Are headlines dead?

Author

Kristof Nemeth
April 03, 2024

Ever since I started studying direct response and comparing its rules to today's standards there has been a question on my mind:

Are headlines still important?

Before you go ahead and bite my head off screaming, "YEAH, they are! Headlines are saint," let me just show my cards and then I will let you make your own conclusions.

So...

Headlines were sacred back in the good ol' days when ads still ran in newspapers when there was no email but rather snail mail, and when you had to write on paper and then go to the printers and print ALL those letters out.

Those newspaper ads were ALL targeting cold people.

Direct mail letters were targeting both cold and warm, but either way, you needed a good headline because people chose what to read based on it.

Everything had a headline.

If something didn't, it didn't get read.

What's the deal nowadays?

Well, ads moved to Facebook, Instagram and all kinds of other social media platforms and digital forms of newspapers. Direct mail became email, and you no longer need to print your copy out.

Whether these are changes for the better or the worse... I will let you decide.

But I think... Headlines lost some of their magical power, at least as far as marketing to warm audiences go.

If you are going for cold people, you obviously need a good headline.

But if you are mailing your email list every single day - or at least regularly - and directing them to the sales pages of your product... That sales page won't need a 10/10 headline.

Why?

Because if people already click the link in your email... They are interested so they will read at least the first couple of sentences of your copy.

You see what I mean?

The job of your headline is to get the right kind of people reading your copy.

But you are already directing the right kind of people to that letter if you are selling your list, and if they are clicking that link they already have that interest, intrigue, and want planted in them.

Of course, a good headline never hurts.

But I think, they lost some of their "magic."

Anyway, I couldn't make this any more controversial even if I were to try... So just go here: