You have less than three seconds to capture the attention of visitors who are browsing your website. Are your headlines getting the attention they deserve? Are you “converting” folks from just browsing to actually contacting you or buying from you? If you’re not sure, try this: Commiserate in your headlines. To commiserate is to sympathize or feel and express pity.
You see, the holy grail of marketing comes down to answering one question: “What’s in it for me (the customer)?”
Every customer, prospective customer, user, fan, passer-by, needs to know the answer to this question. They need to know that your business can solve their problem. If you articulate and then commiserate with that problem in your headlines, you’ve just captured their attention.
Now, that problem might be the need for a new pair of shoes, a comfortable place to stay while on vacation, or it might be figuring out whther or not you actually need that Brazed Plate Heat Exchanger. The point is, your marketing message needs to reach your customers’ pain center, and illustrate how your business can alleviate it.
This requires a little bit of thought and a lot of editing. Think about what your customers’ pain center might be. What drives them to start looking for a service like yours? Let’s take the example above about shoes. You have a woman in her early 30s who has a black tie event coming up for her company. She has the perfect dress but limited options for comfortable yet elegant shoes. She knows she’s going to be on her feet all night, but she’s not willing to give up her super chic style. YOU sell shoes. Your headline might read something like this:
“Comfy is the new black!”
When combined with a killer photo of the shoes you’re selling, this headline is sure to get her attention. It’s trendy, it identifies her pain point (literally), and it lets her know you understand the challenge of comfort versus style. In five words, you’ve set business up as one that understands your customer, and in that, you’ve created a small, but important, element of trust and intrigue. The customer clicks to learn more. BOOM.
Whatever your business, click over to your website now and review the headlines there. Do they identify your customers’ pain? Do you commiserate in your the words you’ve used? Do you offer a solution in those words? Ask yourself these questions, then start the writing process. Keep writing and revising until you’ve honed down the message to six words or less. There’s your headline.
There is A LOT of clutter on the Web today. Your job is to break through that clutter with a clear message about what your business can DO FOR your customers.