The importance of headlines in your presentations
There is a simple step for you to take in order to dramatically improve the clarity and efficacy of your presentations: creating a headline!
A headline is one sentence that encapsulates your entire presentation. The core message. The ONE THING that you want people to remember.
If you were a journalist who’s writing a piece about your presentation, what would the title be?
A well-defined headline provides you with a cornerstone for your presentation: a strong, take-home message that your audience will remember.
On the other hand, if you fail to have a clear headline in mind your presentation will likely be vague and overloaded with information.
Steve Jobs, the headline master
Steve Jobs always made use of headlines for Apple’s products. In 2001 he introduced the first iPod: the headline was “1000 songs in your pocket”. That’s it!
A set of 25 characters was all Steve Jobs needed in order to define the iPod. He stated this headline over and over again during the keynote, and all the information provided in almost an hour was somehow related to “1000 songs in your pocket”. The size and weight of an iPod were so that you could carry it in your pocket, the hard drive was big enough to store 1000 songs, the skip protection was 20 minutes so that you could keep listening to music whatever activity you were doing.
At the end of the presentation, the audience was convinced about one thing: Apple just created a device that allows people to carry 1000 songs in their pocket.
Headlines are not topics
You just came back from a business trip where you met some potential customers. The board asks you to deliver a quick presentation about your findings and your negotiation. What is your headline?
Good examples are:
- “We can close the deal if we lower our price by 10%”
- “I don’t think these customers are reliable”
- “The customers are interested and will sign the contract”
These are all good headlines because they summarize the scope of your presentation in one sentence.
Bad examples are:
- “Report from my business trip”
- “Pros and cons of dealing with these customers”
- “Informing the board about the results of my business trip”
Why are these bad? Because they don’t show your scope. They lack a take home message. They are just generic titles that you could use to name the PowerPoint file.
A headline is strong and impactful and is used to convince your audience about something. It is a core message, not a piece of information.
How to create a great headline
According to Carmine Gallo, author of The presentation secrets of Steve Jobs, an effective headline should have three attributes:
- Short. The headline must be short, so that it can be easily remembered. There is no strict length policy, but as a rule of thumb it should fit into the 140 characters of a tweet. It should be short enough for people to remember it, but should still encapsulate the core message of your presentation.
- To the point. The headline must be very specific. “1000 songs in your pocket” is unambiguous. It is not “A lot of songs in your pocket” or “All the music you want in your pocket”.
- Benefit the audience. Your audience must see a personal advantage based on the headline. The iPod brought a clear benefit since people could carry 1000 songs (often referred to as an entire music library) into their pockets, so this device was solving a real problem.
My advice, when creating your own headline, is to focus on the last two attributes first. Understand why and how your presentation is benefitting your audience, what useful information they can take home from it, and describe it in a very specific way. Once you are happy with the result, try to shorten the message so that it can fit in a tweet.
Author’s note
Next time you have to deliver a presentation, find a headline for it. A message or an idea that you want people to remember. If you can’t find one because your only purpose is to inform your audience about facts and data, just send an email.
