Headlines do more than get attention. When a consumer reads your headline you have spent 80 percent of your advertising dollar. On average, five times as many people read the headline as compared to the body copy.

The first thing the reader sees, reads or hears can make the difference between success and failure.

Your headline should offer news, helpful information or a promise of reward for reading. No matter how persuasive your body copy or how great your product, your ad cannot sell, if it does not attract immediate attention.

The primary purpose in any piece of writing – whether it be an advertisement, a blog post, or email – is to get your first sentence read. And the purpose of first sentence is get the second sentence read – until it leads to your call to action. This is why a strong compelling headline is so critical to get your customers’ attention.

For copy to convince the consumer to take the next step it must do 3 things – Get Attention, Communicate and Persuade by:

• immediately focusing on the benefit to the reader
• make a promise to the reader that you later fulfill
• back up everything you’ve said with very specific proof

Copy that is written in clear, concise and simple words will get your point across. And no one will ever complain that your writing is too easy to understand.