As the famous marketer David Ogilvy once said, “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.” This means that if you want to sell your product or service, you must first sell your headline. In this post, we’ll discuss the step-by-step process of writing a headline that sells.
Step 1: Identify Your Target Audience
Before you begin writing your headline, it’s important to know who your target audience is. Who are you trying to sell to? What are their pain points, desires, and needs? Knowing your audience will help you craft a headline that resonates with them and grabs their attention.
Dan Kennedy, author of the “NO BS Guide to Marketing to the Affluent,” emphasizes the importance of understanding your target audience’s “psychographics,” or their beliefs, values, and attitudes. By understanding your target audience’s psychographics, you can tailor your headline to their specific mindset and capture their attention.
Step 2: Highlight the Benefits
Next, your headline should clearly communicate the benefits of your product or service. What problem does it solve? What’s in it for the customer? Expert marketers often advise using a “benefit headline” that focuses on the positive outcomes of using your product or service.
For example, instead of writing “Buy Our Fitness Program,” you could write “Lose Weight and Feel Great with Our Proven Fitness Program.” This headline clearly communicates the benefit of the program and entices the reader to learn more.
Step 3: Create Urgency
Another important element of a successful headline is creating a sense of urgency. Drew Whitman, author of “Cashvertising,” explains that urgency can be created by emphasizing time-limited offers or scarce resources. Limited time or resources can encourage the reader to act quickly, which can lead to more sales.
For example, a headline like “Limited Time Offer: 50% Off Our Best-Selling Product” creates a sense of urgency and encourages the reader to take advantage of the offer before it’s too late.
Step 4: Use Power Words
Power words are words that evoke emotion and grab the reader’s attention. Specific power words like “new,” “free,” “proven,” and “secret” in your headline. These words can make your headline stand out and entice the reader to keep reading.
It is important to note that power words in your headline should be used sparingly and only when they add value to the message. Overusing power words can make your headline sound overly hype-filled and turn off potential customers.
Step 5: Test and Refine
Finally, it’s important to test your headline and refine it based on the results. A/B testing, where you test two different headlines against each other, can help you determine which headline is more effective. You can also use analytics tools to track the open rates and click-through rates of your email headlines.
Every headline is essentially a test. By continuously testing and refining your headlines, you can improve your marketing campaigns and increase your sales.
Conclusion
In conclusion, writing a headline that sells requires a deep understanding of your target audience, a focus on the benefits of your product or service, a sense of urgency, power words, and testing and refinement. If you want headlines that grab attention, communicate benefits, and drive sales – you have to put the work in. Slow and steady wins the race.
