Can you guess which one it is?
If you guessed “the first,” then you’re ahead of the game. Of course it’s the most important. After being interested enough in your headline to give the first section a quick look-over, you’d better continue fulfilling the promises you made in your headline of you want to motivate the reader to become a customer. But how do you do that?
Let me be clear: in your headline there should be an explicit promise — the actual offer in words that you made to the reader. This follows the implicit promise present in all headlines — an earnest attempt at capturing attention and rewarding the reader with interesting content.
The right strategy to take with your first paragraph is to immediately follow-through on both of these promises. Suck the reader in deeper with arresting questions and short, tightly-written sentences. The sentences create motion. They build momentum. Short sentences are easier to read than long ones.
Questions force the reader’s mind into action almost involuntarily. Just reading a question on paper can spin the mind into action to try to answer that question. It makes the reader an active participant in your copy. It’s compelling.
Immediately hit on a few of the biggest benefits your product or service will offer the reader. The easiest way to sell them something is to make them an offer on something they already want.
What kinds of things do they already want? If you’re in the pest control business, and you are advertising to readers looking for pest control service, go ahead and show, up front, the advantages they can expect to accrue if they call your pest control service: no more bugs after one week; prompt service; money-back refund; child-safe application methods; environmental-friendly pesticides. Whatever it is that you think you do best that your best customers also like the best, put those benefits up front.
A COMMON MISTAKE
Don’t make the mistake of explaining up front what you are doing or why you are doing it or why you are so great. The reader cares not one iota about you. “So what?” is their response. “What are you going to do for me?” is what the reader cares about. So deliver them what they want.
You can describe your awards later if you need to back up a benefit with proof. This is to ward off the question that the reader is asking themselves as they read your ad: “Says who?”
But you must get them that far, first. And you can do that by putting your biggest and best benefits up front. If you can’t capture their attention with the advantages that you can offer them then they’re not going to be interested in either your awards or your 50 years of experience and qualified service.
Search the Yellow Pages to see which of your competitors (who have ads) follow this rule. Think you can beat them? The reward for doing so is more profits.