This Week’s Topic: How To Incorporate Headlines Into Your Business Advertising! (Part 2 of 2)
The Variations Within Headline Types
In order to write those headlines which have a high impact and grab the attention it’s important to review the different types of headlines that are at your disposal, why you may want to select a particular style, and real-life examples of headlines that have proven themselves to be effective.
Headline Types
The Guarantee
Headlines which emphasize particular results, guarantee specific benefits and assure the effectiveness of the product are known as Guarantee Headlines. Should your product provide a discernable guarantee, make sure you highlight this fact by including it in the headline.
Example:
“Learn Conversational French in Only 30 Days Or Get A Full Refund”
The News
Products or services which are newsworthy should have their features announced in the headline. This most commonly a new product or a significant advancement of a pre-existing product. Common words included in News Headlines are “Introducing, New, Finally, Now, At Last, Just Released, Announcing, Presenting, Innovation, Improved”
Example:
“Introducing The Revolution In Shaving Technology. The New No-Hands Auto Shaver Which Shaves You All By Itself”
“Announcing.. The Innovative Global Translator Service. Now You Can Translate Anything, In Any Language, At Any Time.. Instantly!”
The How To
One of the most powerful word combinations in the world of headlines is “How To”. The instant appeal of a How To Headline explains why it’s used in thousands of book titles, countless magazine front pages and millions of online articles.
How To Headlines imply that the reader will gain knowledge, information, solutions, advice and insight into particular issues of interest. You can always fall back on the How To Headline if you experience difficulty during your headline brainstorming.
Example:
“How To Get Rich In Only 1 Year”
“How To Make Your Outfit The Envy Of Others”
“How To Learn Cartoon Animation And Produce Your Own Cartoon”
The Benefit
It’s important to have knowledge of your market and that’s one of the fundamental factors behind creating a successful Benefit Headline. You need to inform your prospect that they’ll garner benefits from your product or service which they’ll have difficulty obtaining elsewhere.
Exhaustively research and analyze your target market so that you’re fully aware of what benefits will appeal to them the most, and inspire them to take the next step of finding out more about what you’re offering.
Example:
“Freedom From Money Worries Is Finally Here”
“Get Your Work Completed Faster So You Have More Time To Play”
“Now You Can Seriously Improve Your Health And Well-Being With Minimal Effort”
The Question
Once again, by implementing this particular style of headline, it’s very important to have a real insight into your target market and understand their needs. Take note of what your prospects are aiming for, their goals and ambitions, their worries and concerns.
The Question Headline should revolve around your prospect’s self-interest and pose a particular question which they strongly desire an answer to. Effective types of questions are those which have the effect of engaging the reader and compelling them to investigate things further.
Example:
“Are You Looking For Love?”
“Do You Need To Improve Your Maths?”
The Reason Why
With this style of headline, you provide the reader with a very precise explanation as to why they should investigate your entire advert. Specific facts and figures are contained within The Reason Why headlines and this intensely compounds their effectiveness.
They don’t need to actually contain the exact words, “The Reason Why”. Instead, it’s fine to use words like “25 Facts”, “10 Steps”, “Four Secrets”, “Six Reasons Why”, “Why You Should”, and many more.
Example:
“25 Facts About Making Money”
“10 Steps To The Perfect Relationship”
“Six Reasons Why You Should Choose Our Wholemeal Bread”
The Testimonial
Word-of-mouth recommendations are considered to be one of the most effective forms of advertising. The Testimonial Headline is an effective use of this type of advertising, where customers offer positive feedback about your products and happily turn themselves into a walking advert for your brand by talking about the benefits they encountered.
Examples:
“I Make More Cash Now In One Week Then The Monthly Salary Of My Old Job”
“The Improvements To My Health Were Noticeable On The Very First Day”
“I Can’t Believe How This Diet Has Worked For Me. Nothing Else Did!”
The Command
Giving your customer motivational pushes is another effective headline type. The Command Headline instructs your customers to take certain steps in a predefined direction. It encourages them to take a particular course of action in order to reach the solution they’re hoping to achieve. Action words are a good way to begin most Command Headlines.
Examples:
“Take Yourself To The Next Level Of Piano Playing.”
“Order Now And Avoid The Christmas Rush.”
“Stop Procrastinating And Get More Decisive.”
So there we have it. An interesting list for you to examine and familiarize yourself with. A number of headline types which can be implemented in different scenarios and cater to a variety of markets. Headlines work independently but also in conjunction with other headline types, they can be combined at will to create the desired effect.
The Use Of The Effective Vocabulary
While there are many words which have similar meanings, the words you choose to use within every headline are important to get right too.
A few words which are known for their efficacy:
Guarantee
How To
Life
Powerful
Immediate
Magic
Quick
Amazing
Success
Sale
Money
Bargain
Discover
And studies have revealed that 3 of the most powerful words are:
You
Your
Free
Selecting the right words in your headlines is something that needs to be given some heavy consideration. There is a famous headline where only a single letter was added and the level of response to the headline tripled. Let’s take a look at it.
“Put Music In Your Life”
Now observe the subtle transformation:
“Puts Music In Your Life”
Simply by including the letter “s” on the tail-end of the word “Put”, the response to the advert was tripled. The reason for this is because of what each of the phrases subliminally implies. The first headline implies that you have to take action in order to achieve a desired result. The second headline implies that the desired result is achieved for you by an external force.
This provides convincing evidence that it is vital to spend an adequate amount of time writing numerous headlines in order to experiment with their effectiveness.
How To Increase Your Headline-Writing Expertise
The primary method of becoming a master headline writer is to start collecting headlines from exterior sources such as newspapers, magazines and even TV commercials. Build up a catalog of headlines and refer back to them for ideas when it’s time to create your own headlines.
Prior to writing headlines, or indeed any other text based advertising, it’s wise to describe the benefits of your product in writing, and using small index cards is a useful way of doing this. Inscribe just a single benefit on each card and remember to take into consideration your prospect’s point of view while highlighting how your product is beneficial to them.
After carefully spending the necessary time to write all these benefits down you’ll end up with numerous cards that you can refer back to whenever you’re trying to think up ideas for headlines. Devise those headlines by pinpointing the most relevant customer benefits. These cards can also be referred to when constructing your actual advert or sales correspondence so they have multiple uses and can prove to be invaluable.
Headline Checklist
- Are the key customer benefits conveyed in the headline?
- Is there some sort of incentive for reading the advert?
- “What do I get out of this?” – Is that question answered?
- Does a powerful sales message grab the attention?
- Is the headline possessing a clear explanation of the ideas I’m trying to get across?
- Am I effectively speaking directly to the prospect’s who I’m targeting?
- Is the headline inspirational enough to keep the prospect engaged for the long haul?
- Does the headline avoid boredom and remain interesting to the prospect?
- Are there alternative words I could use to improve upon what I’ve used so far?
- And, most conclusively, is this headline an effective advert for my advert?
The Conclusive Headline
A good or bad headline can be the make or break of your advertising success. It can be the critical factor which dictates whether or not your potential customer will go on to read your entire advert. In fact, the headline could be considered the paramount factor in advertising because it’s the first thing your prospect will see.
It’s important to spend the necessary amount of time on your headline to make it as close to perfection as possible and by doing so you’ll find that your advertising will be a thrilling success!
For the next article: Stop Working IN Your Business, Start Working ON It!