In today’s noisy digital world, where everyone and every company is clamouring to stand out, the advertising battle starts and ends with attention. If you don’t quickly get the attention of your target audience, then you’ve pretty much lost the battle. If you’re using Facebook as a tool in your digital marketing (hopefully you are – see our article, How to succeed with your Facebook marketing in 2017 for more about why you should be using Facebook to build an online presence for your business), then the headline of your Facebook advert is very important. It’s been found that as much as 80% of readers don’t make it past the headline. What’s more, on Facebook, you’re not only competing against other businesses for attention – you’re also competing with people’s family and friends. So the stakes are high when it comes to writing advert headlines that will get your target audience to click through to your specific web page or product offer.
We’ve put together 7 powerful headline writing tips to help you create Facebook advert headlines that will grab attention and get people to click. Here they are:
1. Use numbers
Research shows that headlines that include a number do very well at grabbing attention – oddly enough, headlines that include an odd number have a higher click-through rate than headlines that include an even number. So, for example, if your headline is about “tips for writing better Facebook headlines”, then go with 5, 7 or 9 headline writing tips rather than 6, 8 or 10 headline writing tips.
Using numbers in a headline is also a way to provide ‘social proof’ to increase people’s trust. Just think, for example, of the famous McDonald’s advertising “billions and billions served” – the implication is that it must be good if so many people have been there; or “over 75 million websites rely on WordPress for their existence” – conveys the same sentiment.
2. Create a burning platform
Often, people will need to be given a sense of urgency to get them to click on your advert. In other words, making them feel like they might miss out on a great offer if they don’t. For example, just think of ‘GrabOne’ deals, where there’s a countdown indicating the time left until the end of the deal. In other words, there’s no room for second-guessing the deal, as it will soon be gone (unless you click on the advert and take action).
3. Be clear, precise and to the point
You have three text fields for the copy in your Facebook adverts – the headline, the main text and the news feed link description. Our advice for text in all these fields is the same – keep your copy short and extremely clear.
Facebook adverts are expensive real estate and aren’t there to tell your life story. Instead, use clear and catchy text to attract people to the advert, and then let them click through to your site to learn more about your product or service.
Never write a vague headline that leaves people unsure as to what you’re on about – remember that stat about 80% of people not making it past the headline? You literally have milliseconds to grab their attention or lose them, possibly forever. So, make your headline crystal clear, for example, “Save on autumn travel” or “Autumn Travel – 2 Day Sale”. Headlines like this leave no room for misinterpretation or confusion as to what it’s all about, and they’ve also got that ‘burning platform’ in there too.
A study by web content discovery platform Outbrain found that headlines with 60-100 characters earn the highest click-through rates and that this declines as headlines increase beyond 100 characters. However, Facebook itself recommends that advert headlines that are highly engaging fall between as few as 25 to 40 characters in length.
Whatever you do, just remember to focus on creating something that is easily understood and value-oriented.
4. Include a call to action
Calls-to-action work. Including a call-to-action, i.e. an explicit what-to-do, in your advert makes it easy for a user to click through to your site to learn more about your product, sign up to a service, download an eBook, and so on.
Your Facebook advert should be a ‘lead magnet’ that advertises something specific, rather than just your site or whole service – and the link from that ‘lead magnet’ should point to a dedicated landing page, so you can capture information about your customers easily. If they go straight to your homepage, or to another page on Facebook, then you’ll lose this information and won’t be able to track how well your Facebook advert campaign is working.
5. Define the benefit
Your Facebook advert headline should also make it very clear what people will get out of clicking on the advert. For example, “Activate your 60%-off savings now – sale ends Friday” leaves to doubt about what you’ll get when you click. Notice the use of a number and the inclusion of a sense of urgency. Some other common calls-to-action are things like ‘Learn More’, ‘Shop Now’ and ‘Sign Up’.
When creating your headline, ask yourself questions like:
- What will be people’s motivation be for clicking the call-to-action?
- What will people get when they click through?
- Is what I’m offering useful – will people see value in it?
- Is what I’m offering a unique benefit? (In other words, am I offering something that sets me apart from my competition?)
- Is there a sense of urgency – does what I’m offering to motivate people to act now?
6. Ask a question
Questions make people curious. Research by Outbrain showed that headlines that end in a question mark had higher click-through rates than those ending with an exclamation mark or full stop. If you manage to ask the right question (for your specific target audience) in your advert headline and appeal to people’s curiosity, then they’ll click your advert.
One of HubSpot’s Facebook adverts (HubSpot is a developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing and sales) simply asks, “How well do you rank for SEO?”. The advert works because businesses in HubSpots target audience have a lot to gain by knowing the answer to that question.
7. Use power words
Every single word matters when you write headlines for your Facebook advert. However, there are certain words that are known as ‘power words’ because they leap off the page or screen and grab attention. Here are 7 attention-grabbing word or phrase types that will do the trick.
2. Words that convey ‘you’:
-
-
- Apparently, our brain is activated specifically by hearing our own name or thinking of ourselves. Ideally, every advert would be personalised, but in lieu of that, the word ‘you’ will work just as well. Write your advert headline so it talks directly to your reader, and you’ve got a winner.
-
4. Words that convey a sense of immediacy:
-
-
- The offer of getting something ‘now’ rather than later always seems like the better option – it’s why hire-purchase and the whole “buy now, pay later” concept is so popular.
-
6. Words that imply ‘easy ways out’:
-
-
- Our hectic modern lives put so much pressure on us that any offer of something to make it easier and simpler will get our eye. So, headlines that focus on problems or pain points by promising easy solutions and using words that imply instant results, such as ‘tricks’, ‘shortcuts’, ‘cheat sheets’, ‘checklists’ and so on are eye-catching.
-
7. Words that convey ‘free’ or that tap into greed:
-
- Advertising copywriting is all about AIDA – grabbing Attention, getting Interested, building Desire and motivating to Action. One of the toughest tasks is building the required desire to make the action happen. One way is to use words that convey ‘free’. People love something that’s free. Including the word in an advert is almost guaranteed to catch the eye. Another way is to appeal to a sense of greed by, for example, focusing on the making or saving of money – using words and phrases like ‘bargain’ and ‘discount’ or ‘fortune’, ‘double or doubling’ and ‘make a six-figure income’, or their synonyms, will get push the ‘desire’ button.
Want help to create powerful Facebook adverts?
If you’d like more help to make Facebook an integral part of your digital marketing strategy, including optimising your Facebook adverts so they stand out from the rest, then talk to the team at Net Branding, Auckland’s full-service digital marketing agency. Our experienced copywriters know exactly how to create Facebook adverts to boost the visibility of your brand and drive an increase in quality leads to your business.
We’re just a phone call away – get in touch today!
