Your headline is the most important element of nearly any piece of marketing writing.  This applies to printed material, such as a direct mail piece, an email, or a web page.  You should spend at least as much time crafting your headlines as the other portions of your marketing writing.

I have seen the change of a single word in a headline produce ten times more response than the one in the original piece of direct mail.  It is easy and quick to see the changes in the headline of a web page by using an A/B split test.

The purpose of a headline is to get the reader’s attention.  It is to provoke the reader to read the remainder of the material.  A headline should stop the reader’s thought processes and direct them in such a manner that he or she wants to read further in the material you have provided.  Good headline technique provokes curiosity, stimulates interest, or challenges the reader to look further.

A headline may be a simple thought-provoking statement; it may be a question; it may be a challenge; or it may be an outlandish statement.  It may raise concern, promise youth, weight loss, beauty, attractiveness, wealth, or promise a solution to a vexing problem.  Whatever the design, each word in the headline should contribute to the designed process and carry its own weight.  In other words, a headline should have a minimum of very well-chosen words.

So, how do you go about writing a killer headline?  You MUST do your homework!  The better you are at doing the background homework, the better you can easily write compelling headlines.  I say "headlines" because you will likely want at least two to use in your A/B split testing.

You must know the product or service you will be presenting very well.  Learn all you can about it–every feature, every benefit, every strength, every weakness–and know everything you can learn about the competitive products or services in your market.  The more you know about your product and that of your competition, the more precise and compelling your headlines will be. 

Next take out your yellow pad and begin writing words and phrases that describe the benefits your product will provide your purchaser.  It doesn’t matter if many of your thoughts seem rather simple or silly.  You will be the only one reading them. 

When you have at least 75–preferably more than 100–you can begin mixing and matching them until your headline begins to take shape.  The purpose of this process is to help you distill your words into the most compelling two or three headlines appealing to your readers’ most compelling needs and desires solving their most salient problems.

Why two or three headlines?