Headlines

The dif­fer­ence between adver­tis­ing and per­sonal sales­man­ship lies largely in per­sonal con­tact. The sales­man is there to demand atten­tion. He can­not be ignored. The adver­tise­ment can be ignored. But the sales­man wastes much of his time on prospects whom he can never hope to inter­est. He can­not pick them out. The adver­tise­ment is read only by inter­ested peo­ple who, by their own voli­tion, study what we have to say.

The pur­pose of a head­line is to pick out peo­ple you can inter­est. You wish to talk to some­one in a crowd. So the first thing you say is, “Hey there, Bill Jones” to get the right per­sons atten­tion. So it is in an adver­tise­ment. What you have will inter­est cer­tain peo­ple only, and for cer­tain rea­sons. You care only for those peo­ple. Then cre­ate a head­line which will hail those peo­ple only.

Per­haps a blind head­line or some clever con­ceit will attract many times as many. But they may con­sist of mostly impos­si­ble sub­jects for what you have to offer. And the peo­ple you are after may never real­ize that the ad refers to some­thing they may want.

Head­lines on ads are like head­lines on news items. Nobody reads a whole news­pa­per. One is inter­ested in finan­cial news, one in polit­i­cal, one in soci­ety, one in cook­ery, one in sports, etc. There are whole pages in any news­pa­per which we may never scan at all. Yet other peo­ple might turn directly to those pages. We pick out what we wish to read by head­lines, and we don’t want those head­lines mis­lead­ing. The writ­ing of head­lines is one of the great­est jour­nal­is­tic arts. They either con­ceal or reveal an interest.

Sup­pose a news­pa­per arti­cle stated that a cer­tain woman was the most beau­ti­ful in the city. That arti­cle would be of intense inter­est to that woman and her friends. But nei­ther she nor her friends would ever read it if the head­line was “Egypt­ian Psy­chol­ogy.” So in adver­tis­ing. It is com­monly said that peo­ple do not read adver­tise­ments. That is silly, of course.

We who spend mil­lions in adver­tis­ing and watch the returns mar­vel at the read­ers we get. Again and again we see 20 per­cent of all the read­ers of a news­pa­per cut out a cer­tain coupon. But peo­ple do not read ads for amuse­ment. They don’t read ads which, at a glance, seem to offer noth­ing inter­est­ing. A double-​​page ad on women’s dresses will not gain a glance from a man. Nor will a shav­ing cream ad from a woman.

Always bear these facts in mind. Peo­ple are hur­ried. The aver­age per­son worth cul­ti­vat­ing has too much to read. They skip three-​​fourths of the read­ing mat­ter which they pay to get. They are not going to read your busi­ness talk unless you make it worth their while and let the head­line show it.

Peo­ple will not be bored in print. They may lis­ten politely at a din­ner table to boasts and per­son­al­i­ties, life his­tory, etc. But in print they choose their own com­pan­ions, their own sub­jects. They want to be amused or ben­e­fited. They want econ­omy, beauty, labor sav­ings, good things to eat and wear. There may be prod­ucts which inter­est them more than any­thing else in the mag­a­zine. But they will never know it unless the head­line or pic­ture tells them.

The writer of this chap­ter spends far more time on head­lines than on writ­ing. He often spends hours on a sin­gle head­line. Often scores of head­lines are dis­carded before the right one is selected. For the entire return from an ad depends on attract­ing the right sort of read­ers. The best of sales­man­ship has no chance what­ever unless we get a hearing.

The vast dif­fer­ence in head­lines is shown by keyed returns which this book advo­cates. The iden­ti­cal ad run with var­i­ous head­lines dif­fers tremen­dously in its returns. It is not uncom­mon for a change in head­lines to mul­ti­ply returns from five or ten times over.

So we com­pare head­lines until we know what sort of appeal pays best. That dif­fers in every line, of course. The writer has before him keyed returns on nearly two thou­sand head­lines used on a sin­gle prod­uct. The story in these ads are nearly iden­ti­cal. But the returns vary enor­mously, due to the head­lines. So with every keyed return in our record appears the head­lines that we used. Thus we learn what type of head­line has the most wide­spread appeal.

The prod­uct has many uses. It fos­ters beauty. It pre­vents dis­ease. It aids dain­ti­ness and clean­li­ness. We learn to exact­ness which qual­ity most of our read­ers seek. This does not mean we neglect the oth­ers. One sort of appeal may bring half the returns of another, yet be impor­tant enough to be prof­itable. We over­look no field that pays. But we know what pro­por­tion of our ads should, in the head­line, attract any cer­tain class.

For this same rea­son we employ a vast vari­ety of ads. If we are using twenty mag­a­zines we may use twenty sep­a­rate ads. This because circulation’s over­lap, and because a con­sid­er­able per­cent­age of peo­ple are attracted by each of sev­eral forms of approach. We wish to reach them all.

On a soap, for instance, the head­line “Keep Clean” might attract a very small per­cent­age. It is too com­mon­place. So might the head­line, “No ani­mal fat.” Peo­ple may not care much about that. The head­line, “It floats” might prove inter­est­ing. But a head­line refer­ring to beauty or com­plex­ion might attract many times as many. An auto­mo­bile ad might refer in the head­line to a good uni­ver­sal joint. It might fall flat, because so few buy­ers think of uni­ver­sal joints. The same ad with a head­line, “The Sporti­est of Sport Bod­ies,” might out pull the other fifty to one.

This is enough to sug­gest the impor­tance of head­lines. Any­one who keys ads will be amazed at the dif­fer­ence. The appeals we like best will rarely prove best, because we do not know enough peo­ple to aver­age up their desires. So we learn on each line by experiment.

But back of all lie fixed prin­ci­ples. You are pre­sent­ing an ad to mil­lions. Among them is a per­cent­age, small or large, whom you hope to inter­est. Go after that per­cent­age and try to strike the chord that responds. If you are adver­tis­ing corsets, men and chil­dren don’t inter­est you. If you are adver­tis­ing cig­ars, you have no use for non-​​smokers. Razors won’t attract women, rouge will not inter­est men.

Don’t think that those mil­lions will read your ads to find out if your prod­uct inter­ests. They will decide at a glance — by your head­line or your pic­tures. Address the peo­ple you seek, and them only.

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

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