A lead is the part of your message that hooks prospects in.
When they see your headline, you get their attention.
When they see your lead, you keep their attention.
Think of attention like a lure.
You cast a lure into the lake & it sparkles to get the fish’s attention.
Your headline is like a lure… it gets attention.
Your lead is more like a hook… it keeps attention.
Once you get the fish’s attention, you have to hook them in order to connect them to your line.
Once you get a prospect’s attention, you have to hook them in order to connect them to your offer.
And the way we do that is with a lead.
A lead is what you say immediately after the headline.
It bridges the gap between your headline & your offer.
The lead expands on the headline.
We are delivering on the promise we made in the headline… in a fun, emotional way.
If your headline was “3 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make”… then your lead could be…
When I was a kid, my Dad told me to keep a budget. Did I listen? No!
This resulted in bankruptcy. Life would have been so much easier if I would have just listened to my Dad.
And why didn’t I listen to ALL of his advice? He was a millionaire before I was born.
He taught me a lot of things that I didn’t recognize until later in life.
And there are 3 things he taught me that are my guiding light today… and they are way more important than keeping a budget. I want to reveal them to you, my friend, because I don’t want you to suffer like I did.
Here they are:
- Mistake 1
- Mistake 2
- Mistake 3
And then you transition into the argument, which transitions into the offer.
Your headline made them curious & got their attention.
Now the lead KEEPS their attention, by telling a story or revealing information that is so powerful, they can’t help but continue to read.
Your lead’s job is to make them emotional. To get them excited. To make them cry. Or make them feel something. Something particular. If you know what their goal is & you know what fires them up, then you can tell a story that makes them feel like that, which opens their mind & their heart to you.
Have you ever noticed how some movies start with drama?
They begin at the climax.
And then they spend the rest of the time showing you how they got there.
The climax is the lead.
They started the movie with a lead… something dramatic… something emotional… something so powerful that you are hooked in, on the edge of your seat, excited to see what happens next.
Journalists do this as well.
You know the saying “don’t bury the lead”?
This is the same lead I am talking about.
A good journalist tells the most compelling portion of the story first to hook the viewer in.
Then they elaborate.
You can use Hollywood’s formula in your business.
Pay attention to the beginning of movies, news, commercials, books, etc and get ideas.
Movies tend to follow the same structure…
The main character has a tough decision to make. They could choose the easy road that will have bad results. Or they could choose the hard road that ends well. They make the right choice & then a coach shows up to help them navigate the rough waters.
Examples:
- The Matrix
- Karate Kid
- Star Wars
Thousands of movies that follow this structure have been blockbuster hits.
It’s the same story, told in a different way… and it keeps working over & over again.
This means that you can use this to your advantage. You can tell stories, in the same way Hollywood does, and dramatically improve your marketing.
And the place to tell the story is in the lead… BEFORE you make an offer.
This builds trust.
This puts their guard down.
This causes prospects to share your marketing with others.
This causes them to say good things behind your back.
It’s more energy, money & time then copying your competitor’s ad.
But the hard road ends well.