If the headline doesn’t stop people, the copy might as well be written in Greek.
—John Caples
Q. Where, besides the copywriter's over-caffeinated brain, do eye-stopping headlines come from?
A. The copywriter's under-rated bag of tricks.
In Content Marketer, copywriter Josue Valles opens his bag of tricks—15 in all—for inspection. Here they are:
- Steal ideas from clickbait sites like BuzzFeed
- Lean on "psychological triggers"—specific numbers or razor-sharp benefits ("Reduce payroll 23% by automating absence management")
- Promise super-fast results
- Enter keywords into Google and steal ideas from the organic search results
- Use proven words (here's a list)
- Use Portent’s Content Idea Generator
- Steal words and phrases people frequently use to ask questions on Quora
- Enter keywords into BuzzSumo and steal ideas from the search results
- Include the name of a big brand in your headline ("Richard Branson's 15 Hacks for Punctuality")
- Test the emotive power of your headline with Advanced Marketing Institute's EMVHA
- Test the responsiveness of your headline with Twitter and Facebook (use an A/B test)
- Leverage the power of an image
- Steal ideas from newsletters
- Evoke curiosity (hint: use Linkbait Generator)
- Steal ideas from HARO searches
Bob James' Bonus Hack: Steal this book.
