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The 4 U's of eye-popping headlines

The 4 U's of eye-popping headlines

Stop your readers from bouncing to another page.

Joe Portsmouth
February 21, 2024

Welcome to the 57th issue of Write On!

The newsletter that recently discovered reese's with reese's puffs and now there’s no turning back.

In today’s issue I’ll be covering:

Writers who use AI will replace those that don’t
The 4 U’s of eye-popping headlines
Top finds this week, including how to stand out using the Purple Cow method

Estimated read time: 2 minutes 53 seconds

Want To Stay Relevant As A Writer?

Are you worried ChatGPT will…

Replace you as a writer?
Make it harder to land new writing projects?
And make it even more difficult to stay ahead as a writer?

Then you need to learn how to write with AI (not ignore it).

This FREE email course will help you:

Use AI to write ANYTHING
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Thanks so much for the feedback last week! It really helps to understand what you’re all working on so I can choose the most relevant topics to write about each week. I’m going to keep this section in here moving forward.

A quick poll so I can write better newsletters for you:

Do you write your own copy?

The 4 U’s of eye-popping headlines:

8 out of 10 people will read your headline.

Only 2 out of 10 people will read the rest of your copy.

The data is clear. Headlines make or break you.

To write better headlines, you have to incorporate at least one of the 4 U’s:

1. Unique:

Between social media, work, everyday life, etc. you’re always competing for your reader’s attention.

How do you stand out in a Sea of Sameness?

Be unique.

Yes… it’s easier said than done.

And that’s why most people take the lazy way out and try to be like everybody else.

But you’re not like everybody else.

So here are 3 ideas help you write unique headlines:

2. Ultra-specific:

We’ve talked about this topic a few times over the past year.

And it pops up here again. Can you tell this is an important copywriting concept? ;-)

There are 5 ways you can be more specific with your copywriting:

Specific about who
Specific about length
Specific about location
Specific about the problem
Specific about the objection

Click here for some examples of each.

And if you want to crank up the specificity even more, consider splitting up your copy based on the 5 stages of awareness.

3. Urgent:

This one is pretty self-explanatory, and you’ve probably seen it the most often:

“Limited-time only:”
“Today Only:”
“Flash Sale:”

These are classic examples and have their place… BUT they are overused and not unique.

So, how else can we create urgency?

Glad you asked. Here are 3 unique ideas to help you create urgency in your headlines:

Convey an immediate benefit
- e.g. “Unlock instant savings (up to 63%)”
Use a uniquely specific deadline
- e.g. “Sale ends in 101 minutes: Grab your copy today”
Poke the pain point / highlight the cost of not taking action
- e.g. “Stop boring your readers to tears (try this copywriting technique instead)”

4. Useful:

How do you decide if an article is worth your time to read?

You probably make that call right after reading the headline.

And the most important question that goes through your head is some version of:

Why should I care?
How does this help me?

It’s the main criteria I think of when writing subject lines for this newsletter.

How is this going to help you, the reader?

Let’s look at today’s headline and subheadline, for example:

Headline: “The 4 U's of eye-popping headlines”

Subheadline: “Stop your readers from bouncing to another page.”

Unique + Specific → “The 4 U’s of…”
Useful → “eye-popping headlines”
Urgent + Useful → “Stop your readers from bouncing to another page.”

💥 How to take action: Ogilvy says he tried to write 20 headlines for every piece of copy he wrote (knowing how important it was to the success of the campaign).

You might not write out 20 headlines for every piece of copy you write, but you should check off at least 1 or more of the 4 U’s with your final headline.

Top Finds This Week:

📖 Storytelling: 9 Lessons From The TOP 1% of Storytellers: (link)

🖼 Frameworks: How to stand out using the Purple Cow method from marketing genius Seth Godin: (link)

📜 Principles: Quick copywriting hack: Write conversationally like this: (link)

✍️ Write On: Are you selling vitamins or painkillers? How to position your product like a copywriting pro: (link)

That’s all for this week! See you next Wednesday.

Which topic do you want to learn about next?

Cheers,

Joe