MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

Writing an effective headline takes time. It’s arguably the most important part of your copy, and skimping on the time investment usually produces skimpy results.

When will inspiration strike? What will be your muse? As Douglas Adams said, “Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a piece of blank paper until your forehead bleeds.”

Unfortunately, as a marketer, you don’t have the time (or goatee) of a creative writing master’s student. However, you do have to write.

Your goal isn’t different though. It’s not art; it’s income. So you don’t have time to produce perfect headlines for every piece of copy you generate. And you can use a reproducible methodology that gets you in the ballpark of effective, conversion-driving headlines (and testing will take you the last mile).

So the question is this: how can you (a time-strapped marketer) write effective headlines in a relatively short amount of time?

In part one of this series, I proposed a methodology for getting headlines done quickly. It involves a methodology for evaluating and refining raw headline drafts. When you have a method for a task, it automatically becomes more manageable. In this case, you can write headlines the same way a plumber fixes a pipe.

However, I only gave you the first part of the methodology for evaluating your headline drafts.

For those who didn’t read Monday’s post, let me quickly fill you in.

I first wrote three headlines for our December 7^th Web clinic and chose one to evaluate:

The Year in Optimization: The top insights and transferrable principles from 121 tests in 2011

In Step 2, I underlined the noun phrases as these generally communicate the core value or what the audience will get.

Then in Step 3, I evaluated the force of the noun phrases around four key elements:

• Appeal: How attractive is the phrase to our ideal reader?
• Credibility: How believable is the phrase?
• Exclusivity: Can anyone else credibly claim to have what is offered in the phrase?
• Clarity: How easily can the reader understand it?

This second post highlights the part of the methodology for refining your headlines into a finished product.

So without further ado, I’ll continue with Step 4:

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There’s a lot written about headlines. Most of it is fluff. A little of it is true, or at least based on solid evidence. But I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that actually helps marketers write effective headlines in the fury of the daily grind.

When you’re working on a project or a campaign, the last thing you need to do is sit around and wait for the creative muse to strike. You need to be able to write headlines (and copy for that matter) quickly and efficiently.

This post is my attempt (with a lot of help from Flint McGlaughlin) to give you a methodology to diagnose and solve the problem in a workman-like fashion, just like a plumber or mechanic would, for example.

After running several headline tests (one example), MECLABS has developed a methodology for writing headlines.

And unless you are a headline genius and you can nail your headlines on the first try every time, a methodology is exactly how you can make your headlines consistently successful in a timely manner.

So how can you write an effective headline on time, every time?

To answer that question, I sat down with our Managing Director, Flint McGlaughlin and worked on a few headlines for our previous Web clinic. The process he laid out is essentially four steps and based on the discoveries we’ve made through our research.

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There’s a lot of bunk information out there about copywriting. The barrier to entry for being an “expert copywriter” is pretty low and some of those crossing that barrier are simply wrong when they give advice.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some great copywriters out there. What’s funny though is that most of us here at MarketingExperiments wouldn’t claim to be one of them (even the great Daniel Burstein).

But what we lack in copywriting prowess, we gain in mountains of research on copy that works and doesn’t work. We’ll be sharing a bit of that research with you on Wednesday in our copywriting Web clinic (educational funding provided by HubSpot.) if you’d like to learn more. But, throughout that research, we’ve picked up on a few commonalities in the mistakes copywriters make.

With the help of Austin McCraw’s unused slides from the Optimization Summit, I went ahead and took some of those commonalities and compiled them into a list of common mistakes marketers make when they’re writing copy.

After every mistake, there’s an example of how we fixed it and got dramatic lifts in each case. No bunk copywriting advice included. Just data.
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I have experience as a copywriter, I take great pride in my headlines. But, now working at an optimization company, I see that all of my copywriting, and that means even my headlines, can be optimized.

But how? How do you write an effective headline to begin with? And how do you continue to improve those headlines?

Well, MECLABS CEO Flint McGlaughlin will be sharing some of our headline optimization discoveries at 4 p.m. EDT in today’s Web clinic – Headline Optimization: How testing 10 headlines revealed a 3-letter word that improved conversion more than major changes – with plenty of time spent on audience submissions as well.

But first we asked your peers for a few of their optimization tips. Here is some of our favorite advice (and if you have any ideas for a better title for this blog post, please let me know in the comments section)… Read more…

Editor’s Note: Research Manager Adam Lapp is reviewing the battle between common Internet marketing practices to help you determine which optimization strategies are most effective and give you ideas for new tests. On Monday, we published Part 1 in this series. Here is Part 2…

Flash Banner vs. Headline

The Breakdown: That was interesting, wasn’t it? Flash Banner entered the ring pumped up and ready to go and then, all of a sudden, his corner guy came flying into the ring bringing the bout to an abrupt halt. A very disappointed showing for all of the fans. Colors and images got tangled with each other, the message slipped to the canvas, and the product offering went flying between the ropes. And just like that, the fight was over and the fans never got a chance to understand what was going on.

Even though it looked good in concept, if the visitors don’t have a chance to understand who you are, what your best move is, and why you’re a better fighter, then what’s the point? Flash Banner didn’t even get a chance to show his patented left hook. He didn’t get a chance to show the audience all of the hard work he put into training. On to the next fight before bets could even be taken.

But there was a clever marketing pitch, some rhyming, a slogan. Flash Banner should have had a better showing. What happened? His objective eluded him. There should have been a click, a purchase, something. But can such a big decision really be made in a flash?

The results say no.

Does the Flash Banner on Adobe.com really convince me to buy Creative Suite 5? Does it even compel me to click forward? Well it was above “The Fold,” and we all know how that fight turned out.

Standing there in the middle of the ring and clearly the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world is Headline. As the flow was interrupted by Flash Banner, the headline spoke clearly to the audience telling them in just three to five short seconds why he was their best choice. He told them he has won 14 fights in a row, that he has trained non-stop for six months, and that he could match any fighter in the world’s offer.

Immediately the crowd stood and cheered for Headline to be given the next fight. The visitors decided that what Headline said that evening was worth the effort to continue on and not exit the arena.

Headline is the first text a visitor will see, so it has much potential for a large impact. The post-modern consumer sees through the Don Kings of the world. They are inundated with email, TV commercials, and even in-your-face displays at the grocery store. They have limited time and are deeply skeptical of salespeople whom they can’t even speak to. Read more…

Analyst Adam Lapp reviewed this landing page, submitted by Costume Supercenter.

In their contest entry, Costume Supercenter said its top performing keyword was “pirate costumes” and that their ideal audience is costume shoppers of all ages.

Analysis of channel

The PPC ad maintains continuity with the customer’s original motivation of wanting to find “pirate costumes.” It also uses incentive well by offering a discount and free shipping.

So when the customer clicks through, the first thing they expect to see is:

• Pirate costumes
• 10% off
• Free shipping

Analysis of landing page

The page connects with the keyword pirate costumes, but the two incentives advertised in the PPC ad become lost in the banner. Not only can the typical internet user experience “banner blindness,” but the intensely bright colors of both background and text inhibit the incentives from standing out. The page has page elements relevant to the PPC ad, they just need to stand out more to maximize relevance.

This page should be tested using a clear headline above the images communicating “what” I can do here, i.e. buy pirate costumes, and “why” I should do it, e.g. 10% off all costumes and free shipping. They do have a headline below the first section of images, but it is hardly noticeable in juxtaposition to the main image and the black text does not stand out against the orange background.

If I am a customer, I will quickly look for a way to find the right costume for me. So I will be looking for a place to click for men’s pirate costumes. The first image section is a great place to do this, but there are eleven different images to click on. And only one of those is a man. This causes friction because visitors will not know “exactly” where to go. They may end up wandering through content with no direction or supervision.

A possible test would be using only four images at the top, a man, woman, girl and boy, with the top of each labeled appropriately. For example, “Men’s Pirate Costumes.” This way, I will know exactly what to do immediately upon arrival onto the page.

The blue text links attempt to point visitors in the direction they should go, but they are overpowered by the large images. Plus they are arranged horizontally when the natural way to read a web page is top to bottom.

When a person moves “below the fold” they are presented with several large images of specific costumes. But, why these costumes? The page needs to provide guidance and reasoning behind why these six costumes were chosen out of the so-claimed “greatest collection.” Are they the most popular? If so, explain this to the customer with a sub-headline. For example, “Here are our most popular pirate costumes.”

The goal of this page should be to create a clear path for visitors to find the precise product that meets their needs. The page must be designed with this goal in mind, removing anything that does not contribute to it or support the site’s value proposition.

Audience: What do you think? Use the comments field to post your suggestions for this landing page, agree/disagree with Adam’s assessment, and let the page owner know what you would do differently.

We’ll post our final landing page on Wednesday …