Let’s say you develop a product that helps people advance their careers and you want to write a sales letter, or blog post, landing page, or adwords ad. You know you need a catch headline, but you aren’t sure where to start.
You might want to try something like “Get Promoted!” It’s short, and catchy. But when you test it, it doesn’t bring you the riches you seek. Here’s why: every day people are getting bombarded with ads that tell them to “lower, get, buy, do, raise, etc…”. This is just another one of those headlines that people filter out.
Then you try something different: “How to get promoted!” and low and behold, you start to get some visitors to your website. This works because you are offering a tangible benefit to people who aren’t happy with their current position. People are going to read this and think “yeah, I want to know how to get promoted.”
But, being the ambitious marketer you are, you want more sales. So you look at your product and realize that the people who would most benefit from this are those without a college education. So, you try out this headline: “How to get promoted – even if you don’t have a college degree”. This works better than “How to get promoted” because you are making a tangible promise to a select group of people. You may alienate the college educated, but you will establish a much deeper connection to those individuals who aren’t college educated.
But now, you want to add some emotion: so you try “How to land your dream job – even if you don’t have a college degree”. The words “dream job” inspire the readers imagination much more than the word “promotion”. Emotion is the difference between a good headline, and a million dollar headline.
Finally, you are going to take a walk on the wild side and use the ultra creative: “They all laughed when I went to the boss… but when I landed my dream job”. You want more emotion from your readers. You want your readers to feel empowered. There are few greater feelings in the world than proving your critics wrong. And you, as a cunning marketer want to play to that feeling.
And that is how you write a great headline.
As always, I’d love to know your thoughts.
