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| Required reading |
What does that mean? Well, direct response, which agency types see as somehow 'dirty' (and they have some good reasons for this belief), aims at getting people to do something NOW: get up off the sofa, pick up the phone, give us a call (now it's visit our site or send us an email).
Most ads, unfortunately, try to be branding, which is agency talk for they didn't sell a thing but they look good. Ogilvy foresaw that advertising was getting expensive, consumers were jaded and there would not be enough ROI for those nice, pretty "we love the environment and we love our customers" ads.
If you have the courage to advertise, whether it's B2B or B2C, have the courage to ask for the sale.
So how does this relate to headlines? Very simple: anyone who has ever written a direct response ad knows that the headline is the single most important factor in an ad's success. As much as 70% of the response can be attributed to the head (in the same way that 70% of a cigar's flavor is in the wrapper... the filling, the bulk of the cigar plays a very minor role). Which is why it can take weeks to write a great 10 word headline, then two hours to write the rest of the ad.
So what makes a good headline? It's an art and a gut feeling. But there are a few 'rules' handed down from successful DR pros that you might consider.
1. Don't be too cute! How many B2B ads have you seen that work with a play on words? You know: "Columbus Widgets Can Help You Discover a New World of Savings." Mostly, these are terrible; although when a good one comes along, research shows that these play on words headlines are the MOST memorable of all. Just resit the tendency to be 'Don Draper' clever.
2. Questions work. The most successful cosmetics ad of the past decade asked a simple question: "Better Than Botox?" and women responded to the tune of half a billion USD. If you can ask a 'real' question, something your customers are asking themselves, you could be on to something.
3. FREE always works, always, always, always (but these days, not 'FREE with autoship program.' Nothing turns off customers faster... and nothing gets the government involved quicker than autoship... just ask 'Smiling Bob' and his people).
4. You've got to standout without screaming... make a point that your audience is worried about, curious about, struggling with and offer the promise of a solution or some information people don't already know.
Whatever you do, spend a lot more time on the headline and opening paragraph than you are used to spending. We all usually jump at the first cute headline that we think of (and if the headline seems cute, it probably is so forget it) or we listen to some engineer or 'scientist' whose solution is to "just say what it is."
C'mon who wants to listen to a lecture entitled "Ball Grid Arrays and Effective Soldering Techniques" when you can listen to one called...
"Solder Balls Aren't As Bad As You Think... They're Worse"?
