How to craft killer headlines

The ever diminishing window we have to catch the attention and interest of our target market means that even native advertisers are reliant on that headline to make a firm connection. Not in the way of display ads with garish visuals and dynamic fonts, but simply by giving a taste of what’s to come.

In fact recent studies has shown that it’s even down to the number of characters in the headline; 70-90 characters, the response was 36%, 20-40 characters 19% and less than 20 characters a mere 13%.

Those are numbers we should not be ignoring; tripling the numbers of visitors who start to read the content is something that usually takes more than adding a few words. For native advertising that re-assurance that we can start delivering some value even in the headline, or at least hint more strongly of value to come, is very good news.

But why are headlines so important and how can we make them work even better in native advertising? As usual it comes down to really understanding the consumer.

Woo me, tempt me!

This means recognising that we are all still pretty much basic humans; our technology actually evolves a lot faster than we do. We’re easily distracted, we have very little staying power, we don’t like having to work too hard to understand things, we get defensive, suspicious and sometimes aggressive when people try and sell us things that we didn’t know we wanted.

Share the audiences passion!

This is embracing the people that are incredibly passionate about the things they love; whether it’s bee-keeping, cycling, saving the planet or simply just learning new things and finding new solutions.

Native advertising works so well because it understands the person but talks to the consumer, which requires a much more subtle and value laden approach if the result is to be true engagement.

Which brings us back to the issue of headlines. Native advertising can learn a lot from looking at the natural world

Native headlines: the nectar and the bee

For the flower to get pollenated it must first attract the bee. Once the bee has visited, the relationship between them is one of mutual benefit; flower suitably pollenated, bee full of nectar; just like the relationship between consumer and good native content; win, win.

So how to get the consumer to taste the native nectar? By borrowing from the wonder of the flower, a great headline that captures the attention and hints or teases about what is to come; it doesn’t pretend to be what it isn’t but nor does it shout with brand names and product offers, studies mentioned headlines containing brand names are a real turn-off.

That tells us that headlines should be subtle but not so subtle that they’re lost amongst the ground cover. They need to say read me because I’m worth it, not simply grab attentions for attention’s sake.

Good headlines are a splash of the nectar to come, tasted at the moment of truth; to click through or not to click through.

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