The Headline Breath Test

Do long headlines work? Or are short headlines better?

The answer doesn’t lie in length. It lies in the ability to say the headline aloud in one breath. Let’s assume you sit down and write an absolute stunner of a headline, your next job is to read it back aloud.

Can you read it?

Ok then say this headline aloud: HOW To Recognise Six Difficult Telltale Signs Of Disinterest And Lack Of Motivation In Your Student And Customer.

Ran out of breath, didn’t you? And even if you didn’t quite run out of breath, you’ll still struggle to recall the contents of that headline. And the reason why you need to read the headline aloud, is because that’s what the customer is doing anyway. And if you can’t say it one in breath, you can’t hear it in one breath.

And as a result the headline message gets garbled.

So let’s look at some of the most enduring headlines ever…

1)   How to make friends and influence people.

2)   Do you make these mistakes in English?

3)   They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play…

Ooh, that last one was a mouthful, wasn’t it?

No matter how you try, it’s hard to say: “They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play…” in one breath. So what’s going on here? How come this headline works when it clearly fails the breath test?

It’s called punctuation

If you have a long headline, all you have to do is punctuate. How you punctuate it is totally up to you. You can use brackets. Or an em dash. Or a comma.

So the same headline can read like this:

They laughed when I sat down at the piano (But when I started to play…)

They laughed when I sat down at the piano—but when I started to play…

They laughed when I sat down at the piano, but when I started to play…

And a good reason for the existence of punctuation is to have pauses. When you have that pause in-built into your headline, a reader can read it as if it were two sentences. So even though it looks like one big sentence, it’s really two.

There are lots of things that can cause a perfectly good headline to become perfectly useless. And instead of debating long and hard about the length of headlines, just do the breath test. If it fails, add some punctuation. If it still fails, dump the headline and start again. 😉

—————-

“I thought that I could get by using only the newsletters. That was a huge mistake!”

As it turns out, the newsletters were great at helping me see things from a new perspective.

But what I really needed next was to take ACTION. For that, I needed to know exactly what to do, step-by-step. I’ve gotten more stuff done in the two days after I read the Brain Audit than I did during two years of reading newsletters alone.

Don’t fall into the same trap I did, thinking to yourself, “I get the idea,” or “I can figure out the details on my own.”
Order the Brain Audit now and put it to work in your business,before your competition does!

Stephen Webb, Meta Loop
Memphis, TN USA
Judge for yourself
Read how The Brain Audit can help you…
———————
5000bc—Get on the 5000bc Waiting List:
5000bc now has a Waiting List. The waiting list joining time is approx. 30-60 days. So if you are serious about getting your business to the next level, get on the waiting list now.

“I avoided joining 5000bc for a long time due to the cost, but I am glad I did.”

“5000bc had been recommended by a Caver, and I took a look at it. The cost of joining was small relative to my recent terrible purchase, but I was in no spending mood at the time…understandably.”

Within a couple days of joining, I soon realized that Sean walks the walk and talks the talk. Not only was Sean contributing to the forum, but the caliber and quality of the feedback from other members was invaluable and definitely free flowing.

What I found instantly on 5000bc were answers to my most pressing questions related to my business. That made the cost of joining 5000bc, even after only a week or so of being a member, insignificant relative to the value received.

Peter J. Draper, Equity Transitions Inc., Mississauga, Ontario.
Judge for yourself https://www.5000bc.com
———————
New Products: Introductory Price

1) NEW! Do You Often Hit A Wall Called ‘Writers Block'?
Some days do you feel like you just can't get started? Learn how the core elements of outlining can save you from the misery of writing your next article.

2) Learn how to create drama and curiosity and help improve your web page conversion with visuals.

3) Does your websites, brochures, presentations, etc… confuse your clients? .
Put some sanity into your design, even though you are not a designer?

4) Get ready for 2011!
So year after year you sit down and create a list of things you want to achieve. Then suddenly it's March, and you've not really moved ahead as you'd expected.
Learn Why Most Planning Fails: And The Critical Importance of Chaos in Planning.

5) Nothing bugs you more than a painful client.
A client who hassles you at every step of the way. Learn how to use the power of the ‘six critical questions' to get incredible testimonials—and attract clients that make every day an absolute joy.
———————