A few days ago, I prepared a headline that I was quite pleased with.

For the time being, I’m not going to tell you what it was.

Instead, I’ll tell you it was one of the below, nestled under the following picture.

Headline 1 – Toni’s Fitness “Secret” Revealed

Headline 2 – Eat Your Way To A Top Bod

Any ideas which is the one I was happy with?

Although casual onlookers might think the two similar, there are at least 4 differences between the two that make headline 1 a hell of a lot stronger than headline 2.

1. With the word “secret”, Toni’s Fitness “Secret” Revealed appeals to curiosity. Eat Your Way To A Top Bod does not.

2. By using quotation marks around a key word, Toni’s Fitness “Secret” Revealed dials up the curiosity further, commanding more attention. Eat Your Way To A Top Bod does no such thing.

3. Cunningly, Toni’s Fitness “Secret” Revealed does not reveal itself as a commercial message. Eat Your Way To A Top Bod, by contrast, very much does.

4. And Toni’s Fitness “Secret” Revealed leverages celebrity. The picture is of none other than Toni Terry, wife of at-the-time Chelsea captain John Terry. You wouldn’t know that with Eat Your Way To A Top Bod.

There’s a final difference between the two headlines which is the most important of them all.

Eat Your Way To A Top Bod was the headline printed in the Metro on the 27th of April, after the lovely people running the paper whimsically decided to change the copy I submitted moments before everything went to print.

To the person that made the change, the lines were one and the same. Eat Your Way To A Top Bod may have even been deemed an improvement.

To those in the know, the difference is heartbreaking.

The trouble is, few people really are in the know.

If you’re after a copywriter who is, then drop me a quick email now.