the art of the headline

Charlie Meyerson linkedin.com/in/cmeyerson facebook.com/meyerson @Meyerson on Twitter Charlie@MeyersonStrategy.com

The art of the headline

So …

Why should you listen to a radio guy?

Because …

For radio, the competition’s

been a click or tap away

—almost since the start.

fredsuniquefurniture.com/Good-Used-

Furniture/Appliances/i-FmcR7Hb

Now, it’s the world we all live in.

Whether you’re selling news, or shoes, or podcasts …

… the competition is a tap or a swipe away.

And in this world …

Email is one key.

How do you gain, keep and grow an audience?

But before we push ahead …

Skeptics will ask: Does this work?

Yes, it works.

I learned what I know by launching and running

the Chicago Tribune’s email services for 11 years.

... sent to tens of thousands of subscribers

… often achieved Tribune Co. editorial newsletter-leading 60 percent clickthrough rates

–60 clicks per 100 recipients.

Yes, it works.

Yes, it works.

A major professional organization that followed the advice you’re about to get (after I was embedded with the team for four days)—a site that previously hadn’t strung together two successive months of record traffic—achieved record pageviews ...

• for the next 5 straight months. • for 10 of the following 12 months.

Main factor driving the increase:

Stronger headlines

On the website. And, primarily, in email.

But isn’t

email dead?

Do you …• Check Facebook, Twitter and email regularly? • Check all three at least once a day? • When you check them, scroll all the way back to

the last item you checked …

On Twitter? On Facebook?

On email?

The joy of email• It summons at will your most devoted users. • … who then share their interests. • It awaits their attention, unlike the rivers of

Twitter and Facebook content. • It’s fixed, unlike Web site front pages – and so,

an easier gauge of elements’ popularity, especially with …

• Heat maps, or click maps, which make patterns easy to spot.

But to get that intel from email …

You need people to open it.

And the key to doing that?

Good, old-fashioned writing.

Writing for the web has a lot in common with writing

for broadcasting–writing for the ear.

Secrets to getting people not to tune out—for radio and, it turns out, just about anything on

the Web:

• Omit needless words. —Will Strunk, The Elements of Style, 1918.

• Twitter. • Texting. • Tiny smartphone screens that truncate subject lines.

Need we say more?

Secrets to getting people not to tune out—for radio and, it turns out, just about anything on

the Web:

• Make your most interesting word or phrase the first element—the first word of your headline or subject line or post—and let your writing flow from there.

meyersonstrategy.com/2007/04/good-radio-writing.html

But what are the most interesting words?

• Develop a sense of the wider world’s priorities by checking sites like Google Trends: google.com/trends/

• And develop a sense of your audience’s priorities by monitoring clicks.

Would you do this?

Many companies do that.

Common mistakes

Echoing From field in Subject

Common mistakes

Repeating Subject from day to day

Common mistakes

No interesting words first

in Subject

Compare these dispatches to those in the previous screens.

Note how few words you get here. If the future is mobile, now more than ever,

every word – every syllable – counts. Strunk & White: Omit needless words.

Which would you click?

What’s different about the words in these groups of subject lines?

Strunk and White: “Use definite, specific, concrete language.”

What words interest your audience?

Watch your clicks.

Are you out of sync?

Little-clicked items among more-clicked items.

Are you out of sync?

More-clicked items among less-clicked items.

Headlines that work

Two kinds: • Search-engine-optimized (SEO) headlines

(headlines for robots*). Good for page-level placement.

• “Curiosity gap”-optimized headlines (headlines for people*).Good for front-page and email placement, for print publications ... and for social media (Twitter, Facebook).

*Andy Crestodina: orbitmedia.com/blog/write-for-robots-write-for-people/

SEO-friendly headlines

• Place the story's most relevant word or phrase as close as possible to the start of the headline. • Simple, direct. (Use familiar

names.) • “How to” or “Why” headlines.

More Elements of Style:Use definite, specific, concrete language —words that put images in your readers’ heads

Regardless of headline or writing style ... Consider words’ “point value,” which will vary for each audience.

Created by New York Post veterans: http://www.amazon.com/University-Games-1520-Man-Bites/dp/B000087BDT

‘Curiosity gap’

The difference between what you know and what you want to know

Like The Onion, the editorial team at Upworthy begins with dozens of headlines and works on them until they create what Mr. [Eli] Pariser

called “a curiosity gap”—a need to know more that prompts the impulse to click on something.

—David Carr, The New York Times

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/two-guys-made-a-web-site-and-this-is-what-they-got/

‘Curiosity gap’ headlinesAssume most people (think they) aren’t interested.

• Write headlines to engage them, and your core audience will still be there for you.

• Play down location. (Except locations well-known to your audience.)

• Play down names.(Except names well-known to your audience.) (Use generic nouns for unfamiliar names.)

‘Curiosity gap’ headlines

• Questions:Who was Deep Throat?

• Ellipses, teases:Nation’s fattest city is …

• Pull-quotes: ‘Suck it up, wussies’

• BuzzFeed style: You won’t believe ... (But be certain to deliver something we won’t believe.)

The power of YOU• Works with SEO-friendly headlines. • Works with “curiosity gap” headlines.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/secondperson-narrative-enthralling-you,30380/

So …

Put it all together and you get …

The most-clicked Internet (or most-read newspaper) headline ever might be…

—Credit for headline: Paul Muth

... or maybe more so:

WITH A PUPPY

One to avoid —in all kinds of headlines:

•ACRONYMS.

The crack cocaine of headline writing.Avoid them.

Unless your readers say otherwise.(And they probably won’t.)

Image:http://www.business2community.com/marketing/42-b2b-marketing-acronyms-and-abbreviations-0192246

The case for sentence case... vs. Title Case for headlines:

• Concrete nouns drive traffic. • The most concrete concrete nouns are Proper

Nouns. • So why not make Proper Nouns easier to find?

A demonstration ...

Find proper nouns:

Every word

capitalized

Find proper nouns:

Just proper nouns

capitalized

Anatomy of an email turdConsider what we see, word for word ...

“Unbeatabl...” what?

“Oh, that’s what a circular is ...”

The bottom line:

Don’t be boring.

Charlie Meyerson linkedin.com/in/cmeyerson facebook.com/meyerson @Meyerson on Twitter Charlie@MeyersonStrategy.com