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!
