Writing a good headline for your advertisement

Summary:

There is no denying the fact that the success of an advertisement lies mostly in the headline. The headline should attract the reader and make him 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.

There is no denying the fact that the success of an advertisement lies mostly in the headline. The headline should attract the reader and make him 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. 

The headline should catch the attention of the eye at the first glance. Words in headlines should act as tags for the advertisement. It should say it 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 to be reached belong to a category that is 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 ‘Change how your house looks by our oriental furniture. Anything other than the prospects should not be included in the headline. If both men and women can use a product, both of them should be referred to in the title, missing out on even one of the categories is like losing a huge number of potential customers.  

The title should be 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 mentioning the company’s name, don’t start the sentence with it. For example, instead of writing ‘Tylenol – solution for sever cold ’, write ‘Got sever 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 customers look 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. 

If inculcating all these factors has made the headline long, it should be remembered to write the product advantages in bold. If a visual is placed in the advertisement, it will be a good complement. As a picture speaks 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. 

 

Too much cleverness should not be applied to design 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. Over smart headlines are good for award competitions, but don’t work with savvy customers. 

The headline should give out a positive feeling to the reader. Negativity should be excluded as it not only creates a negative impression but the mind will also be not receptive friendly. It sometimes confuses the mind and 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 the present tense, instead of past or future.