Use This “Secret” Lead in your Sales Letter to Hook your Visitors Immediately

Ask any copywriter what the most important part of a sales letter or VSL is and you’ll get a different answer. Some would say “it’s all about a powerful, emotional story.” Others will say “it’s all in the offer!”

I’m here to tell you that they’re all wrong! The most important part of any sales letter is in the headline and the lead. How can I say that with so much confidence?

Well think about it this way â€” if your prospects can’t get past your headline or lead, they’ll never get to your offer or your story, no matter how great they are.

Is Your Headline or Lead Working For You?

We all know what a headline is. But as for a lead, that is the first 100–600 words of your sales letter. For a VSL, that usually tends to occur in the first 4 minutes of your video.

Thanks to the internet, you can now track how long your prospects are consuming your sales letter or VSL for. An effective headline and lead will keep your prospects on your sales letter for more than 30 seconds. And your VSL? A great headline and lead will keep them viewing for 4 minutes or more.

Here’s Why Your Headline and Lead Are the Most Important Parts of Your Sales Letter or VSL

If you botch your headline or lead, you’ll lose visitors right off the bat. If you miss the mark, you have not succeeded in grabbing your prospect’s attention. They are not going to continue reading and watching and you just lost that potential customer. If you’re screwing up your headline and lead, they won’t get far.

If you’re writing your own copy or you’re hiring someone to do it for you, you need to know what makes a great lead so you know what to look out for.

The Secret Lead

You need a compelling headline that moves into a great lead.

This is why the Secret Lead is a simple and effective method to start off your sales letter. It’s a great technique for converting cold traffic with lots of universal appeal.

The secret lead is a commonly used technique in direct response copywriting. It’s similar to dangling a juicy carrot right in front of your prospects. For the secret lead to work, it needs to:

• Be intriguing — there needs to be curiosity, shock, and excitement that grabs your prospect’s attention.
• It needs to communicate a desirable benefit — it needs to be something that your ideal customer actually want.

Here’s an Example

Let’s take a look at how you can use this technique directly in the headline, using an example from Michael Masterson and John Forde’s book, Great Leads.

This example is a headline from a real sales letter that is targeting investors.

Example headline: “Closed to new investors for the next 6 years, now open again. The Chaffee Royalty Program that turned every $1 into $50.”

That first sentence alone is incredibly intriguing. If you’re an investor, you may be thinking “why was it closed? Was there controversy? What happened?”

Additionally, the very mention of the Chaffee Royalty Program also piques your readers’ curiosity. It’s mysterious and has a sense of exclusivity.

Now to the benefit — as an investor, you’ll be interested in turning $1 into $50. That’s a 50 times ROI!

See how this simple headline is jammed packed with lots of factors that raises curiosity?

A Few Tips

The secret lead is universal and can be applied to any sales letter or VSL you write. However, less experienced copywriters tend to make this one mistake — spilling the beans a little too early.

They come up with a great secret lead in the headline, only to reveal all their secrets 2–3 sentences into the lead. If you do that, you scratch your readers’ curiosity itch. And once that happens, they’ve got what they needed and will leave before finishing the rest of the sales letter.

If there’s no more mystery and intrigue left, your prospects are going to leave. So do not spill the beans too early! Study successful direct response sales letters to see how the greats hold on to that sense of intrigue until the very end.

Why Use the Secret Lead

If people who don’t know who you are come across your sales letter, they have no preexisting trust built with you or your brand. The secret lead will get their attention right away, hooking them into your sales letter. If your offer is strong, and you have an emotional story you know will resonate with your target audience, the secret lead will keep your prospects around longer. And as they keep reading or watching, that sense of trust with you and your brand be instilled at the end of it.