Writing a Headline

The headline of your sales page/advertisement is the most important part of your whole sales process.  Especially in this Internet age of whiz-bang shiny object syndrome - If you don't grab the user's attention, they're gone.  A good headline is more important now than ever...

 

What makes a good headline?

 

1. Appeal to the self-interest of the user: "Be financially free for the rest of your life!"

2. Make it seem easy and quick: "You can be financially free in 5 days!"

3. Attract curiosity: "How a fool stunt made me financially free!"

4. Stay away from the negative: avoid "You could go bankrupt, or you could be financially free"

5. Try to summarize in a few words what would make you actually whip out your wallet as the consumer and pay good money for the product you're advertising.  That's your headline.

 

These headline laws are obviously not made up by me - they're time tested truths about advertisting.  They're advertising laws I'm reading right now in John Caples Tested Advertising Methods, which is a legendary advertising/marketing book.  You would think that after 100 years of testing headlines that most advertisers (especially the big ones) would get it right, but here's a couple of headlines I logged onto latimes.com and pulled today:

 

This ad for boeing jobs doesn't describe anything for anyone.  It's accompanied by a picture of a man holding a kid in the air.  The kid seems to be reaching for something.

STILL REACHING?  - boeing.com/careers

 

This ad for Standard Pacific Homes doesn't describe their product, and doesn't even do a good job of attracting curiosity, as intended.  How would a potential customer be enticed to click on an ad with this heading?  There are no good pictures or other significant text associated with the banner.

WHERE DO YOU WISH YOU LIVED?

 

I'm still not sure what this ad is for... I'm not gonna click it either!  There's a picture of a couple barbequeing...  no other text at all.  What a waste of money!

TIME WELL SPENT - Avalon Del Rey

 

 

A couple that seem to have it nailed:

 

This ad for cars.com uses self-interest and curiosity to attract a person interested in buying a car and getting a good deal (that's everyone that buying a car).  Everyone wants a good deal, and they will click the ad just to find out what the four keys are.

HOW TO GET THE BEST DEAL ON YOUR CAR - Four keys to success

This ad in the personals section appeals to self-interest, and touches the curiosity and easiness factor.  It's a natural click if you're interested in losing weight.

WHY NOT GET THE RED CARPET RESULTS AND LOSE WEIGHT LIKE THE STARS? -  Non-surgical liposuction

 

 

John Caples says in his book that he's seen the same ad, no other modifications pull 19 times better with a targeted headline.  I think the key to that statement is that he tested one headline against another.  How would he otherwise have been able to know which one was better, much less an exact number like 19 times better?  My law is to follow the basic advertising rules, and test everything to make sure.  test and measure and test and measure and test and measure and test and measure and test .......

 

TG

--

>> There are only 10 kinds of people in the world - those that know binary and those that don't.