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
attention of the eye at the first look. 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 flowers, the headline of their
advertisement should be ‘ flowers for less price ’. This headline will attract
the right customers who are on a look out for flowers as well as low cost flowers.
If the customers to be reached belong to a category that are interested in
decorating their house with beautiful flowers 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 flowers ’. 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 even one of the category is like losing a huge number of potential
customers.
The title should be instant
product seller. According to a 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 attention
should be reflected and he should feel that he is directly addressed. Start
with ‘ you ’ and not ‘ we ’. So if the client specified on 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 have made the
headline long, it should be remembered to write the product advantages in bold.
If a image is placed in the advertisement, it will be a good complement. As a
picture speak thousand words. But care should be taken that the headline should
say some part of the story and the image should say the rest. Don't repeat the
headline or the picture.
Too much of 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
really work with the savvy customers.
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.
