5 proven steps for writing the unexpected headline

Think of the last time you passed by a billboard. How much time did you take to look at it? Did it catch your attention? For most people, they spend under 2 seconds scanning the billboard headline to see if its something they'd be interested in. Like billboards, headlines function in a similar manner. Most people scan the headline to see if they might be interested in the article, and you have less than 2 seconds to get the person's attention. Needless to say, the headline is the most critical element in getting your story or article read.

I have worked in advertising and marketing for 20 years and have written thousands of headlines (a few of which you've may have seen on billboards and posters over the last two decades), and I will tell you that headline writing is more of an art than a science. However, if you follow these 5 steps and practice your headline writing, you will soon be a master of grabbing your readers attention and having them dig deeper into your articles.

1) Identify your target audience - Not every article is for everybody. Personally, I'm interested in music, literature, soccer, new technologies, marketing and world news, so I naturally gravitate towards those topics. In addition, I could care less about the royal family, celebrities and reality TV, so I naturally gravitate away from those topics. Your article will have a certain target audience - it may be large, and it may be small, but it's out there somewhere - and you should be conscious that audience's needs, wants and desires.

2) Find the hook in your article - What's the one idea, the one element in your article that would make your target audience stop and listen? Whatever it is, that's your hook. Some people might call this the thesis statement of your article, but this goes a bit further than that. Your hook answers the question that your target audience is asking in their head. For example, if your target audience is saying "I'd really like to know what new jazz artists are out there?", then your hook is "Announcing an amazing new jazz saxophonist." The key here is to limit your hook to a single idea. One problem with many headlines is that they try to say too much and end up saying nothing. Keep your hook basic and straightforward.

3) Write the "bad" headline - Great headlines capture your idea in 8 words or less, and most people struggle to come up with that one masterstroke phrase on the first go. I'm a very experienced headline writer and I often write 30-40 headlines before I come upon the right one. So, before you try to write the perfect headline, write the bad headline.

For example, if you are writing an article about a new jazz saxophonist whose album you just bought and think it's fantastic, start by just writing "New, relatively unknown jazz saxophonist has just released a fantastic new album." I know, it's long and relatively unspectacular. But it has all the essential ideas you want to get across. He's a new jazz artist. He's not familiar to the reader. And his new album is a must-have for jazz aficionados. Once you have your bad headline written, you now have the essential message that you need to craft into a headline.

4) Give the reader something beyond the ordinary - When people scan headlines, they are looking for something beyond what they already know, beyond what they've already seen and heard. This is why headlines that begin with words like "announcing" and "introducing" still pack a punch, regardless of their overuse - because they create the anticipation of learning something new.

In my headline for this article, I used two words to express why this article is beyond the ordinary. I used the word "proven" because most articles on headlines offer up ideas and guidance, but they aren't all proven techniques that have worked in the real world like mine have; "proven" is what sets my article apart from the others. I also used the word "unexpected" to express something that is beyond the ordinary. I could have used the word "sticky", but that word certainly isn't beyond the ordinary. I could have used the word "explosive", but hyperbole doesn't really work well anymore because it, too, is rather ordinary. Instead, I used a word you don't normally hear when describing a headline.

5) Tease them so they want more - Every great headline has a tease, something that draws someone in to learn more. Great headlines don't try to tell the whole story; instead, they try to get someone to read the whole story. In my headline for this article, I teased you with the "5 steps", giving you a taste of what's to come. You could also say that the word "unexpected" is also a bit of a tease, because you may have wondered what an "unexpected headline" actually is. I've written many headlines that are complete teases; for example, a while back I worked on an ad campaign for Toyota when they released two new SUV models, brining their total SUV line to five models. So I came up with the headline "4x4x5" to emphasize that they now had five 4x4 models to choose from.

As for our hypothetical article about a great new jazz musician, an unexpected headline would be "Unknown new jazz artist releases an instant classic." The words "new" and "instant classic" put this headline beyond the ordinary, and the word "unknown" teases the reader to find out more about this artist.

Keep these five steps in mind when writing your own headlines and you will soon be causing readers to rubberneck and come back to your ideas and articles.