What Makes a Great Headline?

This is a million dollar question.

First, how important is a headline? In his classic book, Breakthrough Advertising, the great Gene Schwartz writes,

“The headline is the bridge between your prospect and your product. It touches your prospect at the point of awareness that he has arrived today.

“If he is aware of your product, and realizes that it can satisfy his desire, your headline starts with your product.

“If he is not aware of your product, but only of the desire itself, your headline starts with the desire. Just as important, he writes,

“Your headline has only one job—to stop your prospect and compel him to read the second sentence of your ad.” 

Pure genius!

For me, some of my most successful headlines have applied these marketing secrets…PLUS, I’ve refined my own time-tested formula.

The best headlines seem to have all or most of these elements: NEWS… BENEFIT…CURIOSITY…and a TWIST. Take for example the prehead and headline I wrote for a new marine superfood promotion: Now, you can conquer 55 common health problems with…
The superfood that Americans rarely eat

The prehead focused on a key benefit/promise.

The first part of the headline focused on a growing awareness of the prime prospects about the healing power of superfoods.

And the prospects’ curiosity was piqued by the fact that this remarkable superfood is little-known in to Americans.

Of course the payoff inside is, 1,000 studies prove this age-erasing superfood is the missing link in the Americans diet.

The missing link is a little-known compound found almost exclusively in brown seaweed and consumed in large quantities by the longest living people on earth, the people of Okinawa, Japan.

Another example of a strong headline is one I wrote that focused on NEWS.

The prehead and headline read:

On July 20, 2012, a Good Morning America host predicted, 

  “Beet juice is going to very, very popular” 

…and she was right.

The copy went on to support this newsworthy quote with other quotes such as…
       “Many Olympians in London were juiced…with beet root juice”—New York Times 
       “A daily glass of beet juice can lower your blood pressure”—DailyMail.com 
       “Beet juice can increase blood flow to the brain in older adults”—Wake Forest University researchers  
       “Evidence suggests beet juice improves heart health”—Today’s Dietitian

The cover went on to tease about a delicious new Superfood, Super Beet drink that delivers up to 10 times the “beet power” than ordinary beets.

As you can see, using NEWS…BENEFIT…CURIOSITY…and a TWIST can help create some very intriguing, very unique headlines that get read and that keep the prospect reading!

Can You Pick the Winning Cover?

Testing is the lifeblood of any successful direct marketing campaign.

Why? Because it proves what works best, not based your opinions or those of your marketing team—but on the most important factor of them all: What buyers want.

In direct mail, one of the most important tests for any launch is a Front Cover Test. Ideally, you want to covers to take two completely different approaches.

Here are to sets of Front Cover Tests I recently conducted.

The first set is for a natural blood sugar balancing product, Gluco Harmony.
Here's Front Cover A:

Here’s Front Cover B: 

Which one do you think did better?

The second set is for a new natural sleep product, Vital Sleep.
Here’s Front Cover A: 

Here’s Front Cover B:

Which one do you think did better?

Results: In both cases, the B covers worked substantially better.

So when you test, make sure the variables are different enough to give you different and hopefully better results.

How to crank up your sales by making your promotions look more newsworthy

As I was flying back from one of my rare trips back East, I ran across an article in The Washington Post that really caught my attention.

Its headline: “Native ads” on Web can blur line between news and advertising.

It turns out that the newest wave in online marketing are “native ads” that mimic the look and feel of a website’s editorial content.

Take for example this screen shot from BuzzFeed.com, the politics-and-pop-culture site.

(Note how the headline and photo of the baby in the sink make this ad look like a regular article.)

Note the photo of the baby in a sink and the “ad” headlined: 14 People Making the Best of Situations. Looks like any of the other editorial articles, such as 19 of the Most Fashionable Kids You’ve Ever Seen.

But this article is actually ad by Volkswagen which ties to its marketing message, “Get in, Get happy.” The ad shows photos of people overcoming everyday obstacles. The only tipoff to its funding and intent is Volkswagen’s logo and a small notation under the headline, indentifying the car maker as a BuzzFeed “featured partner.”

This got me thinking…hmmmm, how can I make my promotions look more editorial and less like advertising?

For direct mail, can I make a magalog or slim jim cover look more like a magazine, a “white paper” or a special report than a sales piece? Can I make a letter look more like an actual letter than a sales pieces (remember the old courier type font)?

For online promotions, can I find websites than will be more creative in developing banner ads so they look more like “news”? Or how can I write landing pages that look like important, life-saving (or wealth-building) information than a sales piece?

How can you make your ads stand out of a crowd? Make them look like an article. “Native” ads like the one above generate far higher viewing rates and engagement than banner ads, but a premium price.