Page 23 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

5 ANOTHER HEADLINE
IDEA—OBJECTION
HANDLING

The trouble with headlines promising benefits is people are so
darned cynical these days. You can’t blame them though. Decades
of being subjected to spurious sales claims and rubbish attempts at
wordplay by generations of hacks have left them about as trusting as
turkeys at Christmas.

For every benefit there’s a reader saying, “Well, you would say that,
but what if . . . ?” And it’s the “what if?” question that lies behind the
“What’s in it for me?” question, whispering poison into the reader’s
ear. “Oh sure,” it says. “They say you’ll lose weight. But you’ll
probably have to eat wood shavings, or stewed grass for a month.
Turn the page.”

The idea

From a cellphone manufacturer
This manufacturer is advertising a cool bit of software that lets
workers pick up their emails on their cellphones without incurring
more costs, a big objection from the finance directors who have to
sign off on this type of corporate expenditure. They do this with a
headline that reads something like this:

Now: email on-the-go without hidden charges.

Whatever you’re selling, you have to overcome your prospect’s
reservations, objections, and “what ifs” before you make the sale.
And doing it in the headline is pretty clever. So a useful little

14 • 100 GREAT COPYWRITING IDEAS