“Make Your Mole Famous” – A Word on Compelling Headlines

So I just saw an interesting banner hanging over a heavily-traversed street in town:

MAKE YOUR MOLE FAMOUS.

Certainly got my attention. The first thing that flashed through my mind was Cindy Crawford’s mole and then the actual animal, even though I soon realized I don’t really know what a mole looks like.

Anyhow, the headline was in bold, and, of course, I needed to know what the heck it was about. Apparently, it’s for a new research study (the sub-headline following the headline indicated as much, but I couldn’t get all the info without causing an accident).

It’s a great headline, much more exciting than: Be Part Of a Mole Study or Be Part of a Research Study. So kudos to the person who came up with the headline.

However, boo to the follow-up. I’m pretty sure the research study is being sponsored by an organization called “SMOC.” However, upon googling things like “mole research study” + “SMOC” + my town’s name, I got nothing. Same if I googled the headline alone. Same if I simply googled “mole research study Massachusetts.”

So, dear banner-sign-creator, what if someone sees the banner and wants to be part of this study but doesn’t have time to risk getting into an accident to see if said banner has contact info? Shouldn’t there be something online–something that people can easily get to via a search on the phrase that he or she will likely remember, like “Make Your Mole Famous”? Why, yes. Yes, indeed that’s the way it should be. Ideas:

  • Create a web page on your site dedicated solely to the mole research study. In the title tag, you should use the headline: Make Your Mole Famous – Mole Research Study – Massachusetts. That should cover a variety of searches.
  • See if makeyourmolefamous.com is available (that would be a good URL to have on literature around town–fairly easy to remember).
  • Buy PPC ads on “Make your mole famous” and “mole research study” — I bet the cost won’t be prohibitive.

Lesson: think through every step your prospect/customer needs to take in order to complete the task at hand (be it a sale or sign-up for a research study). Do NOT make these steps hard. Make it as easy as possible.