Marketing guru Gene Schwartz wrote: "Your headline has only one job – to stop your prospect and compel him to read the second sentence of your ad."
You can apply that to any marketing piece you write, including print ads, brochures, emails, web pages, letters and more. Without a compelling headline most readers will stop right there, and then discard the rest. And your message will nose-dive into oblivion.
“On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy..." says the legendary David Ogilvy. "It follows that, unless your headline sells your product [service or business], you have wasted 90% of your money."
In short, most prospects make their buying decisions at the headline alone.
- Some of the most successful headlines are those that promise a benefit. Write down the benefits your product or service. What will it do for the buyer? Does it save time? Make people look younger? Include everything you can think of, but only if it's true!
- Turn them into a set of 30-50 different headlines. Don't stop to ponder which you will use. Just get them down on paper. And don't try too hard at this stage. The point of this exercise is to stir your subconscious into throwing up something that will work.
- Put your list in a draw and forget about it for a day or so.
- Read your list out loud. Which headlines sound interesting? Believable? Excitable? Shortlist those and improve on them if you can, emphasising any offers you're currently running. Keep thinking, "What does this do for my customers?"
- Ask yourself which of your shortlisted headlines really grabs attention and makes the reader want to read on. The one that resonates the most is the one you should test drive.
- Other headlines that work best are those which contain news. This could take the form of an announcement of a new service, an improvement in an old product, or a new use for an existing product, and so on.
- Headlines of ten words or more tend to sell more than shorter headlines.
- If you are advertising something that is only bought by a niche group of people, make sure you get that across in your headline. For example, flag relevant words such as ‘women over 40’, ‘amateur golfers’, eczema sufferers’ and so on.
- Putting a headline in quotes “like this” increases recall by as much as 28 per cent.
- Do not try to be clever with your headlines — double entendres, puns and other obscurities are just counter-productive.
- BONUS TIP: Since headlines decide the success or failure of an advertisement more than anything else, it would be pure folly NOT to include a headline in your next promotion.
Copyright, T Dooley, MediaMinister.co.uk, All Rights Reserved
