There’s a common sense process to selling, with a headline being the first and most important stept.
If you think about what draws you into a value proposition it always begins with a clear statement of value. This is what’s called the headline.
- The headline draws your reader into the next line (subhead).
- The subhead connects them to the first paragraph (copy).
- The first paragraph engages them with your offer.
- Your offer (if it contains value) results in a sale.
The following quote was taken from an article at MarketingExperiments.com
Three Qualities of Winning Headlines
There are numerous techniques and tips for headlines, yet there is still no “silver bullet” formula for writing a winner every time. Today’s winning headline can easily become tomorrow’s loser. That’s why it’s so important to test and use a wide range of styles to discover what works in certain instances, and what doesn’t work in others.
While we don’t advocate one specific headline method or a rigid set of best practices, our research suggests that there are three qualities that tend to increase the performance of headlines:
- Clarity
- Relevance
- Credibility
Consider the aforementioned objective (connecting with the reader) and think of some headlines that have prompted you to act and read more. Chances are, those headlines succeeded in applying these three qualities.
Remove one of the qualities and watch the power of the headline diminish.
Great content sells! More so, great headlines sell the content. It’s not really a chicken-or-the-egg scenario. Almost always, headlines are going to sell your content before the content can do it’s job.
There are a few different places where well crafted headlines are important.
1. News/Blog articles - You’ve got to entice your readers to dig into the body of the post. Also, if a visitor lands on the permalink page of a blog article that was indexed by the search engine, and then they look over to the sidebar and see an list of recent articles with engaging headlines, they are much more likely to dig deeper into your site. This results in a lower bounce rate and an all around stickier site.
2. Ad Copy - Most internet advertisers don’t create engaging headlines for their PPC ads. They usually create some boring derivation of what everyone else is doing. Successful PPC advertisers take time to think about the mindset of their target customer, create strong calls to action, and craft a headline that differentiates them from the competition.
3. Landing Pages - You have mere moments to create action on the part of the visitor. Sure, you need to be credible and get out of your own way in the closing process but all that is moot if you don’t immediately capture their interest and send it down the path to a successful close of some sort.
I encourage to spend some time reading this article at Marketing Experiments. These guys know their stuff and you can learn a ton just by digging into their case studies.
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