Did I Miss the Memo?
Posted On: 2013-12-21
Your Life is Boring ... What?
Is your life really boring? Of course I don't know but I just spotted that subject line in an email from Digg and it got me wondering about some of the headlines and marketing text that we use on our websites.
These days marketing is supposed to be all about persuasion ... you persuade people to buy your products by showing them why they should buy it and how their life would be better if they bought your product. So is a subject line ... a headline ... that basically rubbishes my life going to encourage me to open the email or think about buying what the sender might be selling.
Is insulting the person you're trying to get to spend some money on your site really the way to go about making a sale?
I suppose that a lot of people do lead very dull and boring lives but do you need to insult them in an effort to get them to buy your product? Will hitting them between the eyes with the bleeding obvious encourage them to part with their money?
Personally I wouldn't think so and I certainly wouldn't try a headline like that if I was hoping to encourage people to buy what I'm selling. It's not persuasive ... it's downright rude and insulting and the chances of getting people who do live boring lives to buy a product ... or open an email ... with a headline like that would have to be low.
And then there's the little matter of having a headline that totally misses at least some of the people who might want to buy what you're selling. For me, personally, that headline totally missed the mark.
I live a very busy life but it is certainly not boring so I'm just not interested in opening that email. It's obviously not for me and to open it would be a total waste of time and I just don't have that time to waste. And I expect that anyone else who lives an interesting and exciting life wouldn't open that email either.
Perhaps whoever wrote that headline thought that they were being smart ... perhaps they thought that a punchy headline like that would encourage a lot of people to open it ... but did they stop and think about what that headline was really saying to people?
Did they simply stop when they thought that they had a headline that would grab attention and then turn their attention to something else? It's so easy to do just that ... come up with something that looks as though it will grab the attention of potential customers and run with it without taking any time to think things through.
So how are your headlines and marketing text? Are they really designed to be persuasive or do you prefer the hard-hitting direct approach? Do you ever stop to think about the impact that your direct approach may ... or may not ... have?
Are you really writing headlines and text that will persuade or are your headlines and text more likely to insult and turn people off? The difference between catchy and downright insulting can be quite small ... especially in the adult industry ... but it's a difference that you've got to come to understand and learn how to exploit if you really do want to attract people and encourage them to spend their money.
It might sound almost cutting edge to put a headline on your next gallery or free site that says "Hey limp dick ... get a hard-on with our great hardcore!" but will that really work with the majority of your surfers?
Would you buy something from someone who has never met you but wants to insult you? I doubt that you would ... and nor would your surfers so if you want to produce catchy headlines find a way to do it while being persuasive instead of insulting.
And while you're thinking about what you're really saying with your text have a look at your design too. Sometimes what you think is a great design and what you think will really work because you happen to like it isn't going to work at all.
Just because you like a design doesn't mean that everyone else will like it ... just because you show people lots of images doesn't mean that you're showing them the right images ... the images that will encourage them to buy.
br>