Today, I’m going to share some ideas with you, to help you massively increase the power and impact of your marketing!
Tim Ferriss, author of the best selling book, The 4-hour Workweek, recently said in an interview with Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, that some people following his book’s ideas will still have to work 40 hours a week. However, if they had previously been working 80 hours a week, that’s a huge improvement, right? The book isn’t actually a step-by-step guide for how to work for exactly 4 hours or 240 minutes a week. It’s a series of useful ideas and tactics for people seeking to work smarter and get more done in less time.
Tim’s book is well written and worth many times the cover price (buy it, I did), but how many copies would he have sold, had the book simply been called, “how to work fewer hours” or “how to work smarter”? Chances are it would have been lost, in the sea of time management and professional development books that have flooded the marketplace. The title, along with Tim’s extremely successful marketing (and bloody hard work), meant that this superb book got the audience it deserved, whilst other valuable books on the subject remain largely unknown.
Titles matter
Titles really matter. A good title creates expectancy and motivates people. It captures people’s attention. It causes them to read on. Whether it’s the title of; a book, a website, a blog post, a report, a marketing email/letter, a group, a podcast or a twitter account etc, you should carefully craft the most compelling title you can. Many small business owners will spend a huge amount of time, for example, writing a blog post or marketing letter, then spend 5 minutes thinking of a title. They then end up with a great piece of work, which few people are motivated or compelled to read.
What titles do you use, for the products and services you provide? How motivating are they, for your prospective clients or customers? If you think there may be room for improvement, here are a few suggestions on how to develop more inspiring titles.
- If you want more people to read and share your blog posts, look at the blog titles used on the most read and shared blogs. Most blogs display the number of times a post is tweeted, giving you an indicator of how popular each title and post is.
- If you want a better title for your next book, check out the best selling business books. Remember: there’s a big difference between the best selling books and the best written books. Some great books sell a handful of copies and some dross sells by the truck load. Look at the best selling books list and search for common themes in the way a title is structured.
- If you want to write attractive email marketing or direct marketing (mail shot) titles, look at the marketing emails and mail shots that YOU opened. Think about it, most of the offers you get go straight into the bin or are deleted. Very few have titles or subject lines, which actually inspire you to open the letter or email. Keep a file with everything that motivated you to “read on.” Don’t just copy them though – LEARN from them. That’s where the real value is.
Great titles take time
It’s not uncommon for me to spend as long writing the title of a successful piece of marketing, as it is for me to write the actual marketing message. The value of a great title, in encouraging people to actually READ your message, means that it is worthy of as much time as required, to get it as motivating as possible.
In my experience, the title is the most important single element in written marketing. If you are going to invest some time in improving your copywriting skills, this is the area to start. It can improve your marketing results by thousands (yes thousands) of percent!