Attempt to fix a problem when you choose the Big Promise headline for your landing pages
A great headline is really an advertisement for an advertisement. It grabs the reader’s attention with such force that they can’t resist reading the next sentence. They read your headline and think, “I need to know what comes next”, much like an episode of LOST.
OK, perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I can tell you that a bad headline won’t get your potential customers anywhere, and it most certainly won’t get them off “the island”.
The “Big Promise” Headline
Legendary copywriter (and Mequoda contributor) Robert W. Bly advocates using a Big Promise headline. He characterizes a Big Promise as a succinct, compelling statement of why the prospect should buy your product that can be stated in 15 or fewer words.
If effect, the Big Promise headline says, “We know who you are, we know what your pain is, and if you buy this product, we promise to make your pain go away.”
The Big Promise headline works for a variety of “pain” and “solution” products, whether the customer wants to double his dating, retire at age 50, or be a self employed copywriter.
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Consider this example from one landing page:
“In Less Than a Year You Could Have a New Career Working From Home, Enjoying Freedom and Income You Had Only Imagined.”
There is nothing vague or ambiguous about that promise. If you long to be self employed, you’re intrigued, and you read on. If not, you don’t.
That’s the test of a headline’s effectiveness. The Big Promise “gets you into the tent.” You take the next step by continuing to read.
Your brand or company name is not a headline
A publication’s name alone seldom provokes sufficient interest or provides motivation to subscribe. You can add interest to the heading of your page with any number of standard headline techniques, such as putting an offer in the headline (e.g., “FREE sample issue!”) or incorporating a benefit or promise (e.g., “When doctors at Harvard Medical School get sick, this is what they do…”).
The formula for the effective advertisement, which was developed and proven in the print medium and works online as well, is summarized with the acronym AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action).
The A stands for attention; a good headline gets the reader’s attention. The I stands for interest. And the Big Promise headline is effective because it quickly sorts out the Interested reader from the casual reader.
