The Headline
The headline is arguably the most important line of copy on your landing page. The headline is what grabs the visitors attention and makes them want to read the rest of your page. According to David Ogilvy on average 5 times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. John Caples said in a print ad, 75% of the buying decisions are made at the headline alone. The percentage is lower for web copy, but it still illustrated how important the headline is.
The headline must show a benefit to your target audience, which can take many forms. You should aim to answer the unspoken question in the minds of your visitors - 'why should I do this?'. Traditionally, copywriters are taught there are 2 basic approaches to answering the 'why should I do this' question stemming from one of two basic human needs: - 1) to avoid pain or 2) to gain pleasure. When we talked about injecting emotion to stir up fear or frustration, that would be an example of avoiding pain. Injecting emotion to get them thinking about what's possible is an example of gaining pleasure.
Here are some basic pleasure/pain example headlines:
Pleasure: Learn fun yoyo tricks in a weekend
Pain: Do people laugh when you try to do yoyo tricks?
Pleasure: Make your body look great
Pain: Are you embarrassed by your body?
Your headline doesn't need to be so literal with the pain vs pleasure concept. Take these car insurance headlines for example:
Save 50% on car insurance
Stop paying outrageous car insurance prices
You might not look at those as pleasure/pain ideas, but saving 50% on car insurance sounds pleasurable. While paying outrageous car insurance prices sounds like something painful you want to avoid. More importantly, we need to appeal to the visitors emotions like we discussed above. 'Save 50% on car insurance' sounds pleasurable I guess, but it doesn't motivate me enough to take action. Just because your headline offers a way to get pleasure/avoid pain, doesn't mean people will care.
Saving 50% on car insurance is more logical than it is emotional. If we combine this idea with emotional triggers, we can create a headline that is infinitely more effective. Examples:
Avoiding pain:
Isn't it frustrating you're paying so much for car insurance?
Are your car insurance bills so high you can't eat out?
Gaining Pleasure:
What would you do with the extra money if you saved over 50% on car insurance?
Can you imagine cutting your car insurance bill by 50%?
Note that we're discussing different concepts throughout this lesson but that doesn't mean you have to use one or the other. Some of these concepts can be combined, and certain ones are good for specific situations.