How to write a catchy headline
Sunday, August 19, 2007

Knowing how to write a catchy headline is an essential skill of a copywriter. You are competing for the attention of your market and you must stand out, hopefully this article will enable you to do so.

The content of your headline depends on several factors which are:

  • Audience
    Do you have a rapport with the audience? If so, it may be advantageous to personalise the email.

  • Product / Service you are promoting
    A professional product should be represented professionally. If your product is inexpensive, be sure to play on that within your headline

  • Writing format
    The length of your headline will be a function of your format. Formats included are blog posts, articles, sales pages, reports, emails etc.

I'm of the opinion that the headline should reflect the content, however that is because this is what works within my market. If you browse over your spam emails you notice that a lot of them try to personalise to headline by incorporating your name in it. This is obviously something that works for that market. A professional product or service should be represented by an honest headline. You will lose and upset many people if your headline is misleading or irrelevant to the content. I've made a quick list of what I consider to be good and bad headline themes with respect to a professional product or service.


GOOD
Benefit headlines (eg Amazing new course shows you how to skyrocket your loan pipeline by 300% in 30 days! ).
Summary headlines (eg Scientists grow human ear on back of a mouse )
Question headlines (eg Is the Zune any better than the iPod?' )
Mention Keywords (eg Al Jazeera International chooses Apple Technology )

BAD
False promises
Irrelevant headline

OTHER
Shocking headlines (These can be good and bad. Use them wisely.)


Words that are used commonly in good headlines

  • Instant

  • Free

  • Guarantee

  • Easy

  • Superlatives (i.e. 'Easiest way' instead of 'a way')

You should test your headlines and find out what works best within your market. If you stumble upon a great headline, write it down and figure out why it was so good and incorporate that into your next headline.

Posted byadmin at 9:01 PM 0 comments  

Labels: ,

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)