In today’s world of shortened attention spans and a bombardment of constant information flow, you have very little opportunity to catch someone’s attention. It’s a hyper-competitive front, and stepping in unprepared could lose you 80% or more of your potential leads. Here you’ll learn the secret to magnetizing your market outreach and finally get the attention you deserve.
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably heard a thousand times that “Headlines are important”. And while this is true, the reasons why may not be what you would guess.
It’s a common misconception that all a headline is supposed to do is catch a reader's attention. That’s not an overly difficult thing to do by any means. The problem is most people don't understand that after you grab a tiger by the tail, something’s got to happen pretty quick after that, or things aren’t looking good.
Obviously, there are no tigers involved and the threat of being mauled because of messing up your headline is also not really a thing.
The point is, that there’s a definite purpose to a headline. After you grab your reader’s attention, what are you going to do with it? There has to be something enticing enough to read on.
For example, I could write: “Love dogs?” and that would probably catch some eyes. But it’s just a question statement, it doesn’t tell anything about the content. If this were a promotion about a special new ultra-durable dog toy, there should be something to explain that.
Let's change that headline to: “The world's best dog toy for aggressive chewers”. That rings in as curious, doesn’t it?
Be sure your headline adds some degree of curiosity. Something that makes the reader want to find out more.
A good headline needs to make a strong connection with the product or service. The improved headline says what this is about, a dog toy for aggressive chewers. Simple as that right?
Here’s where it gets really interesting. The secret to writing killer headlines…
When I first learned this, it made me rethink my entire approach to marketing. I wondered how something so simple had slipped by without me recognizing it.
Full disclosure, this is not my idea. No, this genius comes from the legendary Dan Kennedy. I’ll adapt the concept a little for the sake of this example.
If you want to know if your headline is good or a dud, try this quick test. Take out a pen and paper, or open up a new Google doc, doesn’t matter. You just need a blank space to write your headline. Do that, and then add a call to action after it. That’s it, don’t add anything else. All we’re doing is taking the headline, and asking ourselves if it makes sense, would someone be interested?
Here’s an example using our first headline:
“Love dogs?”
Button > “Click here to find out more.”
Would you click to find out more? No of course not.
Now let's try the second example:
“The world's best dog toy for aggressive chewers”
Button > “Click here to find out more.”
See the difference, that works much better, doesn’t it? We’ve made the connection to the product and made the reader curious to know more. It’s something that actually interests them.
The subheading and body text that comes after the headline is great, it’s very important as well. But the headline essentially needs to sell itself.
So remember this test if you’re writing something for your site, a product, or an ad. If you can offer the next step right after the headline alone and have it perform this way you’ve got yourself a good headline.
Hopefully, you’ve found this helpful. If you would like us to review your content we will do so free of charge. Drop us a line, we’re happy to help.
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