The headline is “the ad for the ad”. If you fail to attract your ideal prospect’s attention with your headline, what’s in the rest of the ad doesn’t matter because they won’t read it.
One of the biggest profit killers I see in the hundreds of print and Yellow Page ad designs I review each year at my advertising and marketing agency is using the wrong headline or having no headline. Prospects review ad headlines just like they do when they are reading a newspaper. The average metropolitan newspaper would take 17 hours to read, but newspaper readers only spend an average of 20 minutes reading the paper. So people are conditioned to scan the headlines and subheads for benefits and things that are of interest to them. Then they go back and read what is under the headlines of interest.
The most common, costly headline error is using your business name as the headline. This is a response killing marketing strategy. The problem with this is rarely does the business name offer any obvious benefit to the prospect. Let’s say your business name is “Johnson Dental” and you use that as your headline. Now you have wasted the most valuable space in your entire ad, the headline space. Do you think a headline like, “You’ll Get Compliments and Confidence from Your Dazzling New Smile!” would outperform, “Johnson Dental”? Well, I can tell you from 32 years experience in marketing and advertising creating highly profitable print and Yellow Page ad designs that the headline with the benefits your ideal prospect seeks will dramatically outperform the business name headline.
On headlines, the best marketing strategy is to first isolate who the ideal target prospect is. Once I have identified your ideal target prospect, work on isolating the top 2-3 benefits that prospect values and eagerly seeks. Then write 20-30 headlines that encompass those benefits. Once you’ve written as many headline possibilities as you can, narrow it down to the best 4-6 headlines. It is at this point when I am designing an ad for a client that I send them to my print or Yellow Page ad design client so that they can pick the headline that best fits their practice or business.
Another mistake I see in headlines is trying to be cute or funny. 96% of the time this is done incorrectly. Unless you are a professional copywriter, I would stick with a clear message of benefit to the prospect in your headline.
You can use proven headline templates of successful headlines to write winning headlines fro your business. All you have to do is replace the benefits for the original ad with the benefits your ideal prospect seeks, and you can have an effective headline.
I have a file with over 300 proven successful headlines that I can refer to when I am having difficulty designing a headline. It is a great idea to accumulate and keep a file of great direct response marketing and advertising to give you ideas when you are writing your ad headlines.
Great headlines can be in the form of a statement or a question. My mentor, Dan Kennedy whom I have studied under since 2001, likes to use a provocative question because it involves the prospect and makes them want to learn more by reading the entire ad. I think a good question headline can trigger more prospect involvement and interest which is always good.
Practice writing benefit laden and provocative question headlines for your practice or business, and you will learn to create highly profitable print and Yellow Page ad designs. Once you master headlines, you will immediately increase your ROI on all your advertising because you will be interesting more of your ideal target prospects to read your print or Yellow Page ad design.
Tags: advertising, Larry Conn, marketing, marketing agency, marketing strategy, small business marketing, Yellow Page ad design