An Easy and Effective Copywriting Headline Idea

Crafting an attention-grabbing and effective copywriting headline for any sort of marketing effort, albeit a sales letter, postcard mailer, website landing page or advertisement, is critical for the business owner looking for maximum results from his or her marketing.

And while most business owners aren’t looking to be professional copywriters – learning how to construct compelling copy is an important skill to continually hone.

There are a ton of excellent books and courses on copywriting and specific to the “simple headline,” full books have been written on the topic of crafting headlines and one you should own is David Garfinkel’s Advertising Headlines that Make You Rich.

 

As you dive into the art and science of developing effective headlines, you will quickly learn there are several formulas for potent headlines and you can quickly find yourself sliding down a slippery slope of trying to come up with the “perfect” headline.

While it’s true professional copywriters may spend days working on coming up with a great headline, the typical business owner cannot afford to do this.

So, while perusing a local magazine yesterday, this advertisement caught my eye because it uses the type of headline ANYBODY can use regardless of their copywriting skill level.

It’s the testimonial headline format and chances are this is a simple, easy and powerful headline you can put to work for you today – all you need to do is capture a real testimonial about your product or service from a real person.

Testimonial headlines are a great option because:

• What others say about you is more relevant than what you say about yourself.
• People are inherently interested in knowing what other people say.
• You don’t have to be a great copywriter to use, you simply must be able to extract and collect useful testimonials from customers.

To further help you use testimonial-style headlines, here are a few smart tips:

• I suggest always using real testimonials, from real people – not implied endorsements from some nameless person or stock photo image.
• Put quotes around it to attract the eye and convey it’s something being said by a person.
• Identify the person who said it and use their full name if they allow it. Stay clear, whenever possible, from simply using first initial and last initial.  You want to convey this is a real testimonial from a real person.
• If possible, include the person’s picture next to the headline.
• Testimonials can come from everyday customers, clients, students, etc. or if you have them you can use celebrity testimonials. My former mastermind group member, Jay McGrath, does a great job of using testimonial headlines for his Real Feel Golf Mats®.

So, there you have a simple strategy when developing your next marketing piece and it won’t take hours to craft.  The simple, but effective testimonial headline should be a strategy you use repeatedly.