Headlines are one of those things you should spend a lot of time practicing.
Because like it or not they you have seconds to grab your reader’s attention.
And headlines are used in more places than you would expect.
Most people think of them as those large worded titles at the top of a flyer, advert or webpage.
But titles are also greetings.
They could be the first words a customer here’s on a phone from you or the first thing you say to someone who walks in your store.
We all know how important “First impressions” are and we should consider this in every place we are trying to connect with a potential customer.
That’s why I hate “Can I help you?” as a greeting when I walk in a shop.
The answer to that is normally “No” not a good start!
So how do you write good Headlines?
1.Study what others do. Magazines covers are a great source of good titles.
They have seconds to attract people’s attentions and normally are pretty good at it.
If there are magazines that cover your industry check them out and make notes.
2. Attention. We need to stop people in their tracks. NLP experts call it pattern interrupt.
People are normally thinking about lots of things consciously and subconsciously.
So anything that doesn’t get our attention normally gets ignored.
So our headline has to get the attention of our target market.
The title of this email was “5 tips to amazing headlines”.
This is something you my reader should be interested in.
So it sparks your attention.
But it probably won’t attract a person rushing around in the morning trying to get their kids ready for school (Unless they are a marketer as well!)
3. Interest. Once you have their attention you now must spark their interest. A headline like “Make a £1000 today” may get people’s attention but that alone won’t get them to read the rest. Again this is down to knowing your target market.
“Make a £1000 today while still doing a regular job” is a better way of getting readers attention
4. Desire. Our target audience always have desires and wants we need to tap into it.
What does our target market desire the most?
Money?
Freedom?
Time with the kids?
A holiday?
To give up their job and work from home?
“Quite your job and Make a £1000 today and every day.”
5. Action. You then need to get them to take action “Read On”.
Ever wonder why we put “Click Here” on buttons or on links in emails? Simply because people need to be told what to do next.
A/B testing shows there is a higher click through rate when you use the words “Click Here”
The same is in your headline or sub headline.
“Read on to find out how you can quit your mundane boring job today”
The last 4 points are called the AIDA formula and are actually used as a guide to create a whole sales page, Flyer etc. But I find it useful to keep in mind when creating headlines.
Thanks
Malcolm.
Biz Life Line
malcolmpett.com
