We all want our headlines to stand out from the rest, and we all want to communicate our ideas to our readers. One way to accomplish both is to use a "curious comparison." How it works is that you pick something that is (or seems to be) completely unrelated to your message. In fact, the goofier and more unrelated it is, the better!
This will pique your readers’ curiosity. Your headline sets up a puzzle that can’t be solved unless your post is read. I’ve gone back over my archives to find posts that do this and I realized something: these were all some of my most successful posts.
I’ve broken down the types of curious comparisons into three kinds:
- The Oddball Comparison
- The Unrelated Teacher
- The Intriguing Analogy
The Oddball Comparison
The Oddball Comparison groups your readers into types and compare them to oddball unrelated items. In fact, the more unrelated and humorous, the better! For example:
Movie and television characters provide endless possibilities for this, but other subjects could, too, such as animals of the jungle or even different types of cars. Doing this is a lot of fun as well as instructive.
The Unrelated Teacher
The Unrelated Teacher was used successfully in an advertising campaign by Wachovia, which featured activities completely unrelated to investing as a way to deliver a marketing message. For example, one commercial asked:
What can handlebars teach us about financial relationships?" the voiceover begins. "You have to reach out to make them work"
Here are some of my own examples of this type of comparison. They have been some of most popular posts here, which really proves the format:
- What You Can Learn about Blogging from Britney Spears
- What Rock Band Can Teach You about Business Blogging (guest post by Naomi Dunford)
- What Apple Teaches us about Blogging
- What You Can Learn about Blogging from Boing Boing
The Intriguing Analogy
The Intriguing Analogy has a very simple structure. It uses the typical "X is like Y" simile. The trick with this one is for X and Y to appear to be very unrelated, but to have an unexpected relationship that carries the "payload" of your message across to the reader.
I don’t have a lot of examples of this. In fact, I have just one. But it was in the top 10 most popular posts for months.
You Can Do This, Too
Anybody can write a post that makes an unusual or oddball comparison. You don’t have to wait for inspiration to strike. Here are some jump-starter methods for this:
- Pick a random celebrity and, based on recent actions, figure out what he or she can teach your audience about your subject. Grab People magazine off the tabloids rack or head over to a celebrity news site on the web.
- Write down a list of your favorite movies and TV shows, and compare your readers to the characters (or groups of characters) in them.
- Go to a bookstore and randomly grab magazines off the shelf. See if you can create an unusual comparison or find a lesson in a subject unrelated to your own.
- Scan the news headlines for stories that can teach or be a comparison related to your blog’s subject.
See? It’s not hard. It’s great if you’re feeling a little stuck for ideas. Don’t chicken out because a comparison seems too off-the-wall. The weirder, the better! You want to get people’s attention.
P.S. – I wrote this because my recent "Smurf post" got me thinking about whether or not a formula could be followed for this. However, as I was writing, I recalled that James at Men With Pens wrote a great post about analogies recently: Bridging the Information Gap with Analogies. It’s a great post, so go read that, too.
P.P.S. – The idea of using a story to deliver a message "payload" is something I learned from Teaching Sells, which is only accepting members for a few more days before closing the doors to the public.
Photo by Bruce Turner
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
No cowbell?
@Brian – I was trying to think of examples and that one must’ve slipped through. Yes, definitely cowbell!
I liked this post a lot, Michael. Giving people a little mystery to figure out gives them something fun to talk about – and it makes the work a lot more interesting for the blogger, too!
This was good advice Michael. So I took it and did an ‘Unrelated Teacher’ post.
We’ll see how it goes. Thanks for the inspiration.
@Karen – Looks like a winner to me. Excellent job!
@James – Thanks, and yes it’s a lot more fun to write.
Michael,
I also like the SEO in your “unrelated”s: two have “learn about blogging” in the title, and a third has “business blogging.” It’s worked into the titles so nicely you don’t notice it. Okay, well I did notice it, but not until I thought, “Yeah, great titles.” I should do that more often.
Regards,
Kelly
@Kelly – Great observation. Every word in a headline should be deliberate.
I like your “unrelated teacher” and “intriguing analogy” articles, but found your “oddball comparison” articles to be a bit of a stretch. I thought the Jedi v. Sith post was interesting for it’s general content but all of the Star Wars references seemed to detract from what might have otherwise been a more authoritative article. The smurf post just seemed silly. More teaching and analogies please.
Great suggestions Michael. Tried to put them to work on my most recent post. Practice makes better…Thanks for being out there.
How did I miss this? Great template ideas.