3 Things You’d Never Know Without Reading This

More data on how to get people to look at your content, this time focusing on the headline ( the title of your video, post or email subject line.)

Use Negative Superlatives to Drive Clicks

Apparently if your headline evokes something people can’t, shouldn’t or wouldn’t do, they get curious and tend to click through more often.  Be aware though, while negative emotions drive clicks, they don’t drive shares.

If you want someone to share your content it’s best to make it positive and energizing.  People like to share things that make them feel good so they can pass that feeling onto others.

People Still Like Lists

Personally if I never see a list post again it’ll be too soon, but they’re still super popular.  Whether it’s the whole “bite size chunks” of information thing, people just dig having things broken out for them.

Just promise me that if you use a list you won’t write some banal nonsense just to flesh out the points.  Me, I say less is more, 5 is good, 9 is pushing it and if you’re into double figures then “Woah Nelly!” are you sure you need that many?

Use Title Case in Your Headlines

Lot’s of back and forth on this with people having their own preferences but apparently the data’s pretty clear.  When it comes to headlines and titles, don’t use all caps or sentence case, capitalize each word and your opening rate goes up.

Who knew!?

Further Reading

If you’re interested here’s a great article from Belle Beth Cooper that digs deeper into the science behind headlines.

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Written while listening to: The Bench Dev 5 by music2work2 - good music to work to!

Image credit: Three Sages by Michael Summers on Flickr

Lawyers, Insurance Agents, SEO and Golf!

Driving’s for show - Putting’s for dough

Ask a golfer what it feels like to hit a great drive and they’ll grin at you - there’s just something insanely pleasurable about thwacking a ball hundreds of yards into the distance.  And, if it goes in the wrong direction, well - you have a few more shots to make it right.

Putting on the other hand is a serious business.  Matches are won and lost on the green and there are no second chances.

Blogs are for SEO

Blog posts are how you generate links to your website, they are the content people find when searching for solutions and by their very nature, need to reflect your core business. 

Like driving, blog posts can be great fun!  The better you get the greater the distance they travel - multiple shares across social media and links from influencers can feel just as good as a 325 yard drive straight down the middle!

Newsletters are for dough

Newsletters however are serious business.  They’re how you convert potential customers to actual customers and by their very nature, need to be consistently interesting.

For many businesses (like mine) the content in a newsletter and blog post can be the same - if there’s always something new to tell your clients the newsletter can be educational and reflect what’s going on in your world. 

Where it gets challenging is when people don’t want to learn about your business - think the law or Insurance - this is when the newsletter becomes a lot tougher to write.

Repeat: Newsletters are for dough

If you’re operating with an opening rate around 30% it’s an indication that you need to change your strategy.  If you’re re-purposing your blog posts as newsletters then maybe you need to allocate more resource to what is potentially your biggest revenue generator.

The challenge I’m giving myself this year is to drive my opening rate from 60% to 70%.  I don’t yet know how I’m going to achieve that but I am going to allocate more time to the newsletter than I ever have.  Maybe you should do the same.

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Written while listening to: New Fazioli tracks by music2work2

Image Credit: Getting ready to kill it by Jennifer Pauley on Flickr