For every 10 people that visit your landing page, at least seven of them will bounce off the page. To keep that number low, your visitors need to know (and understand) what’s in it for them within seconds of arriving.
Your headline is the first thing they’ll read, and it should clearly and concisely communicate the value of your landing page and offer.
Always use a benefit headline, never a teaser headline.
Meh example:
“New Webinar Helps Managers Improve Productivity”
A better example:
“Get All Your Work Done in Half the Time, Be the Office Hero, and Go Home Early.”
Pile on the perks.
If an article, for instance, about customer service mentions an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas, then tout that in your headline: “Win a Trip for Two to Las Vegas.”
You can also use subheads to help readers zero in why they should stick with your article or release, such as “Drive in profits” or “Collect a bonus.” Readers love benefits, because they focus on their favorite topic: themselves. So don’t be afraid to keep layering on the benefits.
“If you want mothers to read … display ‘Mothers’ in your headline,” advised advertising guru David Ogilvy.
Call out to readers, especially if you’re writing to a subset to your audience. For instance, if you article is about medical care, you may want to target “nurses” or “doctors” in your headline.
Layering on all of those benefits takes space. This means you may need more words for benefits headlines.
Benefits headlines of 10 words or longer sell more products than short headlines, wrote Ogilvy, citing research from the New York University School of Retailing.
In fact, the best headline Ogilvy said he ever wrote came in at a whopping 17 words long: “At 60 Miles an Hour, the Loudest Noise in the New Rolls-Royce Comes From the Electric Clock”
Book: Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
Quantify and specify benefits. They’ll be more interesting and believable. Plus, you’ll differentiate your message from all your competitors.
How specific? Well, “59 seconds” is more specific than the phrase “in seconds,” counsels marketing expert Dan Kennedy.
Numerals in headlines sell, because they quantity the value of the information, however, odd numbers are more effective than even numbers according to Folio:.So “5 ways” is better than “10 tips.”
Remember to write a one sentence summary under the headline.
Because benefits headlines don’t summarize the key story elements, you’ll need to get more specific in the deck so that your reader feels inspired to read on.
