Training: Writing Effective Headlines

October 2006 Communications Training: How to Write Effective Headlines

Extra, Extra, Read All About it!

Nowadays the most common form of communication among companies is through email, but most people don’t have time to read it. Most full-time employees spend as much as 20% of their workday reading and responding to email. In a future training we’ll discuss how to manage your email and keep your messages for concise and more efficient reading.

The goal of communications is to entice your readers to read. You know the goal of marketing—it’s the same concept. You need to draw them into your message. And that drawing power begins with the heading of your message. You may not be writing taglines for magazines, but the headings that you write in emails and other correspondence also need to draw attention. And for your reader’s sake, change them up a bit! Announcing a new promotion? Make it lively and exciting! Sending a weekly update? The action of sending the email might be mundane, but the message doesn’t have to be.

Types of Headings
Your headings will vary depending on what type of communication medium you are using and who you are writing to. Let’s look at the differences.

Print (Newsletters)
Headlines are tightly associated with photos, decks, subheads, and the body of the article—all of these can be interpreted in a single glance. Therefore print headlines have more flexibility in what can and cannot be written because they have the rest of the document to back them up.

Online
Headlines must be able to stand on their own, and here’s why. Headlines can also be interpreted and displayed out of content, and this also goes for email subject headings. Online information is also often restricted to a smaller field of view or contains text only, which makes it harder for the reader to interpret the entire message at once.

How to Write Email Headings
To readers, your email heading is like a list of news stories displayed on a media site—they’ll only read the most interesting or those that seem to personally apply. Here’s how to make them interesting:

1. See if you can summarize the content of the email in one sentence. Think of it as writing an abstract for a paper. How does the information relate to the user?
   
2. Don’t be overly demanding. Messages such as “Read Me!” are not effective. Soon no one will read emails with this subject ever again.
   
3. Use direct, clear language to tell your reader what to expect. Don’t try to use teasers—spam messages also excel in this method, which become can become irritating and confusing to the reader.
   
4. Try to skip articles such as “the” and “a” in headings so your email doesn’t get organized with a myriad of pages that begin with “the.” (However, this is ok to use in headlines that are embedded within a page.)
   
5. The first word should portray significance such as the name of the company, or a person or concept discussed in the body of the message.

Examples of Good Email Headings
As examples, let’s review some of our most recent correspondence and their related headings:

Important Policy Reminder: Third-Party Advertising Materials

Important is a word that holds its own. Policies are something that every customer should try to adhere to, and when reading it they’ll know that this email is about third-party advertising materials and nothing more.

Germany Update – Seven Articles in Four Weeks

If we had used a headline such as “Guess Who Got Seven Articles in Four Weeks?” or “A Market of Publicity,” you wouldn’t be able to tell where or what the scope of this message was going to be. But having defined the geography and the specifics in the heading, it’s much easier to tell.

New Spokesperson: Surf Life Saving Champion

This headline speaks for itself—you’re not going to open the email and read about a spokesperson from our animal products.

Customer Service Hours Expanding Sept. 18

This headline itself should have delighted customers everywhere and is definitely able to stand on its own.