Sphinn - Clever vs. Descriptive Headlines: Which Works Better?

39
Sphinn It!

Clever vs. Descriptive Headlines: Which Works Better?

Went Hot: October 24, 2007 - 9:12 am
Posted By: DoshDosh 621 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.copyblogger.com)
Category: Other Online Marketing

If your goal is to have a few readers who think you write clever headlines, keep it up then. If your goal is to enlighten lots of people with what you have to say, be descriptive instead.

4 Comments

Who Desphunn This (0)

Comments

from baiduyou 620 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

No wonder Gyles Brandreth does so badly on Digg.

I expect the two other people on this site who have ever seen Countdown are probably nodding sagely right now.

from SamFreedom 620 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

I'm not an authority in the sense that I'm more interested in financial freedom than in sitting at home in the dark trying to tweak Adsense-riddled blogs to the top of the search engines but I have experimented with both clever and descriptive headlines and have found that it doesn't have to be an EITHER/OR question.

If you have the mojo, it's not a big stretch to developing clever, descriptive headlines.

It's like the older bull saying to the younger bull, as they both looked over a field of cows, "Why run over and grab one, when we can just walk over and have 'em all?"

Thing is, if your posts are with proper keywords and tags, etc, so that your posts are appearing within the sphere of your target audience, being clever can easily get more people to open the post. At that point, it's no longer academic - a luxury that we can all too often take for granted when basking in the comfort of a forum thread....

"People BUY on EMOTION and rationalize it all afterwards."
- a simple marketing truth.

...once people are in your site, they have the opportunity to see if they like your overall tone and writing style. They have the opportunity to explore further; and they have the opportunity to subscribe for updates... or to bookmark something.

As long as the title isn't deceptive, or outright ridiculous or unrelated, there's no harm in a little flash in order to get people to taste your unorthodoxy.

This reminds me of "Bingo Lady Syndrome." A bunch of ladies sitting around playing bingo talking about how much they hate "those damn popups!" but we know they're saying that from the luxury of their bingo-and-cigarette-smoke-induced stupor. When, in reality, 1 tastefully served unblockable popup runs a 1 in 4 chance of snagging any one of those bingo parlor scholars.

Darn good question... ;-)
Sam Freedom
ps. Here's 2 examples, by the way. I just wrote about this:
Stupid Subject Lines... Don't Be An Internet Marketing Celebrity Amateur
then, after getting yet another batch...
Gajillions of Dollars in Just 7.35 Minutes!

from unglued 619 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

No one said that descriptive headlines can't also be clever. The point was that clever alone generally doesn't cut it, because at a glance (and that's all you get) people can't tell why they should bother to read.

from SamFreedom 619 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Then the conversation should reshift focus to whether or not a headline is really clever. A clever one wouldn't leave people confused as to whether they should bother to read it or not; hence the term CLEVER.