Copywriting Headlines and Subject Lines

Home Kitchen Cooks and Stay at Home Moms know how to read and write. That's why copywriting is so attractive to those who want to stuff more dollars and cents into the family cookie jar. Here are a few writing tips good to know.

Headlines and subject lines are so important to your messages. These few words immediately impact the success or failure of your message.  Do the words you write grab the readers attention or not? That's the goal. Otherwise, no one will read it.

Most people know a newspaper headline. Good headlines today also refer to "first words" or words that act as 'leading words" for your messages, which is important for today's email, social media posts and text messages due to the brevity associated with electronic transmissions. Ads, notes, telephone messages, reports, manuals, brochures and websites could all use good headlines. 

Here are rules writers typically follow on how to write good headlines for your letters, email messages, web pages and all of your online written communications today.

1. Capitalize the last word in good headlines, no matter how unimportant. 

2. Keep verbs and adverbs capitalized; keep prepositions and conjunctions of four letters or more capitalized; keep those of three letters and less in lower case.

3. Capitalize the following words: No., Not, Nor, Off, So, and Up.

4. Do not capitalize a, and, an, as, at, for, on, if, by, of, in, or, the, to and but, except at the beginning of a head.

5. Capitalize the first word of each line.

By far, the most popular headlines are those which are of the capital and lower case style, with the lines flush left.

Although quite acceptable, centered headlines somehow lack the refinement evident with the most natural appearance of the flush left style. However, subheads, which should always be single lines of boldface, seem out of place when they are not centered.

The purpose of headlines is to capture attention and cause the reader to want to know more. You only have a couple of seconds to persuade the reader that the information that follows makes life better once you read it.

The difficulty with headlines is that they are short. You only have a few words, and those few words have a very big job.

Headline Strategies: Do not write complete sentences for a headline. There is no need for punctuation unless it adds emphasis and meaning. Always write words that capture interest and of course, relate to the story that follows. Here are a few headline guidelines:

• Write direct and to the point.
• Indirect headlines
• Use questions
• How-To
• Testimonials
• Why headlines
• Solution headlines
• Arouse curiosity

When you sit down to write your headline, know who you are writing to. Even though you want to capture any and every reader in the world who might be a buyer, you simply can’t successfully write to a mass audience.

Write your headlines to intentionally isolate and capture the one reader you have identified as having a high propensity to need and want what you sell. When you are successful, your sales numbers go up.

1. Who is your customer
2. How will s/he benefit after owning your product, services, information
3. Does your headline promise a benefit?
4. Are your words lean and specific?
5. Did you write a sales message?
6. Are your words written for the person you identified as your customer?
7. Do your words speak to you