How to Write a Winning Headline for All of Your Advertising

Before I begin, I would like to make you aware of all the time, energy and money that has been spent on researching headlines over the past few decades or so.

Advertising agencies, mail order houses, department stores, and many others have all researched and found that the following five ingredients are proven to exist when putting together a great headline.

The five ingredients in order of importance are:

1. Benefits your product or service offers.
2. A favorable mention of your product or service.
3. The use of news.
4. Mentioning the prospect.
5. Curiosity appeal.

Without a doubt, mentioning the benefits of your product will (in most cases) grab the attention of a prospect interested in what you're offering.

Mostly, because people don't really buy products or services- they want the benefits, or the result.

Think about it for a second. If your headline says "Grand Opening," what you're hoping people will say to themselves is: Grand opening = savings.

If you're trying to say this to your prospect, why not just tell them up front. "You can Save Hundreds of Dollars at Our Grand Opening Spectacular."

Isn't that the benefit the consumer is looking for in the first place?

Don't make it so difficult for your prospects. Tell them right out front how they will benefit by visiting you or you visiting them.

Another example. Which will get your attention faster?
"For Sale- Natural Mink Coats."
Or, "You Can Keep Warm and Snug this Winter With a Natural Mink Coat. Get Yours today at our Special Sale"

Whether you're anti-fur or not, the second headline should grab your attention faster and more effectively because it shows you a benefit. If you think about it, isn't that why we buy coats in the first place- to keep warm.

You can basically say the same about mentioning your product or service favorably in the headline. Have you ever opened a menu at a restaurant and found a few adjectives added to each listing in order to help you understand and lead you to order more easily.

For example: One menu may say- "Strawberry short cake...$4.95"
Yet, another menu may say, "Sweet, sun ripened strawberries on old fashioned delicious biscuit shortcake."

Which of the two would water your mouth more? Your headlines should give the same result to its readers.

Look at some of the headlines I saw in the paper this past week. Let's see how we can fix them:

"We Want Your Advertising Business"
Better:
"Increase your advertising response with our special 65,000 circulation newspaper. The largest in Orange County that gets your product or service in front of twice as many potential customers."

How about this one I saw in a major magazine. The full page ad must have cost about $15,000.
"Our Growth Funds. Our Best Performers"
Better:
"Your funds would've grown by 20% had you invested in one Our 17 Growth Funds"

Are you getting the picture yet? This leads me to the subject of using news in your headline.

Wouldn't you read these headlines?
"New Window Treatment Saves Home Owners over $541 in Annual Heating Bills"
"New Home Buyer Program Makes it Easier for You to Purchase Your Own Home"
"New, Thicker, Spicier Sauce Makes a Tastier Pizza- Try it For Yourself."

Are you getting the picture here. Do I need to continue? I think not.
Lets go on to Mentioning the Prospect.

I don't know if you've noticed, but I like using the word you, your, you've or anything that mentions the prospect in my headlines.

Although it's number four in this list, it's one of my favorites because it gives me very profitable results.

John Caples, analyzed the number of times certain "power" words appear in the top 100 Greatest headlines featured in Victor Schwabs' "How to Write a Good Advertisement"

This is the breakdown:

The word you was used 31 times; your was used 14 times; how, 12; new, 10; who, 8; money, 6; now 4 times.

If you total it, 'you,' and 'your,' was used 45 times altogether in 100 powerful, results oriented headlines.

If this isn't proof, I don't know what is.

Why does it work so well? I don't know. If I had to guess, I'd say that people want to be addressed and acknowledged.

If you think about it- when you write advertising, how many people are reading it at one time?

Isn't it just one person at a time? Even if one hundred people are reading a billboard- it's just one individual reading it at any single moment.

By addressing that individual and no one else, you make it personal.

The last ingredient you can use in headlines to make them ultra profitable for you is the curiosity appeal.

I'm not too crazy about this one, mainly because it's too unreliable. Although it's been proven to increase responses, it leaves too much to chance.

Nevertheless, I will show you the most profitable way to use this ingredient in headlines.

First, what do I mean by curiosity appeal? Simple...let's examine this headline:

"Don't Make Another Mortgage Payment Until You Read This..."
This headline pulled like crazy for a mortgage broker client.

To answer the question, a curiosity headline is a headline that will not tell the prospect anything about your product or service.

It instead draws your prospect to notice your headline and pull them into reading the rest of your ad.

This sounds good in theory, but it could backfire on you if you don't have a good body copy to follow up.

Here's an example of a terrible curiosity headline. I've actually seen this in newspapers.
"SEX" That's it! Nothing else! Is this pathetic, or what? Unless you're selling adult material, or services, you should not use this as a curiosity headline.

The reason may not be obvious, so let me get you in on a little secret...The word "SEX" or "Money," or whatever else you want to use as a curiosity headline, may grab the prospects attention. However, once they read your ad- they will be disappointed and probably a bit upset as well. Why? Because the headline has nothing to do with what you promised.

To the prospect, you promised to tell them more about sex, or money or whatever cute little word you used to lure them to your ad.

This is a big no-no. You don't want to upset your reader. What you want to do is reward them for reading your headline by educating them in the body copy-or compensating them with savings, profit making ideas, or life enhancing tips.

Just keep this in mind. You can use one or all of these ingredients.

The more ingredients you use properly, the more powerful your headline.

Whenever Writing Ads in The Future, Keep This Poem In Mind...

A Buyer's Request

I see you spent quite a wad of dough,
To tell me things you want me to know.

How your plant is so big and strong,
How your founder has a beard so long.

So he started the business in "old 92"
How tremendously interesting that is...for YOU.

And he gave this thing the blood of his life,
I'll run home like mad and tell my wife.

Your plant is so modern, and oh, so complete,
Your machinery is flawless, your work so neat.

Your motto is Quality with a capitol "Q",
No wonder, my friend, I get tired of you.

But tell me quick and tell me true,
Or else, my friend, to heck with you -

LESS of how this product came to be,
and MORE of what the darn thing does...
for ME.

Anonymous