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American Stock Exchange.

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An Easy Way to Write Headlines

Most marketing folks are good writers because they're great communicators and think strategically. But writing an eye-catching headline can be tough for even a professional copywriter.

Here's one approach I use that moves the process along and keeps writer's block at bay.

Make 2 columns on a piece of paper. In Column 1, write you product's key benefit. In Column 2, write your offer, overall graphic concept, or some other point you want to communicate. Then write down every word that you can think of associated with each thought in the columns - and then match them up.

An example will make this clearer: I write every year for a big Data Center conference, which is held in Las Vegas. Attendees love the location and so it is always featured in some way in the graphics - we've used poker chips, slot machines, etc. Every year, though, it's a new challenge to keep the headlines new and fresh.

This year, it was the slot machine graphic. Not being much of a gambler, I Googled the word "slot machine" and read a few entries on the subject.

Immediately, the word "payoff" jumped out at me. Since one of the main benefits of the conference is that IT professionals will learn to get the most out of their data center investment by attending, it was easy to write the headline.

"Get the Highest Payback from Your 24/7 Data Center in 2006 With One Simple Move"

However, I didn't find a lot of other slot machine metaphors that worked - and I had a number of marketing efforts to write -- so I had to go back to the bigger concept of gambling. By matching gambling metaphors with the conference attributes, it was easy to come up with headlines, subheads and copy points for subsequent marketing touches, such as:

"With millions on the line, you can't afford to gamble on your data center's future."

"When You're Running Mission-Critical 24 x 7 Data Centers You Can't Leave Anything to Chance"

"Increase the odds of leading your data center in the right direction for 2006"

So, you see writing a good headline isn't brain surgery. And with your deadlines, who has time for that anyway?

No time to write your own headlines and copy? I can help you with this - so you can spend your time more productively on more strategic marketing initiatives. Read some of the testimonials from your colleagues who rely on me to make their strategies come alive.



Karen's ClickZ Columns on B2B Email Marketing