The 4 U's
U’s, you say?
4 of them?
Yep, thats right. And they stand for urgent, unique, useful and ultra-specific.
If you can make your headlines and CTA’s fit this model, your readers are going to start getting itchy clicking fingers.
- Urgent – Create a sense of urgency for the reader to act. Perhaps with a deadline, limit or hitting a nerve or touching on an acute pain. This is the least important of the 4, so if it doesn’t quite fit or you think you might be getting a bit too pushy, it’s the one that can be left out. It can also be achieved with phrases like, finally, at last, before, your next... Or with commands such as ‘stop’, ‘don’t’,
- Unique – Amidst all the noise and competition, you have to stand out. You’re most probably not the first person to write about a topic, so be different. Throw in a little known fact, use an unexpected word, use contrast. But once again, be careful. Too gimmicky and you might get a snigger from the reader, but they won’t read your article…
- Useful – As always, focus on the reader. Have you solved their problem? given them the information they were looking for? relived their pain? helped them become all they can be? Let them know they will get value from continuing on and reading the whole article.
- Ultra-specific – This helps the reader know what to expect. For this, use exact numbers and statistics, be precise with your definitions, state explicitly what you’re talking about.
Well? How did I do here? Did my headline above work on you?
Urgent – I’ve said you can improve your headlines in just 54 seconds, which is how long it took me to write the headline for this article. Less than a minute, seems like a small sacrifice to improve your writing, doesn’t it?
Unique – I’ve added in Litotes and colloquialism(not too shabby), a few specific numbers (4 steps, 54 seconds), and perhaps a slightly unexpected word (churn)?
Useful – A sequence to follow to quickly improve one of the most important elements of a text? Sounds useful to me.
Ultra-specific – numbers (4 steps), and hopefully it’s pretty obvious the article is about writing better headlines.
So, did my headline above work on you? let me know in the comments below…
