People scan things quickly. They come into contact with so many advertisements each day that they can’t possibly read each one. This is why you have to make sure that your advertisement actually grabs and keeps their attention.
You do that with an effective headline.
The greatest advertising man in history, David Ogilvy, said “On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
The question you need to ask is “Who are your trying to attract? What would get their attention?”
Yesterday, I received an email newsletter from a recruitment firm with the headline “Would You Hire Obama?” As a CEO who is interested in recruiting new talent, this caught my attention. It drove me to their website and I read the entire article, learning about their unique process. As a result, I requested a sales call for next week.
All that came from an effective headline.
I have written sales letters that have gotten tremendous response mainly due to powerful headlines.
In one case I helped a company sign more than $1 million in contracts with a single letter.
In another, I obtained one sales appointment for every 200 letters – and this for a service that started at $10,000!
In still another case, I created a flier that was sent to a very restricted, high-end list of 134 names which resulted in nine sales appointments with the first mailing!
Great headlines come in many forms.
Ogilvy once remarked that he would write an advertisement in three hours and then take three weeks to come up with the headline.
Some headlines are newsworthy, such as in the release of a new service or product. Others have a very strong benefit. Most are specific, as opposed to general, in their facts. Others use a negative angle (such as “reducing costs” as opposed to “increasing profits”).
Jay Abraham, an online marketer and consultant, compiled a list of the 100 best headlines ever written.
3. Make Them An Offer They Can’t Refuse!