It’s hard to attach a specific value to good copy. It can’t really be measured. But good copywriting can enhance clients’ trust in your brand, and it can make them more likely to promote your brand further. So it’s well worth considering the importance of two key elements in copywriting: headlines and theme.
A powerful headline is critical in any medium. It’s a common axiom that good copywriters should spend half of the entire time spent on a piece on the headline itself. On average 8 out of 10 people will read a headline but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest of the piece. So it’s easy to see why it’s essential to downright obsess over a headline to get yourself ahead of that average.
Advertising legend David Ogilvy rewrote this famous auto ad headline 104 times:
At 60 miles per hour, the only thing you hear in the new Rolls Royce is the ticking of the dashboard clock.
And master copywriter Gene Schwartz often spent an entire week on just the opening 50 words of a sales piece – the headline and the first paragraph. The goal is simply to get the reader to keep on reading to the next sentence, and the next, and so on to the action step. You don’t want to be part of that 80 percent that loses its audience in the first step.
Once the headline has pulled readers in, a well-constructed theme is essential to keep them reading, particularly in longer pieces that include diverse articles and columns. Herman Melville said, “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” And while you may not be writing Moby Dick, theme has as big a part to play in all writing. It’s all too common for theme to take a backseat to ROI and conversions. But in the hands of a skilled writer, they can be natural by-products of a well-crafted theme. Selecting topics that align with a theme starts with audience analysis. Why do people consume your content? How can you help and inspire them?
These are exactly the services that good content managers provide. Putting the art of writing into the hands of qualified crafters like our Masterpiece Marketing specialists is a wise investment in producing the best for your clients.