The “Anatomy” of an Ad: Headlines pt.2

The “Anatomy” of an Ad: Headlines pt.2

Last time we identified that our headlines should do 1 of 3 things:

• – Solve a Problem a Prospect may have (or answer a question)
• – Promise a Benefit
• – Create Curiosity or Interest (Use VERY sparingly!!)

I thought we’d discuss some Marital Arts School specific examples of these.

Solve a Problem (or answer a question):

“Parents…..Did you know, over 4.4 MILLION Children age 4 to 17 have been diagnosed with ADD? Discover a PROVEN formula to give your child LASER BEAM focus and Concentration!”

This headline would speak to a parent who may be concerned about the focus level of their child. If you were this parent, would this headline get your attention?? Would you be compelled to find out about this Proven formula??

Another Example:

“Feeling “Bloated” after the holidays?? Would you like to watch 15 pounds melt off your body while having a BLAST and learning to defend yourself???

Again, I’ve clearly identified “who” I’m speaking to, and exactly what problem I can solve for them.

Promise a Benefit:

“I can Give your child Unshakable Self Esteem, Laser Beam Focus, and “Make you proud” Courtesy beginning in the first FREE session….GUARANTEED!”

Obviously here I’ve promised 3 benefits. I’ve also “Guaranteed” results for the parent.

While you may have to “translate” these benefits to your particular school or your personal objectives, you can use this formula as a model.

For all intents and purposes, a Martial Arts School Owner should stick with these 2 strategies (Solving a problem, or promising a benefit), the third one (creating curiosity or interest) we have to be very careful with because, again, we’re not Coke or Pepsi, and we’re not Nascar or Indy, we don’t have multimillion dollar budgets.

In many cases the average small business owner gets sort of caught up and entwined in trying to make creative advertising and trying to make the next “clever” three word headline that attracts everyone’s attention, when in reality we need to stick to the basics and in reality we need to make a compelling headline. Something that causes interest in the reading but isn’t exactly the next Iphone ad that is just the catchy tune that gets your toe tapping to, something that would create interest could be something sensational, it could be something strange or odd or different, but again we have to be very careful about this.

To repeat, the three primary focuses for a headline are number one to answer a question or solve a problem that a prospect may have, number two to promise a benefit to a prospect, and number three would be something that creates interest or creates curiosity. And again, using number one and number two are highly preferred and if we can find a way to integrate number three into a number one or number two we’re much better off.

A great exercise in this and really a good way to get your perspective and to get an objective perspective on this is to literally take a trip down to the newsstand or the local shopping center or whatever the case may be to find tabloids, newspapers, magazines, things like that. You look at the average magazines you’ll find formulated headlines and I’m going to give you the resource to be able to see these headline formulas, and one for an example is I’m looking at right on front of me on my desk is a Men’s Health magazine, and Men’s Health magazine is a highly circulated magazine and it’s pretty good, it’s got a lot of valuable information for the reader, but it also is chocked full of advertising, and one headline that you’ll see on almost every magazine of its ilk in health and in fitness and in those type of niches is the:

“10 reasons you get sick”  this is a “formula” headline.

You make a “blank” formula like:

“ __________ Reasons you ___________” or “_______ Reasons your children _________”

You’ll then fill in the blanks with your benefits, and you’ll have some pretty strong headlines!

Another example is

“the 10 Ways to a Thinner Waist” or “3 Secrets to Washboard Abs”, or 5 Simple Solutions to Eliminating Skin Blemishes”

These are ALL EASY formulas to model for your school!

So those are some formulas that you should be thinking about and looking at. Another piece of magic that makes formula work very well is the quantification, whenever you, in a direct response piece, quantify what you’re going to say or quantify what you’re saying, for example the 6 secrets to increasing your stamina, by putting a number there it sort of psychologically lends credibility to your argument and lends a certain sense of legitimacy to what you’re saying just because you’ve quantified it. In the prospect’s mind they’re sort of saying to themselves, this is a subconscious conversation, if there are 6 secrets, okay I can quickly check and see if there’s 6 and see if this person is being honest with me, so that’s sort of the conversation that’s going on in their mind. The other part is, wow I didn’t know there were 6 things I could do, that’s more things than I thought without ever gaining a pound.

Just keep in mind, the main purpose of the headline is to compel the prospective customer to read the first line of the body copy.

The first line of body copy’s purpose is to get them to read the second line.

And the second line’s purpose is to get them to read the third line, etc., etc.

**Article Provided By NAPMA, The National Association of Professional Marital Artists, the Martial Arts Leaders in Helping School Owners Add $150,000.00/year to Their Personal Income With Their Martial Arts School.

**Need help accelerating your martial arts marketing results, or martial arts business growth? Check out NAPMA the National Association of Professional Martial Artists. They are the industry leaders in helping martial arts school owners build the business of their dreams!visit: www.NapmaFreeOffer.com

Current NAPMA Members also receive discounts on all MartialArtsPrintShop.com products and services.