Great headlines make great promises.

Great headlines are specific, relatable, and framed around your audience’s perspective.

Let’s take a look at an example and rewrite it.

Ballpark’s Uninspiring Homepage Headline

Let me first say that I don’t think Ballpark’s original headline is terrible.

They say what they do in a straightforward way. It’s short and simple. And maybe their audience already knows what they do.

But if they asked me to audit their homepage and improve the headline, I would be more specific.

I would understand their audience and what the audience wants from Ballpark.

My Process of Improving it

The first step to improving this example is recognizing three specific things:

1. What does the audience want and need?
2. What is the dream outcome that the audience wants?
3. What obstacles stand in the audience’s way?

Let’s answer these questions:

1. The audience wants fast, reliable user feedback on early-market concepts (design or messaging)
2. Teams can launch products with confidence and it’s backed by user data is the dream outcome
3. False confidence, lack of time, and resources are the obstacles

With this information, we can start to paint a picture for the reader. We can understand what they want.

They are imagining what it would be like to ship a product with 100% confidence and clarity.

That helps shape our headline.

The Rewrite

This is what I came up with in my rewrite.

I could have shortened it and said “Know if your product works before it works,” but I wanted to put the reader in a frame of mind.

I want to paint the picture for them.

And it tells a better story.