[How to Communicate More Effectively is a series of guest posts from Gareth L Powell. In case you missed it, here’s part 1.]

The first thing you need to do when writing a blog post, email or web page is to snag your reader’s attention. If they’re skimming through their RSS feeds or searching on Google, you need them to notice your post; if they’re checking their inbox, you need your email to stand out from the crowd; and this is where your title comes in. The title of your article or blog post (or the subject line of your email) should intrigue them and give them a reason to stop doing whatever it is they are doing and read what you’ve written. Ideally, your headline should also communicate a benefit to the reader, letting them know they stand to gain something of value by reading on.

Writing killer headlines is hard work but worth it, as studies show four times as many people will read your headline as will read the rest of your message.

Examples of good headlines include:

• Learn How To Write Like a Pro with These FREE Hints & Tips
• 7 Tried and Tested Ways to Save Money This Christmas
• Read 10 Hot New Writers – for FREE!
• Buy Two Issues of Outrageous Tales and Get This FREE Book

[How to Communicate More Effectively is a series of guest posts from Gareth L Powell.]

Are you a writer or a publisher?

Would you like to attract more people to your website? Do you need to sell more magazine subscriptions? Are you trying to write a blog post that will galvanise your readers into action?

I receive countless emails from small magazines that inevitably begin with the sentence: “The new issue of XXXXX is now available, featuring the usual eclectic mix of horror, science fiction and fantasy…”

Hardly attention-grabbing, is it?

These days, potential readers have other things to spend their time and money on. If you don’t give them a compelling reason to visit your website, read your blog or subscribe to your magazine, they won’t.

You have to communicate with them.

I speak from experience. In addition to being a published science fiction author, I’ve spent the last ten years working in the direct marketing industry, during which time I’ve written hundreds of sales letters, adverts, brochures, web pages and case studies, and I hold a qualification in Direct & Interactive Marketing from the Institute of Direct Marketing.

What this experience has taught me is that effective communication is as much of a science as it is an art. There are tried and tested techniques that advertisers have been using for decades – techniques that can be easily adapted to improve the response you get from your emails, subscription drives and blog posts.

The best known of these techniques is undoubtedly AIDCA. This formula is so powerful that it has remained in constant use since the 1950s, and has recently found a new lease of life with email and online marketing.

AIDCA stands for: Attention, Interest, Desire, Conviction, and Action. Over the next six days, I’ll be guiding you through each of these stages, giving you a powerful tool to use when you’re trying to elicit a response from your readership.

Please give a warm welcome to a new guest blogger here at Futurismic!

Gareth L Powell will need no introduction to some of you, but for those who don’t recognise the name, he’s a science fiction writer with a growing list of short story publication credits in magazines such as Interzone; his first collection, The Last Reef, was published by Elastic Press in the summer of 2008. He’s also a jolly decent chap, as we Brits say – you can find out more about him at his website.

By day, Gareth is a professional copywriter and publicist, and this week-long series of guest posts will lay out some tactics for authors, editors and publishers on the genre fiction scene to increase the profile of their writings and publications using the same techniques he deploys for big corporations and other organisations. Feel free to leave feedback; both Gareth and Futurismic would love to get your input.

Gareth’s first post will arrive tomorrow, so keep ’em peeled.