What makes having a killer quiz title so important?
A relatively unknown Tim Ferriss published the self-help book “Four Hour Workweek” in 2007. He spent a couple of weeks crafting the perfect title and subtitle. Not only that, he tested a couple of combinations with the market in Google Adwords to make sure it was going to be a hit.
Since then, the book was on The New York TImes Best Seller List for four years and has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide.
The product was great – however, without a superb title that lent itself to its content, there would be no blast off.
Previously I covered how important a quiz title is to double your quiz’s conversion rate.
Today, I’m leaving no stone unturned and go into more specific examples on how decisive the title will make or break your quiz.
All about the killer title
You’ve put in all these arduous work of creating your quiz questions, answers, selected your images and crafted meaningful outcomes to align with your customer segments.
Bamb! You thought it would miraculously become viral but it ended up with a disappointing low click-through. Think again.
Inspire Action
A spiffy title is what you’re after. Something that’s catchy and attention-grabbing.
Example, compare these two titles:
- Take our skin care quiz.
- Is your skincare products suitable for you? Take our quiz to find out.
The first title is asking a potential quiz-taker to do something without any listed benefits nor giving any purpose to do so.
However, the second title is using intellectual reasoning to converse with the user.
If you’ve a problem with your skincare products, taking the quiz might be worthwhile in solving your problem. In this case, the need to resolve a problem would trigger the person to take the quiz.
Putting it into perspective
Humans have a compelling need to put a number tag to themselves. And quizzes encourage this quantification and help them to see how they compare to one another.
Let’s take a look at another example:
- What’s your fitness level? Take our quiz and find out your score
- How fit are you actually? Take our quiz and find out your score.
Though both quizzes infer evaluation, the second title would perform better than the first title. That’s because inclusion of the word “actually” issue a challenge.
Likewise, it also arouses curiosity with the suggestion of an unknown factor that the user might not have been aware of before.
Create an emotional appeal
I’ve explored the necessity of considering the intellectual and quantification aspect in a quiz headline. Nonetheless, we mustn’t overlook the most powerful component of injecting “power words” into the quiz headline.
How does a power word play its role in the title? Well, it’s meant to elicit high intangible emotions that will persuade someone to take a quiz.
By incorporating power words into your quiz headline, you’re practising emotional marketing.
What’s more, you can even measure the emotional value of your headline using the free “Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer” created by the Advanced Marketing Institute.
A higher headline score would indicate your headline has tremendous emotional value. Whereas a lower score would indicate you want to spend more time fine-tuning and enhancing it.
Coschedule has put together a 180-tear sheet for creating more emotionally-charged headlines.
If you need some guide on which specific words would most attune your quiz to your audience’s inner self, the cheatsheet is a very good reference point.
Keep it positive
Adopt a light-hearted tone and positive tone. That’s imperative.
PsyCentral states that words can change the brain. A single word can spark activities in the frontal lobe of the brain and activate the motivational parts of the brain into action.
Once you have the title ready, bounce it off with a couple of friends to make sure you’re on the right track.
Qualifying your prospects
Before you jump into creating the perfect quiz headline, keep in mind the original purpose of your quiz. That’s to hook in leads who would ultimately be interested to buy your products or services.
You have zero interest to get any random person to take your quiz and opt in to your email list.
Let’s say, your business offer high quality, organic skin care products for women.
Looking back at our earlier example:
Is your skincare products suitable for you? Take our quiz to find out.
The message is targeted at people who are already using skincare products and is possibly dissatisfied with their current products.
The phrase could also target people who are curious to find out if they need better skincare products compared to what they are using right now
Women who are not even using skin products in the first place would not be interested in the quiz.
Identifying your target audience
Another alternative would be targeting women who are not familiar with their skin type and are looking for recommendations on getting new products. A title like this would identify this group of audience
What’s your skin type? Take our quiz to find out what skin type you have and which products suit you best.
In both cases, we are targeting women who care very much for their skin and use skin care products to improve their skin condition. They would be the market who would most likely be interested or convinced by you and your products.
The end goal is to insert keywords and descriptive in your title that would relate to your prospects and their questions. It could be the ideal condition of what your prospects is after. Or even a pain point that they are facing.
Both would prompt potential quiz-takers to take action – in this occasion – to get started on your quiz.
Don’t forget about your lead image
Great, now you’ve formulated the killer quiz title.
There’s still the important task of selecting an appropriate lead image to front your quiz. The brain digests images 60,000 times faster than it does text. And because it’s more used to taking in images – 90% of the data sent to the brain is in fact visual.
And you’ve about 8 seconds to capture your audience’s attention. To beef up the X-factor of your quiz, you need a visually pleasing image that’s relevant and complementary to your headline.
Vibrancy resonates better
The rule of the thumb is to use lighter, warmer colours to add life into the quiz. Warm colours are generally more inviting and the vibrancy should make them feel good and happy.
If done right, this initial interaction with the picture will forge an immediate connection, resulting in a click-through.
High quality pictures invokes trust
Heard of the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.”? A high quality image versus a low quality image convey two different messages.
A high resolution and clear picture infers that your website and your brand is of a similar high quality and much effort has been put in. On the contrary, an image of low quality implies shoddiness and less trustworthy.
Of course, you want to start off your quiz on the right foot – so choose your lead image wisely.
Should you select stock pictures?
If you don’t have a self-taken picture at hand, stock pictures are also options for your lead image. However, choose a photo that looks as authentic as possible.
You want to create a personable experience with the quiz taker that’s as if you were there speaking to the quiz-taker directly.
Definitely nothing overly exaggerated or unbelievable.
Preferably an image with a person would be ideal. Adespresso’s findings reveal that ads with a person tend to perform better than without.
Studies carried out on Channel 4 pages also confirms that people are naturally drawn to faces.
If you want people to take notice of your quiz, an image with a face would garner the attention you desire.
Are you ready to formulate your own killer quiz title?
I’ve emphasized on what goes behind a killer quiz title and how it can attract the right audience and repel those that would never turn into your customers.
The significance of utilizing the right words and tone and selection of an appropriate relevant image should never be undermined. All play a part in qualifying your ideal customer personas for you.
Beyond a shadow of doubt, generating a high quiz conversion rates starts with creating a sparkling quiz title.
If you are ready to sky rocket your quiz clickthroughs, put some time aside to formulate that killer quiz title for your awesome quiz lead magnet.
Do you have any questions about formulating your own killer title? Or do you want to share your experiences in designing a perfect quiz title? Comment and join in the discussion with us below.
