7 Tips For Writing Great Headlines
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
As you might expect, a great headline is absolutely critical to the success of your sales letter or web page, because it is the first thing a prospective customer sees. You have about 3 seconds to catch his attention and entice him to actually read beyond the main headline.
The second most important feature of your sales letter or web page is the first sub-headline. Both the headline and the sub-head must offer a major benefit in terms of offering a pleasurable result or relieving a painful situation for the customer. Which brings us to the first, and probably most important, rule for writing great headlines:
1 – Great Headlines Are All About The Benefits
Your headline should still state or imply the biggest benefit (in terms of pleasure gained or pain resolved) in the headline. Go through your complete list of benefits and determine which is the strongest benefit for your target customer base. If you don’t have a list of benefits, or if you find it difficult to create a list, then try this trick… On the left side of a sheet of paper, write down every feature of your product or service (features are “facts”… color, size, number of pages in a book or ebook, discusses flipping homes, etc.).
Then for each feature, write down on the right side of the paper what that feature does for your customer (e.g., stops the pain of XYZ, reverses damage from years of smoking so you can breathe easily again, makes you lean and attractive to the opposite sex, etc.). Once you have your list of benefits; pick the best, and write a headline about it.
2 – Great Headlines Will Include Power Words
Power words are key words proven to get better response to sales letters. There are literally hundreds of power words, but here are the Top 20:
Discover, Proven, Introducing, Easy, How to, Attention, Save, At last, Quick, Just Arrived, Free, Results, Guarantee, Sale, Now, New, Revealed, Bargain, Why, Announcing.
3 – Great Headlines Will Instill Curiosity And/or Evoke Emotion
Emotion grabs attention; details and logic closes the sale. In a headline, it’s all about grabbing attention, so you need to focus on emotion, and one of the most effective emotions is curiosity.
As discussed above, the specificity is good… it appeals to the logical mind with the numbers and may appeal to the emotions if you are emotional about solving money problems or getting rich, but the phrase, “The #1 Most Important Marketing Tool On The Web”, makes you wonder, “What IS the #1 marketing tool?” and “How does he use it to make over a million dollars per year?” So, now you click the link or read the sales page to satisfy your curiosity.
4 – Great Headlines Will Ask A Question
Reading is largely a “passive” activity. Yea, I know it takes energy to read, and that’s not passive like slouching back on your sofa watching TV… but what you are reading is doing the “telling” and you are doing the “receiving”. However, if what you’re reading asks you a question… it begs you to start thinking your own thoughts… you have to fill in the blanks. So a question like, “What Would Happen To Your Family If YOU Lost Your Job?” gets you thinking. If you’re thinking, you’re engaged in what you’re reading. If you’re engaged, you’re more likely to keep reading.
5 – Use “How To” When Writing Headlines
One of the most popular things people search for is “How To” information… they are trying to solve a problem. Either they need to know “how to” do something to get rid of a problem… for example, how to wire up that new ceiling fan… or they want to know “how to” get something they want. “How To” headlines by definition are offering solutions; thus, they work. Use them.
6 – Time-Limited Special Offers Also Make Great Headlines
If you have a product or service for which most people in your niche know the price range… and you have come up with a way to offer the same quality (or better) for a significantly lower price, then announcing the discount in the headline can be very effective. Even if your audience doesn’t know the price range, you can get the same effect by using a “percent discount” approach. For example, you might say, “All Steaks 60% Off”. And if you have a legitimate reason, or your customers believe there might be a credible reason, to time limit the discount… that’s even better. “Massive Overshipment Received: All Steaks 60% Off This Week Only… While Supplies Last”.
7 – One Of The Most Powerful Ways To Build A Great Headline Is To Offer Something Free
“Free” is one of the most attention-grabbing words in the English language. Even people believe nothing is free, will often click through or keep reading to see “what the deal is”. If you can give away anything free with your offer… especially if you can give something away free even if they don’t buy anything… then you can make a good headline out of that.
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