3 Easy (and Slightly Radical) Ways a Headline Can Spark Content Marketing

3 Easy (and Slightly Radical) Ways a Headline Can Spark Content Marketing

August 4, 2016 2:03 pm
Professionally written headlines like this one from Men's Health magazine can inspire your content marketing.

Professionally written headlines like this one from Men’s Health journal can encourage your content material marketing.

Turn content material marketing creation on its proverbial head and generate nice content material marketing concepts from killer headlines with these straightforward tips.

If you requested two skilled writers whether or not you need to write your headline earlier than or after you compose your content material, you’d get three solutions and nonetheless not be sure. Some may argue (I am often considered one of them) that content material marketing ought to begin with a narrative and result in a headline. But for this text, I’ll discover 3 ways to provide you with a enjoyable headline, which, in flip, might encourage a narrative in your firm’s content material marketing.

B. The Magazine Headline Method

Several years in the past, writing guru and entrepreneur Brian Clark described what he referred to as “The Cosmo Headline Technique for Content Inspiration.”

The concept is straightforward sufficient. Clark would have you ever decide up the present difficulty of Cosmopolitan journal and steal its headlines on your personal. In his article concerning the method, Clark gave a number of examples. Here are the Cosmopolitan headlines and the concepts they sparked for Clark.

  • “The 22 Best Relationship Tips Ever” — “My 22 Best Design Tips Ever”
  • “Guys Spill: White Lies They Tell Women All the Time” — “Realtors Revealed: The Little White Lies We Tell Clients (and How to Stop)”
  • “Get Ahead Faster: 12 Brilliant (and Slightly Badass) Ways to Do It” — “Run Faster: 12 Effective (and Slightly Badass) Ways to Just Do It”

With a brand new Cosmo-impressed headline in hand, Clark would proceed with article creation. You can use an identical strategy to generate headlines after which use these headlines to drive your article.

To additional the instance, I visited Men’s Health journal’s website and took three headlines and reworked them for on-line retailers.

Men’s Health: “Why Mark Wahlberg Wakes Up At A:10 a.m. Every Single Day”

Headline for a health gear retailer: “Why Fit Moms Wake Up at A:10 a.m. Every Single Day”

Men’s Health: “25 Lower-Body Exercises That Are Better With a Mini Band”

Headline for a kitchen provide retailer: “25 Low-Calorie Meals That Are Better with Mint”

Men’s Health: “The Best Exercise For Skinny Calves”

Headline for a farm and ranch provide retailer: “The Best Cures for Skinny Calves”

Let the magazine headlines inspire your content. In this example, an article about calves becomes an article about a different sort of calves. <em>Calf photo: Regina on Flickr.</em>

Let the journal headlines encourage your content material. In this instance, an article about calves turns into an article a few totally different kind of calves. Calf photograph: Regina on Flickr.

To put this plan in motion, decide one in every of your favourite magazines, seize a number of headlines, and convert them for your corporation. Armed with these headlines, write the articles that make them actual.

P. Cheat and Let a Machine Do It

Consider letting a machine provide you with concepts for you. There are many instruments and on-line providers that may generate headlines for you utilizing a key phrase you provide.

Consider utilizing key phrases out of your firm’s website, the names of merchandise, or random phrases that you would be able to see from wherever you occur to be. At the time of writing, I was snacking on pink, seedless grapes. So I used “California Sweet Grapes” as my key phrase phrase.

Here are some instance headlines and a hyperlink to the generator that spawned them.

Portent’s Content Idea Generator:

  • “H Unexpected Ways California Sweet Grapes Can Give You Better Hair”
  • “The Hunger Games Guide to California Sweet Grapes”
  • “What Mom Never Told You about California Sweet Grapes”

HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator:

  • “10 Quick Tips about Grapes”
  • “What Will California Be Like in one hundred Years?”
  • “15 Best Blogs to Follow about Sweet”

Tweak Your Biz Title Generator:

  • “Give Me 10 Minutes, I’ll Give You the Truth about California Sweet Grapes”
  • “How to Turn Your California Sweet Grapes from Blah into Fantastic”
  • “Master the Art of California Sweet Grapes with These H Tips”

Here the thought can be to select a headline you want and create the article it describes.

A. Use an Exquisite Corpse

The beautiful corpse method might have began as a parlor recreation. Players would take turns writing on a bit of paper. Each successive contributor would attempt to carry the story ahead.

This method can be utilized to create headlines, which may encourage your small business’s content material marketing.

For instance, I wrote the phrases “How to” on an envelope and handed it to my sixteen-yr-previous son. “Write a few phrases,” I stated.

He added “construct a” and handed the envelope to his thirteen-yr-previous brother, who contributed, “huge pizza.” Finally, my spouse acquired the envelope and wrote “in a small kitchen.”

The ensuing phrase, “How to construct an enormous pizza in a small kitchen,” might make an excellent headline for an internet retailer promoting baking pans, for instance.

Try the beautiful corpse method with buddies, household, or coworkers. Once you could have a headline, will probably be time to put in writing your story.


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