Every sales and marketing tactic or strategy you use must include a powerful headline. The name of your business, commonly used as a headline, is NOT a headline!
Headlines are used to grab attention. It should stop the client, customer, patient or prospect dead in their tracks.
A poor headline means no matter how good your message, the target market will simply pass you by.
Think of it like you’re waiting for a bus to stop. You can wait by a proper bus stop (the headline), and 99 times out of 100 the bus will stop and let you on. Or you can take your chances and stand anywhere in the street, hold your hand out and hope the bus will stop. You might get lucky five times in every hundred. That’s the difference between a good headline and a bad headline.
And like everything else, your headline needs to connect with the target market. So, if your target market is start-ups, then a headline such as
‘Attention Start-Ups: How You Too Can Create A Thriving Business’
will attract more attention from the target market than a more general headline such as
‘How You Too Can Create A Thriving Business’
When you see it like this, hopefully you can immediately understand why the headline plays such an important role, and why the name of your business really is the worst headline you could ever use!
Think of the headline as the ‘ad for the ad’.
If prospects or customers dismiss the headline, that’s it; you’ve lost them. They won’t start reading your letter, ad, brochure, website, etc., or listen to your telephone script or radio ad, and you won’t get a response or a sale.
To emphasize the importance of headlines, here are a couple of quotes from two of the most highly respected copywriters of all time.
‘If you can come up with a good headline, you are almost sure to have a good ad. But even the greatest writer can’t save an ad with a poor headline.’
John Caples – How to Make Your Advertising Make Money
‘On average five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.’
David Ogilvy – Confessions of an Advertising Man
What does this mean? Basically, if you get your headline right, you almost guarantee your success. Get your headline wrong, and your results will suffer!
The following image highlights a simple example to show how few people understand the basic principle of using headlines.
Whilst the Yellow Pages printed directory is extinct, it serves as a great example, because it lists all competing businesses on the same page. Look at the image on the next page. It shows the ads in the category ‘Cookers, Stoves & Ovens’ – ‘Repairs & Spares’. This is typical, and if we did it with websites, for example, we’d have similar results.
Notice these headlines:
Here are the headlines isolated from the ads image…
Repairs Specialists
Kingston Appliances
Electric Ovens & Cookers
We Repair or Replace
A1 Cooker Repairs
CT Appliance Repairs
AH Appliance Services
Four of the ‘headlines’ are the name of the business, and the other three are meaningless. NONE of them grabs the attention. And there’s the opportunity.
If all one of those businesses did was to craft a powerful headline, they’d win most of the business in an instant!
Just like in this example, because so many people are doing it wrong, if all you do is lead with a strong headline on all your marketing communications, you’ll transform the response and success many times over.
Effective headlines fulfil these four key objectives:
- Get attention.
- Select an
- Deliver a complete message.
- Draw the reader into the body copy (or keep them listening to you, etc.).
As I said, simply adding a powerful headline to all your marketing pieces will multiply your results.
Many of the headline tests we’ve carried out over the years have resulted in massive increases in results, and that’s testing one great headline against the next.
We’ve also discovered that there are a number of ‘headline templates’ which, because of their structure, will always bring results. For example, here’s one of my favourites:
How to …
Simply adding those two words at the start of a headline transforms it into a winner. There are many more. In fact, Steve and I have identified 48 of them.
I’ve created a headline for each template based on one of the ‘Cooker & Stove’ repair ads I showed you earlier.
- headlines are almost always more successful then short headlines).
- Benefit headlines (All your headlines should contain a benefit of some )
- My Example:‘Same-Day Repair, or Your Money Back’Use a two- or three-word headline
- Get One Month Free
- Double Bonus Service
- Oh My God!
- Gosh!
- At Last!
- Millionaire Secrets
- If Only …
- My Example:
- ‘Same-Day Repair’
Headlines that focus on quick and easy solutions
- Fast and Simple …
- Ridiculously Easy and Fast …
- Idiot-Proof …
- In Just 10 Days …
- The 7-Minute Workout …
- The Lazy Man’s Way to …
- Instant, Automatic Results …
- The Quick and Easy Way to …
My Example:
‘Your Cooker Repaired Within 24 Hours – Guaranteed’
Warning headlines
- Read This Before You …
- Don’t Choose Another Accountant Until You’ve Read These Facts
My Example:
‘WARNING: Don’t Choose Another Cooker Repair Company Until You’ve Read This’
Testimonial headlines
- A Specific Benefit Written Testimonial from One of Your Customers
- ‘Or It Can Just Be a Headline in Quotation Marks Like This Written Like a Testimonial’
My Example:
‘I Called Them at 9.30 a.m., and My Cooker Was Fixed and Working Like New at 3 p.m. the Same Day – Amazing Service’
Reasons-why headlines
- Seven Reasons Why You Should …
- 37 Invigorating Reasons …
- 6 Ways to …
- 7 Steps …
- Here’s How …
My Example:
‘7 Compelling Reasons to Call Us First and Get Your Cooker Repaired the Same Day – Guaranteed’
Offer headlines
- Put your offer in the headline …
- Try-Before-You-Buy Accountancy Service
My Example:
‘No Call Out Charge and Same-Day Repair, or Your Money Back’
TEST BEFORE LAUNCH
Next you need to test your headlines.
The ultimate test is, of course, when the tactic or strategy goes live, but it’s best to do a test prior to launching, because it can save and make you significant sum of money in the process.
FORMAT
Finally, once you’ve chosen your headline, you need to format it correctly. That depends on where you’re using it, and there are several format templates for doing that. As a basic set of guidelines, your headlines should be set in large type, have quotation marks around them and ideally be no longer than 17 words (of the 100 best headlines ever created, based on resulting sales, only five had more than 17 words).
