The reluctant writer's guide to creating headlines

by Tom Trush

The headline.

During the last century, countless advertising and marketing experts have crowed it king of the copy castle -- the most critical element in any promotional piece.

This status is well-deserved.

After all, the headline is your first opportunity to grab your prospect's attention. If you fail to attract eyeballs and communicate a reason to continue reading, then there's little use for the remaining copy because most people won't see it.

"On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money." -- David Ogilvy, world-famous advertising executive and best-selling author of "Ogilvy on Advertising."

The good news is you don't have to be a great wordsmith to write powerful headlines. You can simply alter ones that are already written to fit your needs.

Once you understand the inner workings of a powerful headline, you can replace the elements with your own information.

For example, let's look at this article's title (which serves the same purpose as a headline on an advertisement or marketing piece). There are at least three words you could change to target a completely different audience. In my opinion, the easiest terms to remove and replace are "Writer's," "Creating" and "Headlines."

If you want to target people who hate crunching numbers at tax time, why not use the headline The Reluctant Accountant's Guide to Filing Taxes?

If you want to target people who are hesitant about cooking their Thanksgiving turkey, you could try The Reluctant Cook's Guide to Roasting the Perfect Turkey.

Get the idea?

A great source for coming up with headlines is Digg (https://www.digg.com). A social news website for discovering and sharing content from the Internet, Digg allows its users to determine the value of information using votes (or "diggs").

When you visit the site, it won't take you long to notice a trend. Many posts with the most votes on Digg are numbered lists. Here are a few examples from this morning:

5 Ways Restaurants Provide You With Better Service
Top 5 Food Shortage Nightmares
15 Best Free Windows Mobile Apps

"How to" headlines are also common on Digg. If you study Ogilvy's ads, you'll see he frequently used "how to" headlines to tell potential clients about his agency's expertise ...

How to Create Corporate Advertising That Gets Results
How to Launch New Products
How to Make Your Sales Promotions More Profitable

The reason numbered lists and "how to" headlines are so effective is because they promise readers helpful information.

If you use these types of headlines, be prepared to provide valuable content in your body copy so you reward readers for investing their time. You'll be amazed at how fast you can build credibility and trust with them when you share your knowledge.

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