It's a fine line to tread.
First impression. That's what guarantees success for your ad copy. And what is the first thing users see in your ad? Yes, the headline. According to the research, first impressions are so powerful that they are more important than fact. What it means is that you can have the best offer in the world, but if people are not intrigued by your headline, then they will not even look at what you are selling.
At the sametime, users are bombarded with thousands of ads per day. According to comscore, typical Internet user is served 1,707 banner ads per month! That's more than 50 every single day. So what makes a great headline, while at the sametime avoiding "clickbaits", such as below?
There are many ways how you can construct a strong headline, that drive attention and engagement. It depends on many factors like what you are promoting, to whom the message is dedicated and what you want to say. It requires deep analysis of the audience you are targeting and their needs. Here are some tips that might get you started.
1. Personalization and empathy. If you did your homework, then you know who you are going after. Maybe it is young moms, single parents, college students or any other easily characterized group of people. Adress the message to them directly and speak their language. If you are promoting a research report in India.
Instead of "Download Digital Transformation report." Use "Download 2016 Digital Transformation report for India"
2. Be specific and Include a click-to-action. To make your ads perform better, it is very important to be specific and tell customers what they need to do. You can ask a user to click on a link, fill out a form or order something right away. When you tell them what to, people are more willing to take that action.
Instead of " Get discount on your first order" Use" "Buy now and you will get a 10% discount on your first order."
3. Create a sense of urgency. Making people believe that something you are offering is limited encourage them to take action right away. Telling that your special offer is valid only for a short time of period or that you have a limited amount of products is stimulating people to order from you urgently. They are afraid to miss the opportunity.
Instead of "Limited space to Content Marketing Workshop. Book it now!" Use: "Only 5 spots left to our Content Marketing Workshop! Book it now!"
4. Use numbers. Numbers mean predictability and that's what people want. Every buyer wants to know exactly what he is getting, and using numbers in your headline creates that expectation. As you can see, we used numbers in most of our examples above.
Instead of "Learn how to improve your campaign." Use: "Learn how to improve your campaign by 300%"
5. Use fear. Ok. This is controversial. but understanding customers' emotions and painpoint are very effective way to grab their attention. If you know their fears and their doubts, then you can easily use them to your advantage.
Instead of "How to create successful startup" Use: "5 reasons why startup failed and how to avoid them."
As you see, there are many different ways how you can construct your headlines. It is very important to know two things before writing ad copy headlines: know your audience and know your product. Analyzing your potential customer is critical. You need to know his needs, fears, and behavior. Once you have all this information, it will be incredibly easy to come up with the right headlines. Tips are not universal true so it's very important to always create more than one variant and find out which performs best by doing A/B testing.
Now, you can do multiple testing of ad copies for your display advertising using Enzymic Content Ads Management Platform. Contact us for more information.