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It starts with the headline.

You see, people are busy. They're only going to take a few seconds to determine if they want to spend any time with your promotional materials or not (whether that's an email, a website, a sales letter or something else).

How will they make that decision? A big part of it will come from reading your headline. So if your headline doesn't pull its own weight, your prospects will most likely simply move on.

So how can you craft a headline that persuades your prospects to keep reading? Here are 3 tips to get you started:

1. Put yourself in the mind of your prospect. Chances are, your prospect landed on your site because they have a problem. And they're looking for a solution to that problem. And they're impatient because they're squeezing in searching for this solution in between taking the kids to dance class, sending a few last emails and figuring out what to throw together for dinner. (Okay, that was a very female-biased day, but men are equally as stretched.) So if they're not feeling confident they're going to find a solution, they WILL move on. And fast.

But if you create a headline that embodies the solution, then they'll probably stick around and keep reading. For instance, a headline like this:

Give me 3 days and I'll show you how to make more money while working far less.

If you're considering writing a headline like this, then your prospects are probably completely overwhelmed, exhausted, struggling to get everything done and not making much money. See how the headline entices them to read on because it promises a solution?

Here's another one:

Give me 3 days and I'll show you how to lose weight without crazy fad diets, pills, hours of sweaty exhausting exercise or feeling hungry.

(Ah, don't we all wish?)

Okay, so your prospect wants to lose weight and has tried a lot of things without success.

See how this works?

2. Give them a time limit. If you were wondering in the above examples why I had a time limit in there, it's because that resonates with people. Again, people are impatient. They don't want to wait years or decades for the solution to take effect (even if that's what it takes). They want to know the solution is within reach and it's a manageable time frame. So if you can frame your solution around something that sounds doable (a couple of weeks, days or minutes are best yet if you can distill it that far).

3. Use language your prospects will relate to. Whether it's language that resonates with your prospects (hours of sweaty exhausting exercise would probably resonate with prospects who don't like to exercise whereas it wouldn't with people whose hobby was running marathons) or using words like "Free" or "Guaranteed," making sure you pick the right words can mean the difference from a kick-butt sales piece to a so-so one.

And don't be afraid to simply tweak a couple of words. Sometimes that's all it takes to tweak a word or two to transform a blah headline into a sexy, profit-pulling one.

Michele PW (Michele Pariza Wacek) owns Creative Concepts and Copywriting LLC, a copywriting, marketing communications and creativity agency. She helps people become more successful at attracting new clients, selling products and services and boosting business. To find out how she can help you take your business to the next level, visit her site http://www.michelepw.com. Copyright 2009 Michele Pariza Wacek.