Why You Need Newsworthy Headlines

This doesn’t mean you need to report the news in your headline. “300 Dead on the Gaza Strip” isn’t going to help you sell oatmeal or diamonds or much of anything. What it does mean is that you should be newsworthy.

If you don’t know how to do this, start with stating the most obvious benefit of owning your product. It may be a little better than an existing product on the market or may be completely new. Perhaps it just solves an existing problem a little more effectively.

Whatever it is, use it if it’s new in some way. If your soap has 20% more moisturizing ingredients, state it. If your new vault confounded 99% of professional safe-crackers where industry standard is 88%, use that.

According to Ogilvy, people recall headlines with news 22% more effectively.

This is Part II of our How to Write Effective Headlines series. For other installments see Part I, The Basics of Writing Effective Headlines.