Marketing Matters
Writing winning newspaper ad headlines
By Murray Raphel

Newspaper advertising is one of the most important ways you advertise to your customers. Here are some reasons why you should consider newspaper advertising to attract more customers:

Readership. More than 112 million Americans read the paper every day, and more than 127 million read newspapers on Sunday.

Visuals. A newspaper's combination of text and graphics creates visual appeal that reinforces the message of your advertising. You can do more than just talk about the frames; for example, you can show your best-sellers.

Lead time. You can place your order and give the newspaper copy with a short lead time.

Ease of tracking. Put a coupon in your ad and you can tell how many people read it.

This month, we'll look at writing newspaper ad headlines. Next month, we'll focus on ad copy.

The average person spends four seconds per newspaper page. In those four seconds, they look at the headlines first. Say something that makes them want to stop and read the headline of your ad.

1. Promise a benefit or provoke curiosity. There are only two things that people buy: Solutions to problems and good feelings. Next time you write a headline, stress the benefit of your product, not the product or feature itself. If you sell photochromics (feature), say "They are Clear Inside and Dark Outside (benefit)." Ads with headlines that promise a benefit are read four times more often than those without.

2. Put the product name in the headline. Put your name someplace else in the ad unless it has a special meaning such as: "Only at (your business) Will You Find..." Businesses like to see their names at the top of an ad, but most customers could care less.

3. Long headlines pull as well as short headlines. Headlines with more than 10 words have much better readership than shorter headlines.

4. Have a 'big idea.' Advertising guru David Ogilvy says: "Unless your campaign is built around a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night." Find out what's unique about the product you are advertising and mention them.

5. Sell one idea at a time. Or you'll confuse the reader.

6. Make it "news" worthy. A new product. A new solution. Ads with news in the headlines pull about 20 percent better.

7. Use certain words in headlines. Words that work include new, free, how to, amazing, introducing, guarantee, you, and now. If your ad is directed to a certain audience, put them in the headline. An example that worked: "Sixty Days Ago They Called Me Baldy" You can be sure bald-headed men read that ad.

8. Include a local reference. Supermarkets that promote products grown in their state report a dramatic increase in sales. People want indigenous merchandise.

9. Don't be clever. Headlines written to grab your attention but that have no follow-through don't work. We once wrote a series of ads for snowsuits we bought in Finland. The first week, it said: "We Went to Hel-Sinki and Back to Bring You These Snowsuits." Funny. But didn't sell snowsuits. The following week we ran the same ad, but changed the headline to: "In Our 30 Years in Business, We Never Sold So Much of One Item in So Short a Time." That sold jackets.

10. Put the headline under an illustration. You'll pick up an extra percentage of readers because that's how they're used to seeing a news story. If your ad looks more like an editorial page, your readership will increase.

11. Don't run your headline in caps. Setting your ad in lower case INSTEAD OF SETTING IT LIKE THIS will increase readership. Why? We learn to read in lower case.

12. Make the headline easy to understand. John Caples, an expert in headline writing and former vice president of advertising for BBD&O said, "People are thinking of other things when they see your ad." Don't make them think. Make them act.

13. Make it for your audience. Use a different headline to target a young mother than a 60-year-old grandmother.

14. Tell a story. People like to read stories, and your headline will keep them reading into the body copy, if it's interesting. Here's a headline we used for men's robes: "We First Saw These in the Crillon Hotel in Paris." We actually did, then came home and ordered them for our store.

15. Solve a problem. We found we could monogram a child's name on an inside tag or the front of children's raincoats. Our headline read: "Can't Lose This Raincoat 'Cause It Has Their Name On It." We sold out in three days.

16. Fulfill a dream. John Caples wrote this classic: "They laughed when I sat down at the piano" and it sold courses on learning to play the piano through mail courses.

17. Offer value. After 40 years of writing headlines, I've found there are less than a dozen that work every time. Here's my favorite: "Would you buy a $150 frame on sale for $49.99?" It tells original price, sale price, and makes you want to read more to find out why.

18. Don't forget to use a headline. If you think that sounds unbelievable, look at the automobile and food ads in your local paper. They either have no headlines (just the name of the business at the top) or innocuous phrases like "Mid-Winter Clearance" which mean nothing.

And be ready to adapt your winning headlines. Doubleday Books ran with "Buy Any of These Four Books For 99 Cents" Until someone came up with the same offer, but a better headline: "Buy Three Books For 99 cents--Get One Free."

Raphel Marketing is a marketing and publishing firm that specializes in helping small-to-medium sized businesses do more business through better marketing techniques. You can contact the firm at info@raphel.com.