Marketing
Headlines That Get Read
Most people read your headline and nothing else, which means the headline isn't part of the ad, it mostly IS the ad. Learn what makes a stranger stop, and you've learned the highest-leverage sentence in marketing.
- Beginner
- 13 min total
- 13 chapters
What decision this helps you make: Whether your headline earns the next second of attention, and which of the proven headline patterns fits your offer and stage.
- Related case study: Dollar Shave Club: A $4,500 Video vs. a Century-Old Giant
- Related data & research: What Marketing Spend Can and Cannot Buy
What this topic is
A headline is the first line a stranger reads: the ad's hook, an email's subject, a page's hero, a video's first three seconds. Its only job is to buy the next line of attention.
Why it matters
A large majority of people read the headline and stop. A weak headline throws away the money you spent to put the message in front of them, no matter how good the message is.
Who should learn it
Anyone writing an ad, subject line, video hook, or page hero: the sentence that decides whether all your other words get a chance.
What you will understand
- Why the headline carries most of an ad's weight, and the math behind that
- The four jobs a headline can do (and why it should pick one)
- Proven patterns that consistently earn the second line
- How to write ten, test, and let the reader pick the winner
Prerequisites
Common misconception
"The headline should be clever and intriguing to make people curious." Pure curiosity, a vague tease, mostly attracts the wrong reader and wastes the click. The best-performing headlines are specific and often blunt: they promise a clear benefit or name a clear problem, so the RIGHT reader self-selects. Intrigue that hides what you offer filters for the curious, not the buyer.