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1st Graders at the Zoo and Attention-Disordered Customers:
5 Grab 'Em and Keep 'Em Headline Strategies
 We all want it. Customers who lean forward when we start talking. Waiting for the next brilliant thing that comes out of our mouths. Or our keyboard.
I was at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast and a guy stood up to give his elevator speech.
"I'm John Larson, he said. "I'm a government fundraiser."
Seven words, that was all. But he had the attention of everyone in the room. Why? We were intrigued with his first sentence. That was his verbal headline. And it made us want to know more. Turns out he was an IRS agent. But he "had me at 'hello'," as they say.
What's So Special About the Headline?
The headline matters because, whether it's for a sales letter, an article, a blog post, your newsletter or a print ad, it serves one purpose. To entice your reader to read the rest of your content.
But let's face it. Your customers are like a group of first graders at the zoo. (I use this example because I know six-year-olds well. I taught them for 10 years.) They're distracted. Some of them might have to go to the bathroom. That lion in that cage over there is roaring and they can't hear what you are saying.
You probably know that, on average, 8 out of 10 people will read your headline and of those eight people, only two will go on to read the rest. In order to beat those depressing averages, you must work hard on your headline. Because the better your headline is, the more readers you keep.
5 Grab 'Em and Keep 'Em Headline Strategies
1. Be useful. Readers have so many choices and so little time. Why would they choose to read your stuff if it didn't make them smarter, better, more successful? They wouldn't. Make sure they see the benefit. Example: "Three Questions to Ask Your Clients to Get Remarkable Testimonials." 2. Be specific. Adding specifics to the headline in your sales copy produces 50 percent more conversions (in terms of generating leads) in print marketing and, in one study, more than 70 percent more conversions on the Web. Example: In one Marketing Experiments study, an e-mail generated 73 percent more leads by changing the headline from "Best Price Dental Care-Without Insurance" to "Dental Plans for $8.33 a month. Acceptance Guaranteed." Specifics matter to readers. 3. Offer a reward for reading. Do this by telling the reader what she will get for her trouble. Example: In a recent e-tip, my headline was: "30 Days to More Customers: the Tortoise Marketing Calendar." A five-minute read with a promise of more customers in 30 days. Proposing a reward in your headline can be effective. 4. Show a benefit for reading now rather than later. If there is a sense of urgency in your headline, your reader will want to continue reading to make sure they are not missing out on something. Example: "The Single E-mail Subject Line Mistake That Loses You the Most Sales." The reader might have been just ready to push "send" on her most recent e-mail campaign. Do you think she might want know what that mistake is? 5. Entertain, use humor, and stir up curiosity. Okay, I'm a fan of this one. What can you say that makes people curious, teases them, makes them have to find out what you're talking about? Example: In a recent article on finding your business niche, I used the headline: "Swedish Cowboys and Scuba-Diving Brides: 8 Reasons to Have a Niche." The question I wanted my readers to have is: What do Swedish cowboys and scuba-diving brides have to do with finding your niche?
But whatever you do, never promise something in your headline that you don't deliver. You'll fool your reader once, but you probably won't get her back again. As intriguing as the "Swedish Cowboys..." headline was, if I hadn't explained it in the article (an exaggerated example of a niche gone too far), my readers would have felt tricked.
Try one of these headline types next time you are stumped.
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