Ask any copywriter how many headlines they write for a single sales letter or ad, and they’ll come up with a fanciful number.
Something like 75 headlines.
Or 150 headlines.
Or worse, 200 headlines.
So pray, why would you need to write 200 headlines?
I’ll tell you why. You need to write 200 headlines, because you don’t have a clue who your audience really is. Ooh, did I say audience? I didn’t mean to say audience. Because when you start to think of your customer as an audience, you’ve already mucked up your headline writing.
Is this Steve Jobs, or Steve Jobs, or Steve Jobs?
Because the concept of target audience is a myth
And yet, every single day a discussion between copywriters and clients goes like this:
The writer (stupidly) asks, “Who’s your target audience?”
And the client (stupidly) says: “Mothers who juggle home with a growing business.”
And then (stupidly),they go about merrily writing headlines for ‘young mothers who juggle home with a growing business.’ And this exercise seems perfectly logical, until you start to slice and
dice that so-called audience.
Are we talking about Lisa?
Are we talking about Aditi?
Are we talking about Gulnar?
Are we talking about Katie?
Are we talking about Britney?
Because Britney (as in Britney Spears) is indeed juggling home with a growing (or shall we say, dwindling) business. And so is Lisa. And so is Aditi. Not to speak of Gulnar or Katie.
And when writing that headline they’d all be clumped together
Which of course, is a mistake. Because while they form a tidy demographic of young mothers juggling homes with a growing business, they’re not at all alike.
They don’t exactly have the same problems, and most certainly don’t have the same priorities. And yet, like dumbos, we’re off to write a headline that encompasses the lot. We’re writing for 200
mothers. Is it any wonder we have to write 200 headlines?
Ok, so how do we get to writing a single headline?
We dump the ‘target audience’ concept, that’s for sure. And we look at ‘target profile’ instead. So instead of Lisa, Aditi, and yada, yada, we look at one person. Like Katie.
So instead of looking at every single mother who’d wander into that category, we’d look at just one. And we’d see what’s important to her. What does she want from life? What does she want
from her business? And when we start to look at this one person, the fogginess goes away.
Because we’ve stopped looking at this ‘fictional audience’ of nameless, faceless people, and are now concentrating on one person.
A person we know.
A person we can talk to.
A person we can relate to.
And more importantly, a person who can shoot down our headline in a millisecond.
Because we could go to Katie and ask her:
Would Katie take a 20% cut in profits to spend 20% more time with the kids?
Would Katie not tolerate any cut in profit, and still want to spend 20% more with the kids?
Would Katie be quite happy to concentrate on her growing business and grow it by 20%, or even 50%, knowing it will be better for the kids later on.
Aha, now we aren’t tramping around 200 headlines are we?
Because Katie would tell us. She’d tell us what she really wants.
And then she’d go so far as to tell us what her specific problems are. And instead of sitting in our nice, fuzzy headline brain, we’d actually be talking to a real person, with real issues, that
a million Katies would respond to.
A million Katies?
Yup, uno million! Writing a headline just for Katie seems like marketing suicide, but actually it’s quite the opposite. Because a million mothers with the very same problem will look at your
headline and say, “That’s me! This is exactly the service I wanted.”
Weird, huh?
You write for one, but gain the attention of squillions of‘Katies’. Because while the problem may be universal, the terminology that Katie uses will hit the hot buttons of um, squillions of mothers just like her. And when they see that ‘specific product or service’, they’ll instantly realise the ‘specific product or service’ is just what they wanted.
But did you notice I said ‘specific product or service?’
Don’t make the silly mistake of building your entire business around one person. You can only build ONE specific service or product around that person. Why? Because let’s assume we took
Katie into consideration. Let’s assume she chose to spend 20% more time with her darlings, and was quite happy to take the 20% pay cut, as long as the business stayed steady.
Well, the Katie of the year 2007, isn’t the Katie of 2008. And neither is she going to be the Katie of 2009. And we see this with Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers as well. If you gave Steve an
iPod in the year 2002, he’d want a completely different iPod in the year 2005, and quite a different one in 2007.
In effect, Steve Jobs isn’t Steve Jobs
Katie isn’t Katie.
And your customer is not the same customer, year after year, after year. So each product or service responds to a specific customer need at a specific moment in a customer’s life.
Which means you need to sit down with every one of your products. Every one of your services. And allocate specific ‘target profiles’. And these ‘target profiles’ should be real, live people. If you’re writing for Aditi, you should know Aditi. If you’re writing for Gulnar, Gulnar better be around. If you’re creating a product or service for Steve, you’d better be getting Steve’s input.
And then you won’t need 200 headlines
Or 75 headlines. Or whatever.
Because ‘Katie’ will tell you exactly what her problem
is, and how you can solve it.
And that my friend, is the only headline you’re ever going to
need.
Source: http://www.psychotactics.com
19 responses so far ↓
1 Shama Hyder // Oct 30, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Fantastic Post! Here is to all those writers who keep Katie in mind. = )
2 Write Like a King with 26 Tips From Legendary Copywriters // Oct 30, 2007 at 5:23 pm
[...] Headlines: Do You Really Need 200 to Land a Good One? — Attversumption.com [...]
3 Mark // Oct 31, 2007 at 8:02 am
Thank you, that’s a good advice I could use
4 Josh // Nov 2, 2007 at 12:56 pm
That’s great, if you pick the right Katie. I understand what you are trying to say, but what if you pick Britney? It’s still a matter of judgement. You have to make an educated guess as to whether or not Katie is truly representative of a larger group of Katies. (or you have to do research……but thats boring and misleading in its own way) Or is she wacked out weirdo like Britney who will take you down the wrong path. Study several potential targets and choose the one who you think is most representative and then write to her.
5 Sean D'Souza // Nov 2, 2007 at 1:22 pm
She may be a weirdo like Britney, but then there are other weirdos like Britney. The weirdness is what allows high-priced designers, high-priced stores, and high-priced recovery clinics appeal to this weird profile.
And yes, if you pick a weirdo like Britney, you don’t need millions of Britneys to earn a chunky profit.
Just a gaggle of Britneys will do.
6 Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet // Nov 26, 2007 at 3:10 pm
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7 Kexster // Nov 27, 2007 at 6:36 am
Sean,
This is an excellent article. I think you have hit a home run with this article. But, do you think you have gone far enough? Do you stop with one customer? Should you now go and build a page for Lisa, Aditi, Gulnar and Britney?
I think you can bring in 5 times the amount of money by building a landing page for each of these segments.
What do you think?
8 Sean D'Souza // Nov 27, 2007 at 10:33 am
Yes, you can, and should write for five of these segments, but how would you find five of these segments? You could use personas (as outlined by the Eisenbergs: http://www.futurenowinc.com), but that’s probably the only way.
9 Art West // Jan 1, 2008 at 5:40 am
The author of this article is trying to be provocative , but is his/her point true? In any mass communication, ultimately the benefit you offer has to appeal to many, many people. Otherwise, the client is not in business for very long — unless the client is making $500, 000 per customer, you still have to speak to an “audience.”
10 Sean D'Souza // Jan 18, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Provocative? Not really. We run a business based on less than 300 people. Communication doesn’t have to be mass, and doesn’t have to appeal to tens of thousands of people. And more importantly, a business doesn’t need to be making $500k per customer. One $500k customer is probably more money than most small businesses can spend all year.
11 Andy Dalton // Jan 20, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Great article, I’m a believer in this type of thinking for sure. If you chase two rabbits they’ll both get away! Although only 25% of the target market (young mothers etc) may have Katie’s personality or profile, you would have a considerably higher response rate by directly targeting them via a highly focussed campaign than if you had a general campaign targeting everyone! Look for the markets within the market!
12 Chris Shallow // Feb 5, 2008 at 12:24 pm
A very interesting article, Sean. It’s always difficult to define a segment, or even a niche, in practice. The theory is easy enough to understand but . . .
Ideally, we’d all be marketing to a market of one who we know (almost) as well as well as we know ourselves!
Chris marketing lecturer / consultant in Prague
13 iwona // Apr 17, 2008 at 5:31 am
excellent
14 » Great Copywriting ResourcesSearch Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Service // Jun 9, 2008 at 7:07 pm
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15 Barb // Jul 4, 2008 at 8:51 am
I was never a believer in the buckshot approach myself. You might hit several targets but not with enough pellets to bring down any of them. Like keywords, a press release needs to be specific and targeted. It’s the best shot we have at appealing to someone who’s likely to connect with our message.
16 Josh // Jul 4, 2008 at 10:56 am
I commented a while back already, but I get an email every time someone comments, so after thinking about it more I thought I’d comment again.
I think this logic is flawed and really has nothing to do with writing headlines. All you are really doing is substituting the term “target audience” for “segment”. In effect, you are doing nothing different. While yes, when deciding who you are talking to, you should consider the target/segment from a personal point of view, but don’t fool yourself into thinking this is something new. This process is still attempting to develop a message that will be relevant to a larger group. Even when you know what that message is, you still have to craft a good way to communicate that message. Thats why you might write many headlines. It’s the same reason you don’t order the first thing you see on the menu when you go out to eat. You look at your options and choose the one that sounds the best.
17 Sean D'Souza // Jul 4, 2008 at 11:13 am
It’s impossible to change a perception. And if you believe the logic is flawed, then it’s impossible for me to even suggest otherwise.
However…
Most of the people who’ve been through a Target Profile exercise will willingly debate this issue with you. And we spend over five days at a workshop, working on this singular point of ‘Target Profile.’
After five days, you’re in one camp or the other. You either believe it’s hogwash. Or you’re convinced that it’s not. The point is: So far we’ve got no takers in the hogwash category.
And as I said, it’s impossible to prove a point in fifty words what literally takes five days to learn.
We’re not talking about segment at all. We are indeed talking about ONE person. ONE, singular person on the planet. Not a persona, not a segment, but one person.
The analogy with ‘eating a meal’ doesn’t come into play at all, because as far as the person is concerned, it’s a ‘one-dish’ restaurant. That restaurant was built around this one person and one dish.
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19 Thijs van Noort // Nov 30, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Very helpfull, thnx!
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