Here
are two before and after examples to show you what works and why in a teaser,
along with 5 tips.
Example #1
| Before
Article title: Old friends can be best funding sources
He
thought ace salesmanship would make his new company go. But he found out marketing
without money didn't work. Here's how he found the funding to succeed...
My rewrite:
After
Former star
salesman Gerry Sullivan quadrupled revenues for his old company from $28 million
to $118 million. But he didn't have the same knack when it came to raising money
for his family-owned petrochemical startup. Then he turned to an entrepreneur's
proven fallback for funding - family & friends. Find out how he secured close
to half a million with only a handshake...
[More...]
|
Which
teaser makes you want to read on? What's the difference? Thanks to BizJournals.com
above for letting me mess with their copy.
The before & after rewrite
above illustrates a few of the key ingredients of a good teaser. It should include:
-
specific and relevant details (a name, an occupation)
- actual dollar
amounts (if available)
- a twist or unexpected comparison (in this case;
he was a successful salesman but couldn't raise money for his startup through
a traditional bank loan)
The
intro should set the scene so you want to read on. Here's another example, using
a teaser I wrote for a WordBiz Report article on "online marketing tips from
an offline pro."
Example
#2
| Before
Article title: Great Web & email copywriting tips from an offline
pro
[from Oct. 9, 2002 issue of WordBiz Report]
Donna Baier Stein is a direct response copywriter who
has written a book and gives frequent seminars. Here are her tips for how to write
sales copy for the Web and email... After
I asked Donna Baier Stein to distill from her classic book on copywriting,
Write on Target, how offline direct marketing best practices can
be translated to writing sales copy for the Web and email. Stein said she starts
an assignment, offline or on, by posing four questions.
- What am I
selling
- To whom am I selling it?
- Why am I selling this now?
-
What do I want the reader to do? Sounds
straightforward, but wait till you hear her answers...
[More...]
|
I didn't actually
use the "before" teaser in the example above. But that's what I started
with in my head. I had to force myself to come up with some specifics and an element
of drama to make this teaser work. Notice how I added a "kicker" at
the end. "It sounds straightforward... but it's not." This intro got
a high click-through.
WHAT
ABOUT SEX?
Sexy
in this case means an intro with that extra something, a dollop of intrigue, a
bit of suspense. These attributes are key and you usually have to give something
away in order to create them.
Note
how I included the following sentence in the
teaser for this article:
"Hint:
reveal a choice tidbit or two in those first 50 to 100 words... "
It may seem counterintuitive but this is as an essential part of the intro. Why?
I'm offering a taste of the specific tips the reader can get by clicking through.
ANN
HANDLEY'S FORMULA FOR WRITING TEASERS
I
checked in with one of my favorite editors, Ann Handley, to see what her formula
is. Ann was co-founder of ClickZ and is now
chief content officer of MarketingProfs.com.
Every week she writes six to eight short (50 words or less) teaser blurbs for
MarketingProfs' e-newsletter. Here's her formula:
|  Sex
is key but I don't actually use the word sex (well, not very often). By
sexy I don't mean sexual. I mean fun, interesting, intriguing, compelling.
It's called a teaser for a reason.
Bottom
line: A teaser should be lively. That's how it should be written. But what
should it say? The pieces we run on MarketingProfs are often solving a
business problem or giving advice. There's usually an issue at hand that the author
is resolving in the column. So
I play it pretty straight - talking directly to the reader, maybe recalling their
pain. "Here's the problem. Do you have this problem, too?
It sucks, huh? Then you gotta read this piece." Obviously, you don't want
to reveal the solution in the teaser. They must read the whole well-written, well-thought-out,
well-articulated piece for THAT! Always,
a teaser should be truthful. Don't promise what you can't deliver. Keep it short.
A few sentences, tops. You want to entice, not overwhelm.
Ann
Handley, chief content officer, MarketingProfs.com |
5
TIPS TO WRITE COMPELLING TEASERS
Let's recap five specific tips to
write can't-resist teasers and increase your click-throughs to the full article:
1)
Include specifics
As
explained above, this may seem counterintuitive. You have to reveal enough information
to make the reader long for more of the same.
Include
dollar amounts, numbers, specific sizes. Generally, bigger is better.
2) Give away a choice tidbit
Tell
just enough of the story - and make it intriguing - that the reader begs for more.
3) Use a twist
This is my secret ingredient to a successful
teaser. It means to "invert" the expected outcome. It's a classic device
in newspaper journalism. And it works just as well online.
4)
Apply the gotta know test
This is key. Ann Handley nails it above.
Your article has to address a pressing business problem and offer a solution.
Back out of that and into your teaser. Now you're dangling a tidbit that leads
to something the reader has just gotta know.
5)
Cut and cut again
