The First Few Sentences
December 22nd, 2008I’m going to talk a little bit more about the first couple of sentences, maybe the first paragraph, of your marketing message and maintaining interest, and carrying over the approach used in your headline and using that as your approach for your sales letter.
We have already discussed generating interest. It is generating attention in your headline, and maintaining that attention in the first couple of paragraphs of your sales letter.
The trick with the first paragraph of your sales letter is to take that attention, and turn it into interest. And there are a couple of ways of doing that.
But one of the best ways to do it, at least one of the ways that you should definitely test when you are testing your marketing materials, is in developing that attention you used in the headline for the approach you are using, and expanding upon that to make it something of continuing interest, for anybody who is attracted to your approach.
One of the tried and true ways of doing this, is to begin your message proper with a series of questions. Usually the one, two, three, Punchline approach, (or the 12345 approach) which is a series of questions in which the answers are the same.
And hopefully you word the questions, such so that the answer is yes.
So that at least mentally, at least internally, the person being exposed to your message is saying to themselves “Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes” and generating a positive attitude inside of themselves, which theoretically carries over into having a positive reception to your message.
And depending upon your approach, the questions would obviously be different, because you want the questions to fit together with the approach that you’re using.
And oftentimes, your headline will be in the form of a question.
And if your headline is in the form of the question, sometimes I have found that asking a question in the headline and then starting off the sales letter with one or two or three questions, is is a bit much. It doesn’t work as well.
So if you are starting off with your headline in the form of a question, you need to at least test the idea of starting off your message, to make your first paragraph, not a series of questions but rather, maybe, some kind of extension of the attention that your are attracting in the headline.
We’ll cover both of those methods.
The first being a series of questions.
It’s the sort of like a stand-up comedy routine, only without the comedy, where you hit 1, 2, 3 and then the punchline. Where you will in this regard, ask one or two or three questions, and then you hit them with a statement, which essentially negates the questions in some regard or, amplifies the questions in some regard, depending upon which approach you are using.
But in all cases, the statement, is a forceful and emotion packed statement, of your most powerful sales point that you’re trying to make.
The other method, is the one without the questions.
Essentially, depending upon if your approach appeared to tell a story, you begin with the most exciting aspect of the story.
If your approach is just basically listing benefits, and comparing your product to a competitor’s product, (and hopefully favorably) you would start off with your most emotion-laden, power-packed sales point.
I’ll be getting into all of this in more detail as these podcasts continue.
Right now, the idea is that you’ve attracted attention with your headline and you have also (at least subtly) stated your approach.
Now, not only do you have to hook them with your initial sentences, but you should use your first paragraph, maybe even your first two paragraphs as an opportunity to expand upon the approach you express through your headline, and start turning the initial attention into interest, which will continue throughout the remainder of your marketing message.
DMU
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