Colloquialisms make great headlines
When copyeditors at The Oregonian needed a headline for a piece on car seat safety, they wrote:
NO, YOU’RE NOT THERE YET
New pediatric guidelines call for the little ones to stay in their safety seats a lot longer
Searching for a good headline? Use a quote, colloquialism or sound bite. That’s what these winners of the American Copy Editors Society’s (ACES) 2011 National Headline Contest did. How can you model these masters?
Five … four … three … two … ‘one more time’ for NASA
With Atlantis liftoff, shuttle program is just days from end
— copyeditors at The Star-Ledger
This divorce just isn’t working out: Will you (re)marry me?
Brain chemistry and the simple passage of time can bring couples back together
— Rick Schindler, copyeditor at Today.com/MSNBC.com
Omaha chamber asks business to come, stay
Efforts to lure entrepreneurs from Illinois brought a do-it-yourself dog wash to Omaha.
— copyeditors at Omaha World-Herald
Honestly, who is Abe Lincoln?
Nationwide test reveals history to be American students’ worst subject
— copyeditors at The Dallas Morning News
Sir! I have broken a leg, sir!
At Marine boot camp, injuries once routinely disdained are now treated with a sports medicine approach.
— copyeditors at The Los Angeles Times
What colloquialisms could you use
for your next feature headline?
Lift Ideas Off the Page
Reach nonreaders with display copy
Once you’ve written your headline, David Ogilvy famously said, you’ve spent 80 cents of your advertising dollar. That’s right: Display copy — headlines, captions and callouts, for instance — gets the biggest ROI of everything we write.
That’s why I’m often amazed that the same folks who spend hours polishing the analogy in the seventh paragraph of their message toss off a headline in the 17 seconds before happy hour on a Friday afternoon. Most of your readers will never read the seventh paragraph. But many more will read your display copy.
People don’t read. So how can you reach them with words?
At Catch Your Readers — our two-day hands-on persuasive-writing master class on Oct. 2-3 in Dallas — you’ll learn how to put your messages where your readers’ eyes really are — to use your display copy to pull readers into your message, make your piece more inviting and even communicate to flippers and skimmers. Specifically, you’ll learn how to:
- Reach “readers” who spend only two minutes — or even just 10 seconds — with your piece.
- Avoid dropping the piece of display copy that 95% of people read — but that many communicators forget.
- Run a simple test on your message to ensure that even folks who will not read your message no matter how well you write it still get your key ideas.
- Make your copy 47% more usable by adding a few simple elements.
- Pass the Palm Test to make your message look easier to read. Because if it looks easier to read, more people will read it.
Learn more about our Dallas master class.
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