Why there's no formula for writing your headlines
Had I introduced this particular piece with the header ‘Copywriters: better than unicorns and beards’ you may well be expecting a rather different read. Had I titled it ‘Cognitive consumer reasoning on a linguistic and attitudinal spectrum in a globalised Britain’ you’d probably just be thinking about unicorns and beards, or even unicorns with beards, anyway.
Even before Ogilvy uttered his ‘80 cents in the dollar’ principle for advertising headlines, copywriters have grappled over this particular issue like hungry pigeons in a wheelie bin filled with smashed Battenberg.
Dip your electronic toe into Google on the subject of effective headline writing and you will come away with tens of thousands of guides, tips and formulas for crafting the perfect headline.
Taken individually, much of the advice is fairly accurate and insightful, but it is the idea that a stupendous headline can be assembled like a ham sandwich that makes me uneasy. In copywriting, as in all creative disciplines, formula is the enemy of imagination.
Also, treating the headline as a distinct skill (or even worse, an entirely disconnected task) from creating compelling and purposeful copy is a sticky business. This cult of the headline is horribly undermined if it detaches itself, or fails to properly represent, the copy and call to action that follow.
The reason, I believe, that there’s no algorithm for creating a headline is because they are fleeting, momentary bursts of expression. It’s as if a particularly desirable person walks through a room and everyone is allowed to shout out their one best, funniest, cleverest, most captivating sentence at them.
Assuming that a.) there is a universal and pliable collective of potential readers and b.) that those readers have a narrow set of triggers that are unfettered by circumstances or mood, is a recipe for a headline that aims to appeal to the many and yet ends up drifting, beigely, beyond the consciousness.
A particular headline hero of mine is from the classic Volkswagen ad, ‘How does the man who drives the snowplow, drive to the snowplow?’. Measure that against these rules of composition – many of which urge directness and functional clarity – and it doesn’t particularly stack up. Consider it for its wit, charm and intrigue, none of which can be neatly packaged into an equation, and it is simply magnificent. Perhaps then, rather than dismantling and delineating the method of headline writing we should start with examples of excellent end results and understand the process from that end.
The explosion of content marketing, particularly as a substantial extra duty in many copywriter’s roles, has brought about most of these new principles – and there is undoubtedly a place for them in that particular field. But if you’re in search of a captivating marketing headline, a link that promises ‘Three Simple Steps to a Perfect Headline’ isn’t going to be the answer. So if you do still insist that there must be a formula for writing gripping, unforgettable headlines it can only be this: make yourself brilliant at it.