Simple principles, when followed, will captivate potential clients and compel them to pay attention.
Due to the nature of my work, a lot of businesses come across my desk, some have great advertising, some not so great. Around 90% of them fall short in, arguably, the most critical part of their advertising - attracting attention.
Luckily for them (and me!) this is usually the easiest thing to fix.
In the next three minutes I’m going to tell you what the single most common issue with the majority of advertising is, why it might be holding your business back, and exactly how you can avoid making the same mistake as many before you.
Have you ever come across a video, some text, or any piece of content which grasps your attention immediately? Right from the very first sentence?
This is typically because of the content’s “headline”.
The headline serves as “the” way of getting attention, and it's not exclusive to just advertising material… It’s a crucial part of any website, any letter, or even any conversation!
The first couple sentences out of your mouth in a phone call, is the headline of your conversation.
You walk into a job interview. Whatever you are wearing, is a headline… Whatever you say at the beginning, is a headline.
The start of a video… Is called a hook, but it follows the same principle.
Imagine someone walking into a job interview with a dirty white shirt instead of a decent dress shirt. They are probably already done - maybe they are the most amazing candidate… but it doesn't really matter, does it?
In the world of marketing, it’s the exact same… Got the world’s greatest Ad, which if seen will instantly convince whoever sees it to give you all their money, all their partner’s money, their car, and their pet iguanas pocket money… But give it a terrible headline?
It won't perform.
Why?
Because people won’t see it.
They will move on before you can sell them anything, all it takes is a swipe of a finger or a press of a button.
No one is forcing them to consume your content…. In fact - everyone and everything is working to outcompete you for their attention, you need to give them a solid reason to grant you their attention.
Equally, if you have an aggressively mediocre ad… But give it the world's greatest headline?
It will perform like the terminator after injecting 1000 cc's of pure testosterone.
Ok… so we need some killer headlines, how do we do it?
Maybe go study Shakespeare for 4 years, then come back to this business stuff?
Thankfully, No.
A headline doesn’t need to be fancy, complicated, or soooooooo amazing that 5% of people who come across it suffer a minor seizure inflicted from pure amazement.
Just put yourself in the shoes of a potential customer and answer the following:
Write that down.
It's important to ensure that your headlines resonate with the specific needs or interests of your audience. They should clearly communicate a benefit or a compelling reason to pay attention.
After I come up with a headline, I use a conceptual test in order to assess whether it's good or not. It’s super simple, and you can use it too.
Before I tell you what it is, I will caveat the following with - obviously there are exceptions (there always are) but for most cases, this is a rock solid litmus test.
Imagine you took your headline, advertised only that, and put a response mechanism below it (maybe a phone number, maybe an email address, maybe a click here)…
Would someone be triggered into taking action?
Would anyone respond?
Would people pick up the phone and call?
If yes - this is an indication that you have a great headline.
If no - you should ask yourself why, and come up with a new one.
Whenever evaluating weaknesses and opportunities for your business, headlines are often the easiest things to improve, it’s low hanging fruit, it’s an easy win… and who doesn’t like easy wins!
It’s one of those things that are definitely worth changing and observing the results, as it moves the needle in a lot of cases.
