For us as marketers, headlines are the single most important factor of our content, message, or ad to spread to the target customer.

You may have amazing and relevant content, an insightful book, or a website.

You might also have your Google Ads campaigns perfectly in place.

But a thing to note for marketing teams whose focus is social media marketing is:

Prospective customers do judge books, websites and content by their cover.

According to Copyblogger, 8 out of 10 email subscribers will read your blog post headlines, but only 2 out of 10 people will read your piece of content and click on the action button.

For a business owner, this number is small enough to want to ensure a better email campaign that achieves business goals better.

• What are the desires of your target audience?

• What pain do they feel?

• What is their worldview and what do they believe in?

How to write powerful headlines to increase conversion rates?

Here are some of our pointers on how to increase your conversion via your call to action and catchy headline- handpicked from The Headline Kit

• Include numbers:

  

Numbers and symbols make good skim stoppers in digital marketing.

When you include a factual number or statistic into a headline, it stands out and increases the trust factor among potential customers for one reason – numbers give you the ability to persuade. This can turn a headline into a compelling headline.

By including any form of numerical data within your headline, it immediately gives out the impression to the target customer that deep research has been carried out.

Numbers and symbols also tend to stand out in a sea of characters.

Out of all the symbols, numbers work the best for attention-grabbing headlines as they tend to generate 73% more social shares and engagement.

Our human minds are wired to be more receptive to numbers, and this can be used to an advantage when it comes to the target customer.

Numbers are favourable because they promise accurate content with more substance and structure.

Pro Tip: People tend to be calmer when reading even numbers and more excited when reading odd numbers.

This is known as the “odd effect”.

It’s because our brains take 20% longer to process odd numbers.

This is the reason why so many pricing ends with an odd number ‘7’

For example RM197, RM2997 and RM5479.

When it comes to headlines in articles sent out in an email list, even numbers are more likely to be favoured and shared because it gives a sense of completion.

Odd numbers will be more likely to be clicked by potential customers because its uneven organisation makes them restless and builds tension; thus leading to higher conversion rates.

Big obscure numbers in headlines also work better than small digits in successful headlines.

This is because bigger numbers promise bigger value, and audiences want to get the most out of your content, increasing the chances of converting them into loyal customers from successful click-through rates.

• Listicle headlines:

Listicle titles and headlines work well for content in email marketing campaigns – this is probably due to the fact that we, as humans, are psychologically wired to do as little as possible.

Conserving energy has been essential for human survival.

It allowed our ancestors during the stone-age to be more efficient when searching for food and shelter, competing for sexual partners, and avoiding predators.

The part of our brain responsible for this is commonly referred to as the ‘Lizard Brain’.

The Lizard Brain only has four functions:
• Fight
• Flight
• Food
• Fornication

Coming back to headline variations – it’ll cost you less energy to read an article on “5 steps on gaining click-through-rates” compared to reading a 3000 words research on click-through-rates.

The straightforward headline also sends a clear message across.

Listicles help readers subconsciously prepare what to expect within your content – whether it’s an ad, email. or article.

The best way to write effective listicle headlines is to direct them back to the desired result.

Example:

Framework: Top [Number] Tips For [person] to [goal] instantly

Headline: Top 10 tips for you to come up with innovative ideas instantly!

• Length:

  

The average length of a viral headline is 62 characters, according to Kevan Lee.

Here’s what a headline of that length would look like: How to Use Search Engine Optimization on Your Content in 2021

• Negativity:

Headline variations such as negative headlines are often used by politicians and news portals.

This is mainly to strike fear and worry into ideal customers as it causes them to be certain that they aren’t doing, committing, saying, thinking, or buying what you’re warning them against.

In many cases – negative headlines in outperform positive headlines!

It is smart marketing in the list of marketing strategies because it stops readers in their tracks and causes them to take action, due to the fear of losing out on opportunities or facing serious consequences if they do not engage with your content. This causes the conversion rate optimization that we are looking for.

• Clarity:

  

Being specific does not kill off curiosity.

Rather, the specificity makes them become more curious to find out more, again leading to a possible increase in conversion.

Being specific and having clarity makes sense from a business perspective too, as it attracts the readers you are looking for.

Besides entertainment content, it also works with knowledge-based or educational-based content.

When we talk about headline formulas – when you create a headline, go straight to the point.

The best headlines are those that tell you what to expect.

There you go!

These are my favourite ways to increase conversion via headlines.

These tips are courtesy of The Headline Kit, click the link to learn how to transform your headlines further.

As always, mailto:chelsea@lead.io for any questions or conversations.

We’re here to grow with you.