7 Must-Know Tricks to Stay on the Ball in ADV Digital

Opening with an offer of “must-know” information regarding year two digital courses creates an offer that year one readers will want to learn about. With their experience of digital classes so far, including professors hyping up year 2 sem 2, their awareness of its importance already exists for us to capitalize on.

The number 7 being the very first thing in the headline is designed to improve click through rates with viewers. The number 7 adds the appeal of a number in the headline and it’s odd which will make the headline more memorable for the reader.[i]

The headline has a low character count to ensure that viewers can read it efficiently before their attention goes elsewhere. A concise headline provides readers eyes with info before they can make a conscious decision to scroll, and its better optimized for search engine results.

[i] Briscoe, W6 How to Write Headlines – Step-by-Step Guide, Slide 10

a. Provide the headline

Why St. Clair College’s Advertising Program has a 90% Employment Rate

b. Provide an overview of the elements missing in the instructions required for this task.

An important element that’s missing from the instructions is what we want these students to do, without having a clear direction of what you want your readers to do they will not do anything. having a clear statement regarding the point of putting this article in front of these students will allow us to have a good direction that we know to guide them in.

The overall goal for this article is also unknown, why are we making students do what they’re doing? What is the purpose for St Clair College to create this message specifically, is this to inform or to drive a purchase?

c. Explain the headline you created, why, and any other reasons/justifications you need to provide to me for the headline you created. (6 Marks)

Based on all the headlines ive created and looked into throughout this assignment, I found that the most attention grabbing ones were asking a question that the article would answer. Viewers in the graduating high school demographic, or even parents, will see this headline offering a breakdown on how this program will likely get you hired and want to click it.

In this headline I also wanted to include a number, as they lure readers in. especially in the context of a program with a very high hiring statistic, people will want to know more about what this program is about.[i]

[i] Briscoe, W6 Headline Secrets

Why Letting Go of Possessions Can Free Your Mind and Spirit

• This headline starts strong by creating curiosity in opening with “why”. This immediately makes readers want to learn more about why, especially if they’re in a position where they’re lacking freedom.[i]
• Stating to free your mind and spirit creates a very personal and emotional connection, creating an attachment to the concept in the viewers mind and in turn creating an urge to find out. Readers will likely feel that they can gain something personal after seeing this, encouraging the read.[ii]
• The topic performed well in SEO during the original search, and to maintain that this headline still includes the key point of letting go of possessions. This section of the headlines is concise and direct, helping to keep control on the character count while helping to rank higher at the same time through being direct to what the article details.

The Hidden Truth About Ownership: Why Nothing Really Belongs to You

• This headline opens with a psychological bias, telling the reader a secret not many people know. This opening incentivises reading the article because they’ll know hidden information by the time they’re done.[iii]
• This headline incorporates a contradictory statement in saying that nothing belongs to you, making it harder for people to interpret the meaning of the headline without seeing the article text. Sometimes when a headline is direct enough a reader can get the gist without even needing to click, and this minimizes that potential. Readers may also want to disagree after reading, leading them to click to learn more.
• Similar to the first headline, this take still explicitly states that nothing really belongs to you, creating an opportunity for good SEO ranking based on having the key point in the title. This also helps to have the headline remain understandable for people coming across it.

How to Let Go of Material Attachments and Find Inner Peace

• Leading the headline with “how to” puts me in the position of the expert and the viewer in the position to learn from me. Similar to a call to action, readers are drawn to instructional headlines so the format of this headline will draw people in.[iv]
• “Find inner peace” is an emotionally driven line, that would resonate with pain points in an audience trying to find that. The idea of finding your inner peace feels personal to the reader, encouraging them to learn about themselves- from an expert thanks to the how to at the beginning.[v]
• This headline contains a toned back CTA to suit the surrounding content, working a little more subliminally to better resonate with the intended audience. Instead of directly utilizing an aggressive CTA “must see” or something along those lines this instead encourages these people looking for inner peace to let go, which they’ll learn more about throughout the article.

[i] Briscoe, W6 Headline Secrets, Slide 6

[ii] Briscoe, W6 Headline Secrets, Slide 12

[iii] Briscoe, W6 Headline Secrets, Slide 19

[iv] Briscoe, W6 Crafting Great Headlines, Slide 46

[v] Briscoe, W6 Headline Secrets, Slide 13

Headline: Nothing Belongs to You

I clicked on this headline because it was a topic I was trying to understand more about. For the longest time I’ve had a vague understanding of Buddhism and how people must feel better thinking things like this, but I felt like I was missing something along the way. I was on Pinterest browsing my homepage and I saw some Buddhist quote which presented me with a bunch of similar results after I clicked on it, where I saw the statement “nothing and no one belongs to you”. I grasped the concept, that people are better off not feeling like they own anything because what they experience is only a fleeting feeling in time- but I wanted to understand it thoroughly enough to implement that understanding into my life. So I searched the same quote, “nothing and no one belongs to you” and this was the second result, a 10 minute long article seemingly breaking down the idea. I clicked this one in specific because it had the quote within the title and the article preview displayed some text that fit how I understood this concept. I likely wouldn’t have clicked on the article if that quote wasn’t in the headline even if the preview said the same thing, because I wouldn’t have known if the point of the article was even about this concept. However, because the preview showed that and the headline was simply what I was trying to understand I decided to give it a try. Taking a step back to see the whole process, I had been passively interested in a concept I had heard about which I was reminded of online, I searched the text that I read and this article detailing it was one of the top results for that query. With this scenario in mind, you can see the importance of a headline for a casual question context- something most people do at least once a day. If this headline wasn’t direct enough about the quote, I was trying to understand any viewer in my situation would scroll past it. This demonstrates how quickly you need to grab someone’s attention, the most common search queries for the average person happen without them even putting thought into specifics about the headline, its whatever can get them to their answer as quickly as possible.

The headline was not entirely representative of the article: as much as the subject matter in the title was expanded on in the post, the hook in the article was that Lu Dort was ejected from the Thunder-Spurs game and that doesn’t get solved in the writing. They take a quote from the Thunder coach during a post-game interview, but all it really breathes insight to is that players have said worse things to referees than Dort did tonight. I find that this isn’t very representative of the title because I was expecting that direct and conciseness to reflect in the body copy but instead the article just dances around what actually happened regarding the hook for the story. Beyond this, the headline mostly represents the article contents, as it delves into the info regarding the other ejections. The writing breaks down how a thunder player was elbowed in the face off-ball and a scuffle started between him and who he was hit by, before security stepped in. The type adds more detail to what was introduced by the headline, but doesn’t go overboard with details of the event- reflecting the conciseness displayed to users initially. As much as the article covers the event from the headline and they represent each other through the writing style, I found that the headline provided exactly enough information to entice me where the copy didn’t end up providing me with enough detail to fully understand what happened. The direct style of writing left the reader hanging on what happened between the elbow and the ejection, truthfully it doesn’t even state that the named players were the ones ejected and you’re only left to assume that a based on the context from the headline.

Headline: Canadian Lu Dort, two others ejected after Thunder-Spurs scuffle

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/canadian-lu-dort-two-others-ejected-after-thunder-spurs-scuffle

This headline resonated with me because it informed me of something I didn’t know about, just enough to know something happened, but not clearly. I wanted more information on what happened during the game to get these 3 people ejected and who the other two people were, which is a working example of the curiosity gap.[i]  The headline provided a perfect teaser of what happened during that game for me to want more knowledge, I had decided to skip the game because the spurs are one of the worst teams in the league but the way this headline presented the game made it seems very exciting. This headline also resonated with me because it brought me the details fast, I likely would’ve continued to scroll if I had to read anything more before getting to the point. In hindsight, I was definitely hooked in three seconds, demonstrating the effectiveness of getting down to it quickly. I personally follow the OKC Thunder because of their two Canadian players, one being Lu Dort. There is an audience for people like myself which this headline calls to directly, hitting that key point for us at the very beginning. This headline being just over 60 characters is an added reason to why its so captivating for me, making me aware that Lu Dort and two others got ejected was just enough info for me to need more.[ii] This directness not only helps people’s ability to quickly skim the title but it also helps for SEO purposes, fitting in the optimal length range for popular sites. The final piece which made this headline get my attention is the strong verbs, making it feel like 3 people were just ejected from a game and this is must-know information. Overall the verbs help to create urgency in the circumstance, reading it still makes it feel like this just happened.

[i] Briscoe, W6 Headline Secrets, Slide 7  

[ii] Briscoe, W6 Class Discussion