Comment by Alan Forrest Smith

October 20, 2006 @ 3:38 pm

Hi Pal.

The OrangeMan here.

7 Serious Pains You Shouldn’t Ignore

First it doesn’t tap into the mind.

What do I mean.

- I have 7 serious pains with my banking!

- I also have 7 serious pains with my body (actually more

- I also have 7 serious pains with my Orange Beetle!

- And my life … that’s another story!

So the headline for me is what I would call *generically weak* and typically copywritten by someone that doesn’t understand this one word.

>>> COMMUNICATION

Comment by Shaune

October 20, 2006 @ 3:50 pm

Did you see that?

The OrangeMan called me his Pal.

What do I call him?

A Showoff!

: )

Comment by Lee Little

October 20, 2006 @ 3:57 pm

The lack of specificity is its main weakness, as Alan pointed out.
But it does tap the curiosity button lightly and seven sounds like an easily digested number-
not so big it’ll take all day to read and
not so few that it’s not worth bothering to see if mine is on the list.
Overall though, unless the sender was a highly trusted name for me, I wouldn’t open it either.

Comment by Jason Moffatt

October 20, 2006 @ 4:01 pm

The subject line instantly reeked of spam to me.

I could understand some older grandma type with
fibromyalgia or athritis opening the email. However
in todays jaded world of internet marketers I don’t
see that email getting opened very often at all by
net savvy folk.

Like the Orange Man said, most of us have all kinds
of pains, not just physical ones. Without specifying
what pain the sender is trying to help us with, it
leaves me very uninterested.

I’m trying to think what I like about it, and having
problems doing so.

J-Mo

Comment by Shaune

October 20, 2006 @ 4:06 pm

Hey Moffatt,

Cool to hear from you.

The email was sent to a health conscious list not Internet Marketers.

As for where I’m coming from, Think…

Target Audience.

Hhhhmmmm

Shaune

Comment by Bruce Carlson

October 20, 2006 @ 4:15 pm

Hi Shaune,

I like the headline “7 Serious Pains You Shouldn’t Ignore” (I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that exact wording before, to tell you the truth) but it needs to be fleshed out, like Alan says.

What kind of pains are we talking about? If you want to connect with me as a reader, you’ll need to speak specifically to MY pain, right? MY serious pains with raising 5 kids, MY serious pains with my old junker car, MY serious pains with my taxes, etc. But the question is: Why would I ignore serious pain in the first place? So that gets my curiosity up for sure.

Do I ignore certain pains until it’s too late? Are there pains I don’t really “notice” because they’re so common? Am I “killing” certain pains that could be giving me important warning signs? Blah, blah, blah…Now I won’t be able to sleep until I get at the crux of this…

Cheers,
Bruce

Comment by Joseph Ratliff

October 20, 2006 @ 4:17 pm

Shaune,

I am going to go “against the grain” here…

I think you can work with this email subject line. “Serious” would need to be defined or changed. Depending on what is being sold…possibly using “life threatening” as a substitute. “Serious” just does not feel like it is reaching out and grabbing me.

Also…

“Shouldn’t ignore” is weak, and needs to be strengthend. That phrase kind of sets the whole tone of how this subject line feels.

Joseph Ratliff

Comment by Cheri

October 20, 2006 @ 4:23 pm

Changing “you” to something more specific, like “arthritis sufferers” would make it much more targeted.

I’d change “shouldn’t” to “should never” too.

Comment by Ryan Healy

October 20, 2006 @ 4:48 pm

How about…

“7 Mild Back Pains You Should NEVER Ignore”

Or whatever.

Create some contrast between the ordinariness of the pain and the great threat it may pose to your life.

Comment by Shaune

October 20, 2006 @ 5:15 pm

Okay, let’s say this was selling one of those cure all potions from the high mountains in the Rain Forrest.

Misspelling of Forest intended. : )

When writing copy, I always ask,

- Who am I selling this to?

- Who from that select group is going to actually buy it?
(I speak directly to them – nobody else from the larger target audience.)

And, I want to know…

- Why are they going to buy it?

This email went out to a health conscious group. In that group, is it likely that anyone in it wouldn’t pay attention to a “serious” pain. Now, I don’t know for sure but I doubt it. If they’ve subscribed to a health newsletter, I’m betting their more conscious then to be neglectful of a serious pain.

And for those from this group, who weren’t paying attention to their serious pain… would they be likely to buy?

Again, I doubt it.

I like “You Should Never Ignore” because it indirectly creates a potential danger “IF” the reader thinks they have the suggested problem (especially if they have ever wondered if they should have it checked out) and “IF” the reader is likely to buy.

Imagine if we interviewed those that had bought and found out what sort of body aches they had prior to buying the product — regardless of why they actually bought it. In other words, imagine if we could find a common denominator – some form of pain – that the buyers had in common.

Imagine if we could categorize that type of pain.

Perhaps it was infrequent pain.

Perhaps it was mild back pain.

Perhaps it was early-morning neck pain.

You get the idea. Whatever it is.

If we can zero in on the type of pains of this target audience — those that actually have bought –
and speak to them directly then they’d get curious and internally say to themselves…

Hey, that sounds like the type of pain I have. I better check this out.

They’re conscious of looking after themselves. No one has ever suggested that that ______ pain of theirs could be the sign of a big problem.

What if it read…

7 Types of Early-Morning Neck Pain You Should Never Ignore.

Now what do you think?

Shaune

Comment by Jason Moffatt

October 20, 2006 @ 5:51 pm

Hey Shaune,

I understand that it is going to a health
concious group of people. I was just thinking
that most of us internet marketers have probably
pillaged that niche to death with health related
emails, and therefore the skeptism radar would
be somewhat high.

It just needs a bit more BEEF!

You know me though, I want email subjects like…

1. Geez, My Nuts Felt They Were In A Vice
2. The Scab Fell Into His Bowl of Corn Flakes
3. Gramps Spits On Kevin Tredeau’s Natural Cures
4. More Painful Then A Anvil On My Pinky Toe!

Shock and AWE Baby!

Of course in this health related niche I’m sure
this is Way too provocative, but you get my point.

Cheers and beers!

Comment by Shaune

October 20, 2006 @ 6:11 pm

Gotcha Moffatt.

And you know me. I’m big on digging for that trigger that resonates — something that doesn’t sound same-ole, same-ole — something that naturally makes them go…

“Hey that’s me. I need to pay attention to this.”

And then guide them to want to buy.

As they say in the UK…

Cheers Mate!

Comment by Cory

October 20, 2006 @ 6:45 pm

When I first read it, nothing immediately registered in my mind.

What I mean is, the message of the subject didn’t hit me right away. Sorta just some “noise”.

But on a more “scrutinizing” look, I got the message.

“The 7 pains that you SHOULD pay attention to, possibly all major causes for health concern”

I think that this message is very provocative and fear/anxiety producing in and of itself. The weakness lies not in the message itself, but the way it was presented.

It was hard to extract the core ‘thought/message’
from the glob of text in was contained in!

Hope this makes sense,
Cory Friedman

Comment by Cheri

October 20, 2006 @ 7:35 pm

OMG - I forgot what it was like to have Jason in the house! Brings back such fond memories of Wednesday nite classes…

If that doesn’t get the email opened, I don’t know what will :^)

Comment by Matthew Roberts

October 21, 2006 @ 2:04 am

Hey Shaune,

I really liked this post, and thought I might finally leave a comment for you.

I’d probably say that as far as the original headline goes, it was pretty standard and just didn’t really do much for me.

I like the ‘7′, but I agree with Alan and Jason that it needs to be more specific and more interesting/compelling.

The thing I got most out of this post is that no matter how many copywriting ‘rules’ a headline does or doesn’t follow, most importantly it has to be written with the target audience in mind.

In a bullet: It seems the writer just used a generic ‘textbook template’ headline.

I hope what I said made sense.

Anyway Shaune thanks, great post.

Comment by Terri

October 21, 2006 @ 2:43 pm

Cory,

What a great description for overused, ineffective copy… “Noise”.

In one word, you summed up the feeling produced. Very insightful. Maybe Shaune could do a contrast and comparison seminar on “Noisy vs Focused” copy.

Comment by J.S. William

October 22, 2006 @ 8:10 am

I agree that had I received this e-mail, I would have thought it to be nothing more than spam, and probably would have deleted it. Even though it was targeted to health conscious people, such a vague title could be interpreted to more than just health risks, as has been pointed out in previous comments.
I do like the urgency that it evokes, but the headline could have been more specific. Even putting the word “Health” in the sentence would have hit the target audience and would have probably made me at least look at it had I actually received the e-mail.
To me, it is amazing how one word, whether added or deleted, can make the difference when trying to connect to your target consumer.

Comment by Brett Kitchen

October 22, 2006 @ 11:02 pm

I’m not going to be as deep and philosphical as the rest of you.

My basic feeling is It’s weak, It needs more specificity, you’ve talked about specific to the pain, but what about to the audience. If you know who the audience is, it could be “7serious upper back pains runners shouldn’t ignore.”

If I was a runner, with upper back pain this would obviously grab my attention

Comment by Ethan Kap

October 23, 2006 @ 12:18 am

Shaune what a great post!

It really got me thinking about headlines and the importance of doing your research before you just copy and paste a template headline from the 100 top headlines.

They are tested and proven…guaranteed to work right?

I concur on what has been said overall. The headline is SPAM-like and needs to be more specific.

Your idea of doing specific and strategic interviews is right on the money.
When your target audience has actually told you what pians or problems they have, it is not hard to come up with a more compelling headline.

Ethan Kap

Comment by John A. Manley

October 24, 2006 @ 4:46 pm

I think it could use the reason why factor weaved in.

It’s just telling me I shouldn’t ignore these pains.

Tell me I shouldn’t ignore them, and statistics say it’s fare more likely I’ll respond.

Personally, you give me a reason, and I’m more ready to listen.

“7 Pains You Must Shouldn’t Ignore If You Don’t Want To Spend Your Retirement Running to the Toilet”

Notice I took out “Serious?” I think the running to the toilet line says it all.

For those who didn’t get it, I was alluding to prostrate problems.

John

http://www.realitycopywriting.com/free_audio_interviews

Comment by Alan Waelbroeck

October 27, 2006 @ 12:42 am

Seems to me that the relevant point is that the headline is somewhat stale. Needs to be spicier (thought nuts in a vice is not necessarily required). How about something like “7 serious pains you’ll wish you hadn’t ignored”.
Not perfect, but a push in the right direction. Got to find some way to make it personal to whoever the target audience is. If you could add something to show why we should care, it’ll improve it even more, (like the bathroom addition JPM put in.)

They say Spam is only Spam if you don’t want what they are selling. Any more, Spam tells me I shouldn’t trust them. Even if I want their product, I’d more likely go to their competition.

Al in Indy