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Whilst at University, one of my lecturers on the public relations course did, I’m pretty sure, say he had been an Editor at a newspaper.
Now I thought P.R. was just writing stuff for publicity.
How wrong was I!
It’s an amazing science, but the tests and results the editors did to gain readership were kept in their heads.
I’m going to give you the answers to these industry secrets
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The Science of Why you pick up a magazine or newspaper off the shelf
You see, when you go to the store and walk past the magazines or newspapers, you might just…
Catch that heading in the top left corner of one of the articles on the cover…
Pick up the magazine to inspect the front cover…
Open up to page 6 as instructed…
Read the lead in sub-titles and scan the first couple of paragraphs…
And then see the other titles on the page…
If you reached this point… You are pretty much 50% there on taking the magazine to the counter to make a purchase.
Journalists live in an industry that is cut-throat and commission only. This means no sale – no pay!
If you can learn the skills from from a successful sales organisation like newspapers and subscription magazines, you are assured a great future in sales email writing.
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5 Bums on a rugby post/football post
Draw a big H on a piece of paper, and have 5 W’s on the top of the middle section. Now imagine 5 people’s bums on a football post.
H = How
W = What, When, Why, Where, Who.
There you have it! Use the above model to bring the reader in. Like a mathematical formula… optimise your headline to create a really powerful “must-read” headline.
(On a side note – you can find me spending hours hovering around magazines and newspapers looking at headlines – more on this in future posts.)
Oh, one last thing about the Editor.
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Can you guess what the Editors No.1 job is?
Well, think of Spiderman: it is to find the Headline/s that capture your attention, using the tools above.
The second job of the Editor is to find the lead in, so you read the sub-headlines to the story.
The third job is an interesting story.
Next time when you write an educational sales email, remember this technique to get the prospect after reading the headline… to read the next line… then the next line… then the next line, until they believe there is a reason to give you a call or an email requesting a call.
Now you’ve got some tools that the very best newspapers are using.
Using just this newspaper editor headline model alone, this will help you beat major big name competitors who are sending emails to your prospect, as they choose to open your email instead of theirs.
Why not play around with some headlines, it takes a lot of practice, but your results will show through.
Don’t Let Me Down! – See you in the next session.
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Sales Email Tips 