Does Your Leaflet’s Headline Grab Attention?

The most Important Element of your Leaflet is the HEADLINE

The headline is the most prominent words in your leaflet – it will normally be at the top of the leaflets but does not have to be.  These should be the first words that the reader sees.  It is, therefore, vital that your headline grabs the reader’s attention immediately.  If it does not then it is likely that your leaflet will go straight into the bin without ever being read.  A simple change to a headline can produce a huge increase in response rates.

Remember that the main purpose of the headline is not to sell your product it’s just to get people to read the rest of your leaflet.

Remember that people are not interested in you or your business, they are interested in what your products or services can do for them to make their life easier, to save money, to look or feel better, etc. Your headline should, therefore, be focused on the reader and not on your company so if you have the name of your business in the headline, it, get rid of it and replace it with something that is going to be of interest to the reader.

For example, say you run a company that specialises in search engine optimisation.  Which of these headlines do you think would be most likely to get the reader’s attention?

Joe Blogs Ltd Getting Your Company Recognised by Search Engines

or

TOP FIVE GOOGLE RANKING OR YOUR MONEY BACK!

Start looking at the marketing material that you receive, whether it is in printed or electronic form.  Which are the headlines that catch your attention?  Which are the subject headings in e-mails or texts that get you to open it?  By looking at what other people are doing, you will learn what works and what does not.  You can then start to apply these lessons to your marketing materials.

The two-second test

In general you have a maximum of 2 seconds to get the attention of the person picking up your leaflet.  Consequently a good way to check if your leaflet design is effective is to put it behind your back, show it to someone for 2 second and take it away again.  Then ask them what they saw.  If they can’t tell you or see something that is not important then go back to the drawing board.

Remember that there are no right and wrong answer so be adventurous with your headlines and test then to find out what works and what does not.  You may, for example, send out three mailings to a small sample from the same demographic group using a different headline in each.  By measuring the response you get from each you will gain an understanding of which works best and can then use that in a larger distribution.