Headlines Stopping Them In Their Tracks

Your Headline Needs to Convince
Your Reader to Keep Reading

Just like your Lead Generating offers, your headlines have one job. It does not need to close sales, or win copywriting awards, it just needs to grab and hold your reader’s attention long enough to keep them reading. Studies have shown that around 80% read headlines when they are looking through the newspaper, but only about 20% read the ad or article.

Your headline is the only tool you must get the rest of your copy read, so you will need to focus most of your copywriting efforts on catching and holding your readers’ attention. The rest of your copy only matters if you can get them to read it!

When I Coach on this, I usually cover:

The role of strong headlines in all your Marketing materials
Headlines as emotional motivators
How to create strong headlines for your audience
Examples of strong headlines
Headline templates
Testing and measuring headlines

Headlines should not be limited to advertising alone — they are essential elements of Sales Letters, Direct Mail Cards, Websites, Emails, Posts, Videos, Newsletters, and Brochures.

Headlines are used to grab and hold the reader’s attention in ALL Marketing materials — not just advertisements in newspapers. Most readers take only a few seconds to decide if they want to spend any time reading what you have to say. Just like you, your audience is bombarded by information every minute of the day, so if you have not convinced them to care in a few seconds or less, they have already moved on.

Your sub-headline is almost as important because it is your second chance to tell the reader why they should care and keep their attention. It also creates a transition between your headline and the body of your letter or advertisement and acts as a teaser (and most of the time, your bold promise with an answer or solution).

Every headline should:

Grab the reader’s attention, be something the reader cares about, offer your reader something, trigger emotional reactions, incite curiosity

Headlines need to trigger an emotional response and motivate your reader to keep reading.

Put yourself in the mindset of your audience, people are pressed for time, your headline combined with your subheadline has to solve their problem, make their life easier, or give them information that they know they need. Otherwise, they have already turned the page.

In our fast-paced society, nearly everyone has become a skimmer instead of a reader. Strong, well-written headlines are the only way you can lure a browser into reading your message — so use them on every piece of Marketing material you have.

PS: When you work on creating brochures, newsletters, direct mail pieces, sales letters, and sales scripts, they all need strong headlines and also subheadlines to get noticed, and have them check the whole entire content.