most importantly, you have to offer a benefit to your readers. Indicate that if they read on, they'll get some kind of payoff.

But in most cases, you don't actually spell out the benefit in the headline. Rather, you engage the reader's curiosity by hinting at the benefit. Do this right, and readers will find it irresistible. They'll be hooked.

It's curiosity — fueled by the promise of a wonderful benefit — that makes a great headline. Below are some proven techniques for writing compelling headlines.

[More]

Last week, I outlined some preliminary homework we have to do before starting to write. Let's assume that's done now, and move on to structuring our message.

How do we structure messages that resonate with visitors, and lead them to take the action we desire?

We can take a cue from traditional advertising copywriters here. For generations, they've relied on a structure called "AIDA" to convince customers they simply must buy their clients' products.

AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. I'll explain each step below.

[More]

In deciding what action to take (including which products to buy), we're influenced by both logical and emotional forces.

Logical motivations include:

• Saving money
• Saving time
• Avoiding dangers or hassles
• Achieving better results

Emotional motivations include:

[More]

When it comes to email marketing, I've been using ExactTarget pretty exclusively. It's a beast of an application, with scheduling, automation and interaction options diverse enough for nearly anything. It packs serious power.

However, it's always seemed a little overkill for a monthly newsletter.

About a year ago I started following a small Email Service Provider (ESP) called Mailchimp, after reading their fantastic study on high performance subject lines.

This week I decided to take a look at Mailchimp and see what they offer and I was amazed. This little app packs a punch, with a full testing suite, a great WYSIWYG editor, support for RSS based campaigns, powerful social media integration, and all this wrapped in an amazingly well designed user interface.

Want to see how easy it is to create a quick campaign for your business?

[More]

It's been a while since my last problems with permission post. Truth is, I've run out of bad examples of email marketing.

"What," you say, "there's so much bad email marketing out there, how could you run out?"

Well, the truth is that most of the bad email marketing out there just isn't interesting. No one cares that some linkspamming company is sending spamy email. Everyone knows that, and everyone expects that. It's when the big guys mess it up that it becomes interesting.

And so I was thrilled, the other day, when I got an email from Foursquare…

[More]

Writing well comes easier to some people than to others. But even for the best writers, getting good results is largely a matter of putting in the effort.

In this post, I'll list a few tips that anyone can use to improve their writing.

Start with an outline

Before you even start writing, think carefully about the overall structure of your work. What's a good starting point? How should it flow? What examples should you give? How should it end?

If you plan this in advance, the actual writing will be much more easier... and the finished product will hold up better.

[More]

Remember Johnnie Cochran's notorious line, "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit"?

Of course you do. And not just because it helped set murderer O.J. Simpson free. You remember it because it rhymes.

It's not surprising that rhyming statements are easier to remember than non-rhyming ones. But what is surprising is that they're actually more persuasive. Johnnie Cochran knew exactly what he was doing.

And so did the authors of:

[More]

Web users are an impatient lot. Having run countless user tests, I can verify that users seldom read text the way they'd read a book. Rather, they scan through pages, looking for topics of interest. To be effective, web copy must be concise.

But how do we make our copy clear and concise? How do we know what words we can cut out?

Here are a few tricks I've learned over the years...

[More]

It has happened. After much processing, a few fallen governments, and about a trillion spam messages, Canada has passed its own anti-spam bill.

And it's about #*&%ing time.

Formerly Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, the new C-28 Fighting Internet (and wireless) Spam Act (FISA), was passed on December 15th, and established requirements for consent, identification, and unsubscribe methods.

[More]

Oh the pain, the paaain...

Since my last post on Copywriting Tips, I've taken notes while reading emails and blogs. Here are some of the crazy points of confusion I've found.

Dependent vs Dependant

Dependent is an adjective, meaning relying on someone or something. "He's 45 and still totally dependent on his mother."

A dependant (that's a noun, folks) is a person who relies someone else. "She has just one dependant: her 45-year-old boy."

Note carefully: despite what you'll read in countless online dating profiles, there is no such word as independant. It's independent. Arrggh!

Effect vs Affect

[More]