Leading copywriter and coach John Carlton believes that content created by copywriters should be able to grab the readers’ attention and move them to action. In relation to the different ways of creating attention-grabbing copies, John discussed the art of writing great headlines at a recent seminar.
According to him, copywriters should frame the headlines of their copies such that the reader cannot remove even a single word from the sentence without damaging its comprehension. Each word in your headline should be unique, informative and crisp. What you don’t want to do is use too many words that basically convey the same idea because it dilutes the effect of your headline and readers end up taking no action on your offer.
Another thing that copywriters must totally avoid is mumbling. Too many times copywriters use unambiguous words that show confusion and lack of confidence. Lack of confidence in your copy translates into a perceived lack of confidence in your offer. This results in readers getting thrown back into a passive state – something that is definitely not good for your business.
Instead, copywriters should focus on using verbs and power words as a tool for pulling readers out of the passive state and into a semi active state. Words and phrases with shock value can be used in headlines but they go only so far as grabbing initial attention. After that, all you have left is words to retain readers’ attention, move them to action and guide them through the sales cycle. To this effect, it is important to phrase your words carefully and keep them logically flowing. While you do not want to be repetitive you also do not want to cut the messages short to convey too little.
The key is to keep your target audience in mind, write what the audience is really interested in and avoid jargon, excessively complicated or superfluous words.