How many headlines do you write before you choose one?

[ebizman87]

I'm sure that there're hundreds of top class copywriters here and I've got a question for you..

Roughly how many headlines do you write for your sales letter before choosing the right one?

I've read some books on copywriting and some of the experts claim that they write more than 200 headlines before deciding on one..

Thanks in advance for your input

[megaresp]

Originally Posted by ebizman87

Roughly how many headlines do you write...before choosing the right one?

As many as it takes to get one I'm happy with.

There is no 'right' one. There are headlines that work, and those that don't. If the headline captures the attention of the target market, and diverts their attention to my ad, it's doing its job. Simple as that.

Originally Posted by ebizman87

I've read some books on copywriting and some of the experts claim that they write more than 200 headlines before deciding

On occasion I've struggled to find a headline that works. Usually I have too many words, and need to trim down (e.g. AdWords).

For the most part, I have deadlines to meet. I can't get too precious about it. It's about working up something that does its job.

I also like to let real world testing evolve more powerful headlines over time. Often the first version to go live is relatively weak, because I'd rather get it out there than waste time. Especially if I'm new to the market, in which case testing allows me to uncover what gets the target marketing excited enough to respond.

[billionareHuman]

for articles titles I normally do about 5 but if it's for a Sale letter/page I would do many as you want to get it spot on

[ebizman87]

Originally Posted by megaresp

What about yourself ebizman? How much effort do you put into ad headlines?

Well If it's articles I won't think twice as I focus more on SEO methods..
And for my sales letter,blog titles, and squeeze page I'd say that I write about 10-20 headlines..

Guess not enough ...but the numbers will start to increase slowly..

[Swastik]

Well, I'd write like 10+ and then decide on one. I edit as I write, so the number of headlines might not be that big.

If I like more than one, I'd split test!

[megaresp]

WARNING: Strong opinions adhead

Originally Posted by ebizman87

Well If it's articles I won't think twice as I focus more on SEO methods.

If you mean to secure external inbound contextual links, me too. That's my main use of articles at the moment.

They're also a great way to boost content within a web site, when you need Google to view a web site in a particular way.

Originally Posted by ebizman87

And for my sales letter,blog titles, and squeeze page I'd say that I write about 10-20 headlines...Guess not enough...but the numbers will start to increase slowly..

My personal view is the advice in that book about writing 200 headlines isn't correct. The only way to know which headline is best, is to test it against every other headline. Nobody has time to do that.

I remember a few years back, I saw a headline that went something like "Are you ready to make $1,000 today?". I thought the writer was crazy saying it that way. Why not say "Make $1,000 today"? It's shorter, more positive, and punchier.

That headline went on to outperform every other ad on my ad site. At the time, I'd been writing response ads professionally for 10 years. Shows what I knew.

The right headline is the one that delivers the most responses, and you can't know that in advance of actually testing it.

If you're seriously going to take the time to come up with 200 headline variations, I think you'll end up wasting time. In particular...

• You're going to have to exclude 199 headlines. On what basis will you select one over another?
• Some of those 199 headlines will be fantastic, and the odds are several of the ones you'll exclude would have outperformed the one you actually chose
• Your personal preferences will lead you astray. By testing, you find out what gets under the skin of your target market. That's much more useful
• The time spent on headlines 11 through 200 could have been used to test, refine and rewrite
• During this 'testing' you'll almost certainly make sales - so your activity is self-funding

If you've never run a classic Direct Marketing split test, I recommend you google for a book on A/B or Split Testing. You'll learn more about writing ad copy for your target market via this type of testing, than you will from any copy writing book.