Why are we paying so much attention to crafting a perfect opening?
Think about your landing page as a fishing expedition.
The Headline is the baited Hook.
The Opening sets the hook, snagging your readers in to your content.
In other words, the purpose of a well-crafted opening is to give your visitors a reason to stay on the page and keep reading – to convert a “browser” into a reader or watcher.
Your Opening should be short and punchy, and create curiosity.
You can use a question to invoke curiosity; an anecdote or story to connect emotionally with your reader; an inspirational quote or shocking statistic; or evocative words like “imagine…” or “picture this…” to open the mind’s eye of the reader.
Let’s look at the mechanics of each one. We’ll be using some of our own published articles as examples of how they work.
- The Question Opening
Questions, by their very nature, create curiosity. As a matter of fact, we started this section with a question:
Why are we paying so much attention to crafting a perfect opening?
Who, what, why, where, and how are the most powerful curiosity-provoking words in the English Language.
Questions make us wonder. They literally trigger our minds to want to find an answer.
Here’s an example:
"Are lithium and potassium solid or gas?" my daughter asked me as she was flipping through her homework in the car on the way her music class.
Two thoughts immediately fired off in my head.
One... I have no clue, it's been 25 years since I've even thought about it.
Second... who the heck cares!?...
Doesn’t that make you curious to read on?
Questions are a very skillful way of transitioning from your opening right into the guts of your article.
- The Story Opening
Legendary copywriter John Caples noted that more than half of Reader’s Digest articles opened with a story, so it’s clearly effective.
Opening with a story is a very primal way to engage your reader. It hooks into that prehistoric nature of humans to gather around the fire and connect with one another to share experiences. Stories can also evoke warm feelings and memories from childhood, reminding us of feeling loved and cared for.
Your opening story might be an experience or conversation you had with someone…
…it might be from a book you read, something you saw on TV or in a movie, or anything else that led you to the idea for the particular content you are presenting.
Continuing with the same example:
…Sitting there in the car with my daughter, I found myself thinking.
Now, I'm certainly not against education.
And if you're a chemical engineer, a scientist or work in a lab with chemicals, you probably do care what the steady state of lithium or potassium is .
But if you're not, then none of this (and lots of other) stuff you spend learning in school will help you get what you want out of life.
I'll go out on a limb and say that 70% to 80% of what you and I learned in school is a complete waste of time, and has been long forgotten.
Which is why most people are stuck in life, without a clue as to what they need to do to move ahead and live the life they want.
Our story opened with a question, and involved the thought process the author went through, sitting there in the car with his daughter.
- The Shocking Statistic Opening
Opening with a shocking statistic or making some kind of bold, aggressive assertion is like waving a stop sign in your reader’s face.
It catches them off guard. It interrupts their thinking. It’s like the “record scratch” you hear in some commercials.
Take a look at this example:
8 Seconds...
That’s how long you have to captivate your reader.
And chances are if you lose them the beginning, you’ve lost them for good.
In other words, unless your prospect actually reads your message (or listens to and/or watches it), there’s absolutely NO chance of you making a sale.
Fortunately for you, I’ve put together 3 simple, yet effective opening formulas that virtually guarantee to hook your readers by the eyeballs and hypnotize them to hang on your every word.
- The “Mind’s Eye” Opening
Ever since the birth of modern advertising, marketers have used the power of imagination to hook readers and watchers into paying attention to content.
Words like, “Imagine…” or “Have you ever wondered…” or “Picture this…” are ways to literally switch on your reader’s own imagination as they settle down and place themselves directly into your message.
This “Mind’s Eye” Opening combines not only the “imagine” piece, it ends with a shocking statement:
Can you imagine what life would have been like if we had classes in high school that taught us...
How to set goals
How to effectively communicate our ideas
How to persuade and influence people
How to become a leader
How to market and sell our services and ourselves
How to create money in a tough economy – any time we wanted
Instead, we had to memorize the periodic table of elements, and know how to solve mind-numbing algebra equations. Like that's really going to help you become successful in life.
I think it's safe to say... we've been screwed...
Once you’ve decided how you want to open your piece, write it down on the Landing Page Template form.
Play around with it.
Make sure you’re speaking to just ONE person, and make your Opening as conversational as you can.
When you’re satisfied with your Opening, it’s time to transition into the “meat and guts” of your content: The Payoff.