Master Class Part 3: Generating Headlines | Cirrus Insight

Hey! Welcome back.

In part three of our Master Class, we're going to demonstrate how generative artificial intelligence tools like Jasper can help you generate infinite headlines for your sales emails. Jasper is very similar to ChatGPT3, which you have probably heard about over the past couple of months. You can apply a lot of the tactics we describe here with Jasper for ChatGPT3, but at the time of this writing, we found Jasper's Content Brief a bit simpler to use to get the best results.

Also, one thing to know about all of these different generative AI tools is that they've been "trained" in different ways. Meaning each of them are going to have their own quirks and rules which will determine the quality of the results you get.

For example, with Jasper, that company worked with one of America's best copywriters, Jon Benson, in training their output concerning sales letters. Something we'll get to later in this post. This means that ChatGPT3 could produce high performing sales letters it's found on the Internet. But Jasper's system is a bit more fine tuned to produce things like this for you, because it follows the rules and training shared with Jasper by Benson.

So, think of it like each of the generative AIs out there, ChatGPT3, Jasper, ect., all went to college to learn the same thing, but had different teachers.

We want to stress: You should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS double and triple check what ANY of these AI tools create for you. They are ALL incredibly bad at fact checking, for example. And in more than a few instances, they'll just lie and make up their own facts and statements. 

So make sure you fact check any and all statements generated from any of these tools.

Ok. Let's pick up where we left off last week ...

How to Generate Infinite Headlines in Jasper

Step 1

The most important part of Jasper is the Content Brief section. If you want to use Jasper to create headlines for you, you’ll need to tell it how many you want, what the topic is, what the niche is, and who the audience is for those headlines. You can see me doing this in the screen shot here

Step 2

Once you’ve filled out the creative brief, you can issue Jasper a command. This is a lot of fun, but you have to be careful. Jasper only has the context you provide it, so you want to be as detailed as possible with your brief.

The commands for Jasper (if you’re using Boss Mode, which is one of the paid tiers) can be written like you’re writing for a human. In the above example, I wrote at the top of the document: “Jasper, write 20 headlines about webinars geared toward readers in the B2B SAAS space who work as CMOs. The headlines should explain how Webinars can become conversion machines for their business.”

Note: There’s a Surfer SEO integration within Jasper that will help you find and gauge how high performing a Keyword can be in terms of search volume, but that’s beyond the scope of this class. All you need to know here is that I wanted Webinars in the keyword section (under the brief) so that Jasper knows to place the word early in the headline, which it did so fabulously.

Step 3

Now all you need to do is press Command + Return (as just an example. This is what you press on a mac. It’s different for PC users.) Jasper will begin to give you headlines. But it won’t give you all 20. Just keep hitting Command Return until you get your 20.

Jasper has two different modes. The previous example was in Focus Mode, which is the default mode. There is also a Power Mode with all sorts of plug and play templates, but we honestly prefer the process demonstrated here to create headlines.

One last thing on Jasper: The more you enter information in your content, the “smarter” it will get in terms of the headlines it produces for you.

So, for example, after it gives you 20 headlines, you can start writing more information about your prospect and your webinars, and then give it the same command again to write headlines. This will produce better results.

But like with anything involving Artificial Intelligence, it’s not as intelligent as we’d like it to be. So make sure you read over whatever Jasper gives you carefully. Sometimes, you absolutely will get gibberish.

Think of it like this: If you throw a ball for your dog, your dog is going to know to run and retrieve the ball. Unless you have my dog, in which case she’ll want you to chase after her once she puts the ball in her mouth. Jasper is like my dog. Sometimes she’ll respond the way you want, and other times she’ll just do her own thing. So be patient. Read the support documentation, and watch the educational videos Jasper puts out to really learn the ins and outs of their system.

Step 5: How To Keep Your Emails Out of the Promotions Tab

Ok. Let’s take a breather here with our shortest step. This one is very important but also very simple. 

Your goal is to avoid the Promotions Tab in Gmail at all costs. 

There is a very simple way to do this, but a lot of marketing departments won’t like it.

That’s because we basically want you to throw out all the expensive graphics and templates you’re using and send plain text emails to your prospects with riveting headlines and email copy that is less than 250 words.That … Doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for flashiness, you know? 

Save the flashy stuff for your website. 

If you want to jazz up your emails, you can use ONE gif or better still, a link to an unlisted YouTube video that can act as a personalized VSL. A Video Sales Letter. I’ll tell you how to write one of those in a moment.

But first, here’s a short list of things you can do to avoid that Promotions Tab in Gmail:

9 Steps To Avoiding GMAIL’s Promotions Tab 

1. Avoid any Spam Trigger Words in your subject line (see our list from the first installment of this class.)
2. Remove all your fancy graphics and templates. Send plain text emails with riveting subject lines.
3. Keep the email to 250 words or less. Remember that most people skim their emails, so shorter is always better.
4. Make sure you have personalized your email and sent your email during a time when a normal human would be up looking at their email. (No 3 am emails, you know?)
• Pro-Tip: Send your emails between 7 am and 9am to maximize the probability it gets seen.
5. You may use ONE animated gif if you don’t like all the plain text.
6. Include a link to an unlisted YouTube video addressed directly to the person you are emailing and have them click on the link to view the video. Them clicking on your link tells Gmail that your email is important and lowers the probability of future emails from you to this prospect ending up outside their inbox.
7. Remember: To avoid the promotions tab, the prospect must open your email, click on the link you sent them to your VSL, and then respond to your email. The more this happens, the lower the probability of ending up in that promotions tab.
8. If you are sending email using a list of prospects, make sure the list is highly segmented and specific. An email sent to many prospects on a big list will definitely get flagged by GMail eventually. So smaller, more specific lists of prospects are what you want to use. (Also, if a prospect hasn’t been active or responded to any emails in the past 90 days, REMOVE THEM FROM YOUR LIST. Don’t keep people on your email lists who don’t open or look at things. This is also a signal Gmail can pick up on from your Email Service Provider and move you into the promotions tab.
9. Finally, once you’ve entered into a relationship with your prospects, you can ask them to make sure your email is delivered to the inbox by dragging the email out of the promotions tab and dropping it into their inbox. This is something you’ll have to remind people to do in every email, so I recommend including this call to action as your PS and putting it at the bottom of the email along with a clear unsubscribe link.

Before moving on, let’s take a moment to discuss how to create a simple video sales letter.

How to Create a Simple Video Sales Letter

We could easily do a whole second master class on VSLs, but for now, I’m going to give you the very basic framework presented by Jon Benson, the inventor of the VSL, to follow. 

I’ve made a slight tweak to Jon’s formula by giving you an idea of how long each section of the video should be.

And just to be clear, you don’t need professional equipment to make a VSL. You can make a great one, right now, just by using your smartphone.

All you need to do is record a brief (no more than 2 minutes) video that follows each of these steps:

1. Introduction - Get their attention in 15 seconds or less by leading with an incredible fact or piece of information to get the viewer's attention.
2. The Story - Give them a quick story about a customer, just like your prospect, who had a problem, and used your service to reach their desired state. (Better yet: Cut to some footage here of your happy customers telling their story.) (45 seconds)
3. The Hook - Remember that whole section we did on Value Propositions? That’s your hook. Answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” and “How will using this product make others feel about your prospect?” (30 seconds)
4. The Pitch - Your CTA. Ask them to schedule a meeting by replying to your email. (30 seconds)
   
   Here is an example of a sales letter we created at Cirrus Insight using the steps above.

We'll see you next week for part four of our Master Class! We hope you're enjoying this series so far. If you have any suggestions for future topics you'd like to see us cover in greater detail, email me at BJMendelson@CirrusInsight.com