With all the noise and businesses online screaming “look at me” it can be a huge task to make your start up or small business brand stand out. Try using eye catching headlines to register your brand in the minds of those surfing the net. We all have very busy lives and if a headline doesn’t grab a view in a couple of seconds, you’ve lost a potential sale. You need to get a reaction.
Whether writing for a blog, social media outlet, email campaign or print media, a headline is meant to perform 2 functions. The first is to grab the readers attention. Your site is but a blur with all of the brand content that’s out there. The second thing the attention seeking headline should do is to pull the reader down into the article. To get customers to click on the link and read further about your brand, product or idea, you need to create something that caters to their emotional needs or interests. It doesn’t matter what you are selling, your brand is always feeding a need of some kind. Taking the emotion you are trying to feed, develop this further and come up with a snazzy headline to match.
Tabloid newspapers are excellent at headlines that grab attention, start taking note of what they are saying, how they are saying it etc. You could also keep copies of some of them and use them as fill in the blanks type exercise to help develop your own brand.
Try using these sample headline list to make your brand stand out online.
Emotion: Curiosity
“Closely guarded secrets of …….”
Emotion: Assurance
“Quality guaranteed for 1 year……..”
Emotion: Anger
“The Irish Banks are killing people, here’s why……..”
Emotion: Fear
“Over 20% of the mortgage market is in arrears for more than 90 days….”
Emotion: Shock
“The shocking truth about ………”
Read more about branding here. Tell us how you get your brand to stand out online.
