Why the headline is not the king

Who has heard the old maxim that once you have written your headline you have spent 80cents of your dollar? If you have not then you are the lucky one as this is bandied about with fervour in the digital marketing sphere.

See the issue is that this was a quote about print advertising and not digital marketing and the two while similar are not the same. This is a classic case where “best practice” fails.

It is not because it is wrong it’s because it’s being used out of context, that is the issue with best practice. However there are specific things you can apply to digital marketing copywriting but as with everything it needs to be tested to make sure it applies to your organisation, company or blog.

Long live the CTA

So if the headline is not the boss who is? Well its the CTA. So does that mean you can change your CTA and deliver a triple digit uplift? Unlikely. However changing your headline and CTA together will usually deliver some good lifts.

Your CTA text should borrow from and reinforce your headline as they will be the most read elements on your page. That’s why you should always test headlines and CTAs together.

Hail to the kumquat

How do you get the attention of users who do nothing but speed read? You use unexpected language (see what I did with the headline). See the unexpected makes people stop and re-read what they just skimmed over.

Go small or go home

Depending on what blog you read the average time users spend on a site is anywhere from 6-8 seconds including loading. So you may have as little as 5 seconds to communicate your message to your users.

Therefore you should write as little as possible. Bullets are your friends and blocks of texts are your enemy.

Steal copy where possible

You know who writes in the same language as your customers? Your customers. When I need a new headline or ad copy I go to TrustPilot and read some reviews of your customers and lift what I need.

If you don’t have TrustPilot or something similar then go to your competitors. If they don’t find a book on Amazon about the same kind of area and read the reviews. Nothing beats this kind of copywriting because it’s used by the exact type of person your trying to convert.