How to Write an Emotionally Compelling Headline

I was looking through some of my old posts and wondering to myself why some of them are popular and others are not. And I thought to myself why not do some research into the art of writing a good post.

There are lots of lists containing tips and soon I was reading these seven from OptInMonster:

1. Know your audience
2. Write Compelling Headlines
3. Add Subheadings to break the page
4. Use Bullet Points
5. Add Images
6. Optimize for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
7. Add (a) Clear call-to-action

Most of those are not relevant to me, but number two caught my eye (as any good headline should) so I read that section. I found the following tool referenced:

Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer

So I had a go.

Here are a few headlines that I randomly thought of:

• the worst thing that can happen is being ignored (11.11%)
• why can’t you love me, you fool! (57.14%)
• Please don’t ignore me Mom (60.00%)

The percentage indicates the Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) and denotes the ability of the headline to engage with customers in a deep and emotional way.

Then I thought, why not try some documented examples of good headlines (as recommended by some random blog). Here’s what happened:

• The Best Ways to Do Market Research For Your Business Plan (36.36%)
• The Easiest Way to Become a Successful Writer (25.00%)
• The Quickest Way to Deliver Your Message? Make It Visual. (10.00%)

As you can see, the scores were significantly worse than mine so I promptly went back to my own line of thought. Pretty soon I’d produced the perfect headline, which is (drum-roll):

• “Please love me sweet Mommy” (100.00%)

I knew that Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing that I got from the Chartered Institute of Marketing would come in handy some day!

Noting that point five (see above) was all about images I searched the web for a picture of a child at a window looking lost and lonely so that it would fit in with my title. I found a good one, cropped it and popped it in the post.

Then I skimmed this site: Creating Emotion in the Reader so that I had some idea of what to put in the body of the post. This gave me some good tips and so I wrote a story on the basis of that advice.

The result is here: Please Love Me Sweet Mommy.

Predictably, it has totally bombed (so far). Since it was published four hours ago it has only had six view and five likes. It’s a good conversion rate but it does not seem to be hooking readers.

Still, it’s a journey, right? I’ve gone through a process and enjoyed what I’ve done. The rest is up to you. And you are one thing that I can’t control. Unless, of course you’re amenable to a polite request? Read my post you fool!!!

To conclude – here’s a random picture to sweeten your eyes: