There is no denying the fact that the success of an advertisement

The headline should catch attention of the eye at the first glance that sends a signal to the brain so that the reader immediately thinks, “Yeah this is important to me”. Words in headlines should act as tags for the advertisement. It should lead into the content that follows. If a company is selling furniture, the headline of their advertisement should be something like this ‘Want A New Look In Your Home? Learn Why Our Furniture Last Longer and is Better Built, and Will Actually Save You Money Over Discount Furniture Stores’. This headline will attract the right customers who are on a look out for durable furniture as well as low cost furniture. If the customers to be reached belong to a category that are 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 ‘What You Need To Know About Buying Oriental Furniture Before Making Costly Mistakes Most People Make’. This alerts the potential buyer to a problem they didn’t know exists. Thus will make them read on.

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 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/service 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 on mentioning the company’s name, don’t start the sentence with it. For example, instead of writing ‘Tylenol – solution for severe cold ’, write ‘Got a severe cold? Try Tylenol’. When branding a product never forget to mention the name of the product in the headline. The product name should be of top priority. Always give a snapshot of the benefits of the product; this should be given in the headline. Touch hot buttons! Think like your prospect, what is it that they like or dislike about shopping or searching for your type of product or service? This is an important quality of a well-phrased headline. The customers look out for advantages when he or she thinks of buying a product. Keywords like whiter teeth, nutritious cereals, or miraculous growth should be incorporated in the title. Also remember that nobody likes to lose money! So mention the fact that you will show them how not to get ripped off or how to save using your product.

If putting together all these factors have 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 speak 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 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 or she will be able to classify between a false heading and a genuine heading. No false promises or information should be included in the headline. Overly 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. The simple equation in your marketing is this:
Interrupt your prospect out of his/hers inactive state of mind with an issue important as well as relevant to him/her. Find the hot button for your industry! Headlines need not only interrupt but need to engage!

I have found that this is easily done when you factor in educating the prospect! Need more information? Contact Paul Conant at http://www.gizoom.com/ or call 203-808-1986. Paul owns a Consulting and Marketing firm called GiZoom that helps small to medium businesses with online and offline marketing strategies as well as business consulting on ROI and overall business issues.