You will be able to write headlines in five patterns: how-to, problem, outcome, question and specific number.
Don't publish the first headline you write. Take one phrase your customers actually used, run it through five headline patterns, write several options in each, and choose the strongest.
Most people write one headline, change a word or two and publish it. That headline is usually the first idea they had, and usually the same idea everyone else in the category had. Professional copywriters use a few patterns that have kept working for decades across ads, emails and articles. They fill each pattern with the reader's own words and then choose between the results.
A headline pattern is a starting shape. It does not write the headline for you. The pattern tells you what to point at, and your voice-of-customer file from lesson 1.4 tells you what to say. Five patterns cover most of what a small business needs: how to, problem named, outcome, question and number.
A how-to headline promises a method. It works because the reader can see straight away what they will be able to do after reading. A strong how-to names the task and then the condition the reader cares about.
Priya keeps a voice-of-customer file of what parents of children preparing for PSLE have told her. In "How to prepare your child for PSLE maths without nightly arguments", the task is preparing for PSLE maths and the condition is no nightly arguments. The condition came from parents in her file who wrote about homework turning into a fight. Without it, "How to prepare your child for PSLE maths" is a headline about a hundred websites already use. How-to suits blog posts, guides, videos and teaching emails, and suits sales pages less well unless the page really does show a method.
A problem headline states the reader's situation so plainly that they recognise it before they decide whether to keep reading. In "Still paying bank fees on an account you barely use", the word "still" suggests the reader has known about the problem for a while and has not got round to fixing it. Problem headlines work best for readers who already feel the problem. In the terms of lesson 2.1, these readers are aware of the problem but may not know the solution.
Three parents in Priya's file had written almost exactly "knows it at home, goes blank in the exam", so her problem headline was "Knows it at home, goes blank in the exam". She invented none of the wording because parents had written it.
An outcome headline describes the result the reader wants in enough detail that they can picture it. A parent can picture "Check her own working before she hands in the paper". Nobody can picture "Achieve academic excellence", which is why it appears on so many websites and persuades nobody.
Outcomes come with a strict rule: promise only what you can deliver. A time frame or a number makes an outcome sharper, as in "Your custom cake, delivered in Punggol the day before the party", and also turns it into a claim you must be able to keep. "Improve two grades in one term" might be true for some students but false for most. If you cannot back an outcome for a typical customer, describe a smaller outcome that you can back. Lesson 3.3 covers the rules on outcome claims.
A question headline invites the reader to answer in their head, and it works when the honest answer is yes. "Does your child understand the method or just copy it?" works for a parent who has wondered exactly that. "Do you want your child to succeed?" fails because the answer is obvious and the reader feels talked down to. "Are you making these mistakes with your CPF?" is risky, because many readers will simply answer no and move on. Test a question by answering it as your reader would. If the honest answer is "yes, that's me", keep it. If the answer is "no", "obviously" or "I don't know", rewrite it as a statement.
A number headline catches the eye because the number promises something finite and concrete. "Three questions to ask before you pay for tuition" tells the reader exactly how much they are signing up for. The numbers must be real: "Five mistakes parents make with P5 maths" must contain five mistakes, and each must be worth reading. A number that backs a claim, such as "312 families taught since 2019" (an example figure), must be true and checkable. Readers believe precise numbers you can back more readily than round, impressive ones, and lesson 3.2 returns to this point. An inflated number does more harm than leaving the number out.
The pattern gives the shape and the customer gives the words. Running one phrase from your file through all five patterns shows how many directions one line can take. Priya started from "goes blank in exams" and wrote one headline in each pattern:
How to: How to help a child who goes blank in exams Problem: Knows the work at home, goes blank in the exam Outcome: Walk into the paper calm enough to show what she knows Question: Does your child know the work but go blank in the exam? Number: Three reasons children go blank in maths exams, and what helps
Not every output is good. Her outcome headline is long and a little soft. The question works because the parents who wrote that phrase would answer yes. One phrase gave her five real options in a few minutes, and none of them sounds like a generic tuition website.
Open your voice-of-customer file and pick one phrase your customers actually used, not your own description of the product. Write a headline from it in each of the five patterns and check each one as you go. For how-to, name the task and then the condition the reader cares about. For outcome, make the result specific enough to picture, then cut it back to what you can deliver for a typical customer. For question, answer it as your reader would and keep it only if the honest answer is "yes, that's me"; otherwise rewrite it as a statement. For number, make sure the number is real, precise and checkable, and that the content delivers it.
Your activity is to write four headlines in each pattern, twenty in all, for one product. Start every set from a phrase in your file rather than from your own description of the product, and expect the first one or two in each set to be the obvious ones. When all twenty are written, choose the strongest.
Pick one product and write four headlines in each of the five patterns. Use at least one phrase from your voice-of-customer file in each set.
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