5 ways to draw people in
Which of these headlines is most likely to spur you to sign up for a webinar?
New webinar helps managers improve productivity
Or:
Get all your work done in half the time, be the office hero, and go home early
Benefit heads like the second are so effective that my guideline is: If a benefit headline is an option, use it.
Whether you’re writing a piece of content, sales letter or social media post you’ll make your headlines stand out with a great headline. Benefit headlines can increase conversion rates and cause people to read the article. To write a good headline, seduce your readers by showing how your product, service or idea will make their life better.
Here are 13 tips for writing an effective headline for your target audience:
1. Focus on the benefits.
I once worked with a client on an article about customer service. The head:
Be A Customer Champion. Be Elite
250 words in, the article mentioned that winners would get an all-expenses-paid trip to Vegas.
Giving away a trip to Vegas, a drone or a Prius? Mention that in your headline:
Win a trip for two to Las Vegas
ABC customer service program to honor XYZ
2. Call out to targeted readers.
“If you want mothers to read … display ‘Mothers’ in your headline,” advised advertising guru David Ogilvy.
Call out to readers, especially if you’re writing to a subset of your audience. Write headlines that start with IT managers, maybe, or Nurses.
Case managers: There’s an app for that!
Injured workers can now get claims updates on their phones
3. Pile on the benefits.
Recreational Products Insurance published a brochure for agents with this head and deck:
Rev Up Your Sales
Launch more business with more products
Subheads continued to ladle on the benefits:
Crank up volume
Drive in profits
Collect a bonus
Readers love benefits, because they focus on readers’ favorite topic: themselves. So don’t be afraid to keep layering on the benefits.
4. Make them longer.
Layering on all of those benefits takes space. Which means you may need more words for benefits heads.
Benefits headlines of 10 words or longer sell more products than short headlines, wrote Ogilvy, citing research from the New York University School of Retailing.
The best head Ogilvy ever wrote, he said, was 17 words long:
At Sixty Miles an Hour, the Loudest Noise in the New Rolls-Royce Comes From the Electric Clock
5. Don’t drop the deck.
Finally, don’t drop the deck, that one sentence summary under the headline. Benefit headlines don’t summarize the key story elements, so you’ll need to do that in the deck.
So make it:
Get all your work done in half the time, be the office hero, and go home early
Learn to save 8 hours a week with XYZ company’s latest webinar
How can you reach non-readers with words?
“Readers” don’t read. Even highly educated web visitors read fewer than 20% of the words on a page.
So how do you reach “readers” who won’t read your paragraphs?
Learn how to reach people who spend only two minutes — or even just 10 seconds — with your message at Catch Your Readers, our persuasive-writing workshop, starting May 16.
There, you’ll learn how to put your key messages where your readers’ eyes are. You’ll discover how deliver your key ideas to people who don’t read the paragraphs. And you’ll find out how to draw even reluctant audience members into your message.
Save up to $100 with our group discounts.
