In fact, a good number of the people who see your ad will ONLY read the headline. (Okay, that number is 70%.)  So if the majority of people who see your ad will indeed bother to look at the headline, doesn’t it make sense that you should spend the majority of your time and creative effort on crafting a killer headline?

Yet many headlines are absolute marketing disasters. It is not unusual for a marketing group to spend more of their time fussing over body copy than the headline.

Here is my list of the main ways to mess up a headline.

1. THE CREATIVE TEAM HAS THE WRONG SELF-IMAGE. Many creative people, including writers, believe that there job is to be clever, witty, droll, and amusing. These are nice traits in guests at a cocktail party, but this kind of self-image will ruin an ad. If your creative folks think that their job is to be clever, then they will try to infuse the headline with puns, plays on words, double-entendres, jokes, or things that are amusing. As much as you might want to show off your gargantuan intellect, refrain. In fact, when writing an ad, being too smart is a liability. The purpose of an ad is to persuade (usually it is to persuade a person to buy a product, but it may also be to persuade a person to learn more about your product or brand).  Being clever just confuses the reader and muddies the waters. In fact, you’ve gone from trying to persuade the reader to buy (or do) something into trying to convince the reader you’re the next Dorothy Parker.

2. A NON-WRITER IS IN CHARGE OF THE AD. Most non-professional writers fall in love with what they write and refuse to adjust or modify it, much less throw it out and go for something new. If you let a product manager write an ad, he will insist you use the first headline you ever thought of.

3. A CREATIVE GROUP FAR DISTANT FROM THE SALES WORLD CRAFTS THE ADS. These guys might actually get into writing a clear, hard-hitting headline but if they don’t know what’s happening on the sales front, they may be hitting the wrong target. If everybody in your market is concerned about side effects, writing a great headline about rapid onset of action just isn’t going to wow any readers.

So how do you write a great headline? It’s not easy. That’s the first thing you should know. In fact, you should make a little note and paste it on your computer, your wall, your desk, and the dashboard of your car as you think about the next headline you have to write. It isn’t easy. If it comes to you easily, it’s probably not good.

Here are the things you have to bear in mind:

1. A great headline grabs the interest of your reader and makes him or her want to read more.  Contrary to popular belief, a witticism or obscure reference will not induce that feeling. Instead, you have to say something that they care about and you have to say it very clearly. The reason most creative people struggle with this concept is that most really awesome headlines are very simple statements. They’re basic. They’re not clever or witty. They’re just statements.

2. Your headline cannot be a bait-and-switch deal. I have often said that if your main goal was to get people to read on, you could say, “Naked People” and you’d hook the average reader. But you have to sustain the promise made in the headline by following up with information that aligned precisely with that headline and also kept up the same energy level and wit.

3. It’s great if you can infuse emotion into the headline. This is not the same thing as being clever. Emotion is like music: it is highly suggestive and can propel people into behaviors that they might not normally have.  Emotion does not have to be histrionic. “Introducing the First Talking Stent” (OK, I made up the part about the talking stent) conveys some emotion in that it is about an introduction, or a launch. The emotion is newness.

4. Some great headlines are shocking facts. “40% of Patients Misuse Prescription Painkillers.” That’s a great headline because if you’re a doctor who treats pain patients, you sort of know this statistic (but it’s still shocking) and it brings up the emotions of fear of lawsuit by the DEA or even loss of license. If you use a shocking fact, the formula for your ad should be this: Shocking Fact, More Shocking Facts, Solution. A good way to remember this is the old playwright’s formula: get your character up a tree, throw rocks at him, then get him out of the tree.

5. If possible, try to enter into the inner monologue that your customer is having in his own mind. You know how most of us think about problems using certain buzzwords or concepts. If you can figure out what is keeping your customer up at night and articulate it in more or less than same words, you have a great headline. “Is Your Practice Doing All It Can to Prevent Malpractice Suits from Shutting You Down?” If your customers are physicians in practice who worry about lawsuits that could potentially end their career, that headline will do the trick. It will make the reader read on.

6. Write lots of headlines. I know world-class copywriters (the kind who get about thousands of dollars for a headline) who say that they write out at least 100 different headlines for one single ad. One hundred headlines! They say that it’s only after they have more or less exhausted everything that pops into their heads (thus, the 100 headlines) that they are “clear” and free to write something actually good. I don’t think there is anything magical about the number 100, but I do know this: more is better than fewer. Write way more than you think you should and then write some more. And do not be afraid to throw out headlines, even ones that you think are “pretty good.”

7. Keep your eye on the goal, which is getting the reader to read on and then persuading him to do something. The old movie “White Men Can’t Jump” tells the story about some basketball hustlers. At one point, the Woody Harrelson character tells the Wesley Snipes character that his problem is that he’d rather be cool than win the bet. That same premise applies to many writers. They’d rather be perceived as witty or cool or sharp or whatever than write a great ad. Many great ads are not that witty. Many of them have no puns, artful illustrations, or be-bopping copy. They just spell out a clear message that hits the reader hard.

8. Test your ads, if possible. You can’t test an ad by asking people if they like it. It’s perfectly possible to like an ad and not respond to it. You want to see if people are grabbed by the headline enough to read it. You may have to work up some focus groups to measure the ad and I know that is not always feasible. But whenever you can test, do. It will surprise you.

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