Well that title made you click didn’t it.
In this busy world you have to grab people’s attention to make them listen or read what you have to say. This goes for any type of communication – a poster design, a TV advert, an article, an email or even a text message.
Social media and the web are awash with articles with spurious titles along the lines of – ‘A man wrestles a tiger’ or ‘A puppy plays Lego with a baby’. The articles gain popularity as curiosity takes over and a lot of people click to have a little look, however they find it is not exactly what was said on the tin. Nonetheless in turn they often share it to fool their peers or just genuinely read the article – despite the title.
One of our most popular infographics was titled ‘This will make you more attractive to girls if you read it’. It was featured on Social Media Today, Marketing Profs, Business 2 Community and many other marketing sites. On the website Visual.ly it has had over 26 thousand views!
The article and infographic itself was about how and why your business needs to be attractive to women as they make most of the purchasing decisions in any household. So the title wasn’t a complete fabrication, just a twist of the truth.
Of course you could argue that the majority of the people who looked at that article are not our target market and would of been looking for some tips and tricks to pull at the weekend. Nonetheless making something go viral like that and for it to be viewed and shared around in the thousands can be valuable for your business.
So when we are faced with email subject headings or opening lines of marketing text messages like ‘Special Offer’ or ‘Deal On’ we can turn a blind eye as it gets drowned out in the streams of sales offers we see all too regularly.
So how do you grab people’s attention and write a great marketing message? We would say dare to be different, creative and brave. The opening line is the most important part so put a lot of thought into it and don’t just settle for run of mill marketing speak that no one will get excited about.
Think about your customers as they open and read your message – would you open it, read it and share it?
If you run a restaurant you could open with:
Empty fridge?
Nothing in the cupboards?
Partners cooking not up to scratch?
We have done a little infographic below that might get your creative juices flowing.
If you have just skipped over the whole article to find out the three steps to treble your wages then here you are…
Work harder, better, faster. There’s a song in there somewhere.