- Direct: Tell your prospect exactly what’s coming
- Indirect: Use curiosity to raise a question in the reader’s mind. Use this with some caution as you don’t want to attract and then disappoint visitors. Example from Copyblogger : An article might have the headline Fresh Bait Works Best and yet have nothing to do with fishing, because it’s actually about writing timely content that acts as link bait.
- News: If your product or service is newsworthy offer it in your headline
- How to: With over 7,000 book titles starting with ‘How To’ you can’t go wrong with this one. If you ever get stuck, try adding ‘how to’ in front of your headline
- Question: Ask an industry or market specific question but be careful when using this one. You must know your market backwards otherwise you can blow your whole advertising campaign. The best types of questions to ask are questions which get your prospect involved.
- Command: this tells your customers what to do – encourage action by also offering a benefit
- Reason Why/Threat: give your prospect reasons why they should read your article
- Testimonial/Social Proof: use excerpts from testimonials to write winning headlines
- Benefit/Gain: Benefits sell, features don’t. Know your market well so the benefits you are writing about resonate.
- Guarantee: State a desirable benefit and guarantee results or other benefits – be sure you can back up your promises
