I bet you are in the headline-writing business, but you just don’t know it.
I read a lot of terrible headlines, and I bet you do too. The way to write better headlines is to practice writing better headlines. Headlines grab attention and draw people into your content.
But how can you improve your headline-writing skills if you aren’t in the business of writing headlines?
Don’t worry, because you are.
If you send emails, you are in the headline-writing business. A good place to start practicing is when writing the subject lines of your emails. Even if you aren’t an ad-man or ad-woman, writing headlines will help you to spot good ones or bad ones that your ad agencies or in-staff ad team create.
So let’s get back to email.
You probably want your email read by its recipient. How many emails do you think they receive every day (or every hour)? How many do *you* receive? Just like any ad you may publish for your business, you need your email to grab the attention of its recipient. Sometimes your name, alone, may be enough — though you may not want to flatter yourself — but if not then your headline will have to do the trick.
Let’s look at an example.
An old employer of mine switched to a new payroll system. I received an email a few weeks later from the head of IT. The subject line of his email read “Security and ADP.”
The email then went on to give background on the email, why it was being sent, who directed him to send it, how to know if web pages look secure, and finally a paragraph or two under a sub-heading called “ADP’s Documented Requirements.”
I had to read 192 words before the email told me if our new payroll system was keeping my info safe. I hadn’t even thought about the issue, quite frankly. I barely knew that it was implemented by a company called “ADP.” But that was the main point the email wanted to get across.
If I had written the email, I would have started by changing the subject line to say “Do you wonder if our new payroll system keeps your personal information private?”
I would have read the subject line and thought to myself “You know, I’ve never really thought about it. I hope it is — I assume it is. I’ve got about 23 other things I need to be doing right now, and 5 new emails from clients just rolled in, but I need to check this out and see what they tell me.”
Afterall, it is “my” personal information. Social security numbers, birthdates, addresses, phone numbers of family members — it had better all be safe.
To take it a step further, the first words I would then write into the body of the email would be:
“Well don’t! Our new ADP payroll software keeps your personal data safe from prying eyes. It uses the latest digital encryption technologies to lock your data down tighter than the vaults of Fort Knox.”
THE TACTIC OF THE PRESS RELEASE
That is the critical lesson the email’s author wanted me to understand, but it took 192 words to get to the point. In an information broadcast like that, use the tactic of the press release — the most important information is presented first.
That way you show respect for your reader’s time. It was a courtesy on behalf of the company, and the company is supposed to understand its revenue model. In this case, the IT employee is billed to company overhead. He sent that email to a thousand engineers who are billing hours to client projects. Time is literally money for the engineers. Momentary distractions can cause a reviewer to interrupt his review process and miss errors; they can cause preparers to create them.
The message had better be important. Most readers might just skim the email anyway. You want to reward them and let them know that you’re thinking about them by getting to the point by putting the most important information right up front.
His email was peppered with technical jargon that some of the younger employees might understand, but which the older employees probably don’t understand. It’s easier to understand what terms like “SSL” and “Security Certificates” mean and how they work if you grew up on the Internet. Most of the employees at the time were older and did not.
So know who your audience is. Personalize your headline and your content so that it relates to them, grabs their attention, and makes them want to read more. Hit them where it means the most to them. It’s also safer to leave out jargon unless you know it’s a deal-breaker to the particular audience you are communicating with.