Tips on Writing Great Headlines in Advertising

Nobody can now dispute the fact that the success of advertisements lies mostly in writing great headlines. Ideally, the headline should grab the reader by the collar and make him want to read the rest of the advertisement. The headline should be simply catchy and various key points should be embedded when deciding on the headline for the ad.

Grab Attention Straight Away

The headline should catch your attention at first glance. Words in headlines should act as tags for the advertisement. It should say all about the content that follows.

• If a company is selling reasonably priced furniture, the headline of their advertisement should be “Durable Furniture for Less Price.” This headline will attract the right customers who are on the lookout for durable furniture as well as low-cost furniture.
• If the customers you want to reach belong to a category that are interested in decorating their house with beautiful furniture and aren’t concerned about the price to get the right look, then the headline can be something like this: “Change How Your House Looks by Our Oriental Furniture”.

Anything other than the prospects should not be included when writing great headlines. If both men and women can use a product, both of them should be referred to in the title, missing out even one of the category is like losing a huge number of potential customers.

Sell the Product

The title should be an instant product seller. According to research, five times more readers read just the headline when compared to those who read the complete advertisement. So the investment is of no use if the title isn’t good enough to sell the product. There can be a possibility that the content of the ad isn’t strong enough. All the harm can be undone by having a powerful headline.

The headline should be centered on the product and not the company that is selling the product. The customer’s interest should be reflected and he should feel that he is directly addressed. Start with “you” and not “we”. So if the client specified is mentioning the company’s name, don’t start the sentence with it. For example, instead of writing “Tylenol - Solution for a Severe Cold”, write “Got a Severe Cold? Try Tylenol”. Never forget to mention the name of the product in the headline. The product name should be of top priority.

A snapshot of the benefits of the product should be given in the headline. This is an important quality of a well-phrased headline. The customer looks out for advantages when he thinks of buying a product. Keywords like whiter teeth, nutritious cereals, or miraculous growth should be incorporated in the title.

Complement with Visuals

If including all these factors have made the headline long, remember to write the product advantages in bold. If a visual is placed in the advertisement, it will be a good complement as a picture can speak a thousand words. But care should be taken that the headline should say some part of the story and the visual should say the rest. Don’t repeat the headline or the picture.

No False Promises

Don’t be overly “clever” in designing a headline. There are nearly five hundred advertisements in a local newspaper on weekends. A regular reader reads the headings of all of them. He will be able to classify between a false heading and a genuine heading. No false promises or information should be included in the headline. Excessively smart headlines are good for award competitions but don’t really work with the savvy customers.

Be Positive

The headline should give out a positive feeling to the reader. Negativity should be totally excluded as it not only creates a negative impression but the mind will also be not receptive friendly. It sometimes confuses the mind and it interprets a negative meaning of the message being delivered. Confidence should be reflected in the headline. Don’t include any doubtful words like “if” and “but”. Conditional phrases are a strict no. The sentence should be in present tense, instead of past or future.

John Montana has been a successful salesman since 1990. He currently lives with his wife and travels between Chicago and Los Angeles. He created his site - ABMSNOW to offer free tips and ideas on how to become better with promotional strategies … no matter what your product is.