Headlines Archives - Lars Lofgren

I’ve previously discussed the importance of headlines and why they deserve the majority of our attention when writing copy. But what does a solid headline look like? As it turns out, John Caples (one of the most famous copyrighters of all time) put together a list of 35 headline formulas in his book, Tested Advertising Methods.

I’ve pulled all 35 of them for this post. I even included guidelines for how to use each group. You’ll never draw a blank on headlines again.

Using Keywords in Headlines

These are your workhorse headlines. Use them often.

When you can’t come up with anything and your blinking cursor starts staring you down, choose one of these bad boys. Each sets you up to get the attention you need.

Now that I’ve shown you these formulas, you’ll see them everywhere. But don’t worry, they can’t get overused. Now matter how often we see a headline that starts with the word “How,” we never grow immune to it. As long as the rest of the headline is about something we’re interested in, we bite.

These headlines also encourage you to write good copy that provides value through helpful information. Use these headlines to teach, explain, and help people. Then ask for the sale. You’ll build trust with your audience and prove to them that you have value to offer.

Begin Your Headline with the Words “How To”
Begin Your Headline with the Word “How” (It’s basically a duplicate, I know)
Begin Your Headline With the Word “Why”
Begin Your Headline with the Word “Which”
Begin Your Headline with the Words “Who Else”
Begin Your Headline with the Word “Wanted”
Begin Your Headline with the Word “This”
Begin Your Headline with the Word “Because”
Begin Your Headline with the Word “If”
Begin Your Headline with the Word “Advice”

Headlines that Focus on Benefits

My favorite headlines focus on benefits. When people consider new products or services, they want to know how their lives will improve. Don’t keep them guessing, throw that benefit straight into the headline.

These headlines will give you the most sales with the least amount of effort. Take the time to get good at them and you’ll never have to worry about your marketing failing ever again.

Use a Testimonial Headline
Offer the Reader a Test (Can Your Kitchen Pass the Guest Test?)
Offer Information in Value
Tell a Story
Warn the Reader to Delay Buying
Let the Advertiser Speak Directly to the Reader (Write the entire ad in the first person and speak directly to the reader)
Address Your Headline to Specific Person or Group (I suggest you address your target market)
Have Your Headline Ask a Question
Offer Benefits Through Facts and Figures

News Headlines

These 8 headline formats deliver because they do a fantastic job at arousing curiosity. People always want to know what’s new and exciting. And the best way to show them that you have something new and exciting is to blantantly tell them.

Begin Your Headline with the Word “Introducing”
Begin Your Headline with the Word “Announcing”
Use Words that Have an Announcement Quality (Finally, Presenting, Just Released, etc)
Begin Your Headline With the Word “New”
Begin Your Headline With the Word “Now”
Begin Your Headlines With the Words “At Last”
Put a Date Into Your Headline
Write Your Headline In News Style (This one’s a little redundant, focus on pushing the announcement angle)

Price Related Headlines

Be careful with price headlines, they’re too easy. Marketers rely on them WAY too frequently and condition their customers to only respond to discounts. When you can only sell with discounts, you’ve pushed your business into a death-spiral. Keep them in your back pocket for emergencies but avoid them as often as possible.

Now, some businesses depend on low prices. Their entire business model is based on delivering the product or service cheaper than anyone else. Think Walmart and generic brands. If that’s the game you’ve chosen to play, you’ll want to display your prices every chance you get. Put them in each headline you have and hope someone hasn’t figured out how to do it cheaper than you.

Feature the Price in Your Headline
Feature Reduced Price
Feature a Special Merchandising Offer
Feature an Easy Payment Plan
Feature a Free Offer

One to Three Word Headlines

You’ll want to leave these headlines for the pros. Why? Because they still need to accomplish what the other headlines do naturally (grab attention with benefits or curiosity). But they only have 1-3 words to do it.

It’s simply too easy to slip from attention grabbing to completely confusing.

Too often, marketers believe they can be pithy and cute by embodying their message into an abstract phrase or word. Usually, they just end up confusing everybody and the ad is worthless.

Remember: don’t make your copy pithy and cute. No one will get it. They’ll just think you’re boring and confusing.

So approach these last 3 with extreme caution.

Use a One Word Headline
Use a Two Word Headline
Use a Three Word Headline

Want a simple rule for how to write an advertisement or design a web page? Let’s say you have a month to write an ad. Spend 27 days of that month working on the headline. Use the last 3 days for everything else.

You think this is an exaggeration. It’s not.

Of all the elements on your site that need improvement, you need to focus on your headlines above all else. This is also true for print ads, PPC ads, emails, sales letters, and every other piece of marketing material you’ll ever use.

Why are headlines so important?

Many people are going to see your ad or website. Some of them can be sold, some of them can’t. It’s your job to reach out and tell the right people that they’re in the right place. The headline does exactly this, it’s your filter. It grabs your target market (the people that can be sold) and convinces them that they should look through the rest of your ad.

You see, headlines are the only element of an ad or web page that every person reads. In just a few seconds, people decide whether or not your entire ad has any relevance to their lives. And they use the headline to make this decision. So great headlines flag your target market down and convince them that it’s in their best interest to stick around.

Without a solid headline, your target market will never realize that you have something that will help them. They’ll take a quick glance at your ad or web page, decide it has nothing to offer, and move on. They’ll be lost forever. If you even want a chance to make a sale, you have to hook people with the headline. People will cut you some slack on everything else in your ad but they only give your headline one shot. Take advantage of it and spend the majority of your time getting the headline perfect.

Don’t Make Your Headlines Cute, Make Them Clear

Since we’re trying to filter out the portion of our audience that will actually buy what we have to offer, we need to be extra careful not to be confusing. If there’s any confusion, everybody bails and we don’t have any hope of making the sale.

Here’s a list of cute headlines that I pulled from a recent issue of Inc.:

Tomorrow Never Stops Exploring.
Tough Just Got Better.
Choice is Not an Option, It’s a Necessity.
Business Can’t Wait.
Ignite a Movement. Accelerate Impact.
Let Your Inner Business Mogul Shine.

Do any of these headlines grab your interest and make you want to find more information about the offer? Of course not. These headlines are so abstract and cute that we have no idea what they’re talking about. If we don’t know INSTANTLY how our lives are going to improve by continuing to give out attention to something, we move on and never look back. Remember the cardinal rule of all marketing: don’t be cute.

What a Clear Headline Looks Like

Here are a few more headlines (from the same issue of Inc.) that do a much better job at being clear with what you’ll gain if you keep reading:

Now, TEMPUR-PEDIC Beds come in SOFT, FIRM and EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN!
“Their custom-fit solutions are enabling CenturyLink to add 1,150 employees faster.”
Check “Launch website” off the list (before lunch).
Build Your Business Without Sacrificing Your Family.
Homeowners Insurance. Now Available at your Favorite Online Insurance Store.
Be the ENVY of Your Well-Traveled Friends

These headlines create a completely different dynamic. Now, you might not be interested in these offers. But it’s not due to confusion, it’s because you’re not in the target market for the ad. You’re being filtered out (or filtered in if you’re wishing I included the rest of the ad).

The Most Important Aspect of a Great Headline

To dramatically improve your headlines, focus on the benefits that you have to offer. Remember, benefits are how your customers improve their lives, not the features of your product. I’ve discussed the benefits versus features concept here.

Figure out the benefit that your customers care most about and get it right into the headline. The second batch of headlines does this much better than the first. Stop talking about yourself and talk about how the lives of your customers will improve.

The astute reader (that’s you) probably realized that a few of the headlines above talk about features instead of benefits. This is true. The Tempur-Pedic and homeowner’s insurance headlines only reference new features, not benefits. Talking about features can work once you’ve built a national brand and everyone is already familiar with what you have to offer. For these two headlines, each is supported by the millions already invested in advertising. Bottom line: the rules change if you’re a Fortune 500 company and have the budget to do any marketing you want. For the rest of us, I recommend sticking with benefits.

Now there are dozens of other headline formulas out there. Don’t worry about any of those to start with. Keep it simple.

“But Lars, I’ll exclude too many people if I make my headline too clear!”

You’re approaching this from the wrong direction. Nobody cares about abstract ads that are trying to appeal to everyone. We don’t have the time for it. So we move on and look for something that does appeal to us. If you go after everybody, you get nobody. In other words, every ad starts at zero. The job of your ad is to find the small group of people that do care about what you have to offer. Forget about the rest, you never had a chance to get them in the first place.

The 35 Headline Formulas of John Caples