Do Your Titles Encourage Ear Reading?

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“We actually we read with our ears and our eyes, so we need to activate multiple senses,” the Integrated Learning Academy points out. In fact, as Psychology Today explains, “we don’t experience our senses individually. Rather, our brain meshes with our vision and hearing to create our conscious experience of the world.”

In reading through my copy of Kiplinger Personal Finance May 2025 issue this morning, I saw many illustrations of the power titles have to “catch” readers’ attention through sound.

In alliteration, a consonant sound is repeated. The words don’t need to be directly next to each other in the sentence, but when you read the line aloud, you “hear” the repetition. Three examples I noticed right away in the magazine were:

  • Staff Cutbacks reach the Social Security Administration
  • Walmart Woos Wealthy Shoppers
  • A Broad Bet on Innovation

The repeated sound can be a vowel, rather than a consonant; the term for that is “assonance”. In both these Kiplinger titles, the repeated sound is the “a”.

  • A Cap on Overdraft Fees Faces the Axe
  • Get Back on Track After a Divorce

Of course, I didn’t need to peruse that financial news publication in order to find alliteration and assonance – they’re everywhere. The title of an advertisement for children’s clothing at the Lunch Money Boutique, “Elevating Style and Celebrating Childhood” catches our ear with those “short E” and “long A” sounds. Many popular consumer product names are alliterative (think Coca-Cola, Dunkin’ Donuts, PayPal).

As content creators, we teach at Say It For You, we can take advantage of the sounds of words to make titles of posts and articles more “catchy”, tempting readers to use both their ears and their eyes to engage with our messages.

Take time to create titles that encourage ear reading!

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What’s in a Number? In Content Marketing — a Lot!

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“What’s in a number?”  In the journey towards 100,000 CFP® professionals that began more than fifty years ago, Lynn McNutt explains, numbers not only reflect the trust and confidence that advisors, firms, and consumers place in the certification, they “quantify the momentum that drives the profession forward”.

“In the realm of marketing, numbers do more than just quantify,” Sowmya S of the ISBR Business School agrees in a LinkedIn article. Odd numbers, she adds, create a sense of curiosity and interest among consumers, while even numbers are associated with balance, stability, and predictability. “Numbers are ‘brain candy'”, Mike Hamers writes, because they automatically organize information into logical order; according to Mark Walker-Ford, using numbers strategically adds clarity and credibility to messaging.

Statistics, I explain to business owners and professional practitioners, can serve as attention-grabbers. In fact, using data in content marketing relates to the theory of social proof, meaning that, as humans, we are simply more willing to do something if we see that other people are doing it.  On the other hand, at Say It For You, we caution content creators to avoid becoming “numbers nudniks”, tossing numbers around for mere effect. Sure, readers may be temporarily attracted to raw data, but they need your guidance in understand what those numbers mean – for them!

In training content writers, I emphasize the value of using numbers (assuming, of course, that statistics are presented fairly and honestly). For one thing, using numbers in titles is a great way to set reader expectations of what kind of information they are going to find. But, where the words come in, I believe, is they put statistics into perspective, helping answer readers’ “So what?” and “So, what’s in-it-for-me” questions.

As is more than evident from social media and referral sites, people are unfailingly interested in who-else-is-doing-whatever-it-is-your-company-is-recommending-I-do. Online readers, in particular, look at what others are doing when making an online purchase of a product or service. Just as Lynn McNutt explained to financial planners, numbers can reflect the trust and confidence that others have placed in what you have and in who you are.

What’s in a number? In content marketing –a lot!

 

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To Make Blog Titles Pop, Add a Little Assonance and Alliteration

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This month’s issue of Breathe Magazine was the inspiration for both this week’s Say It For You blog posts….

Titles – they either do the trick or they don’t, I always muse while browsing through the magazine racks at Barnes & Noble or the corner CVS. The current issue of Breathe had an especially appealing array of clever titles, I thought.

To be sure, a number of the Breathe titles were very direct, leaving not an iota of doubt as to what kind of information one should expect to see in the article:

  • Unlocking Your Potential
  • Stand Up For What’s Important
  • Ways to Cope With Change
  • Project Declutter
  • The Joy of Dogs
  • The A to Zzzzzz of Power Naps
  • Say It Loud, Say It Clear

Still other titles evoked curiosity about what stance the authors were going to take or what they were going to advise:

  • When Life Tips Out of Balance
  • Food for the Soul
  • Only Fools Rush In
  • Daydream Believer

I noticed a third grouping of titles, where the authors took advantage of the sound of the words themselves. Although I was looking at a printed page, I found, I was almost reading those titles aloud in my own head:

  • Facebook Fallout?
  • From Chore to Choice
  • Navigating Non-Negotiables
  • Experience vs. Expectation
  • Is the Grass Greener?

Notice the way similar consonants or similar vowel sounds are presented in a sequence. In scanning those titles, your eyes are both seeing the repetition and, in a real sense “hearing it” as well.

Breathe Magazine reminded me of something I’ve been teaching for years now at Say It For You, namely using alliteration (consonant repetition) and assonance (vowel repetition) in blog titles with an eye to making them more “catchy”. It’s one thing to write great content, and quite another to get readers to click on it.

To make blog titles “pop”, try add ind a pinch of alliteration and assonance!

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Blog Title Questions That Make Them Go “Hmmm…”

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Browsing through the latest issue of Breathe Magazine, I couldn’t help noticing that titles that were in the form of questions were more likely to have me stop turning the pages and start reading the article. I realized that what was giving me pause is wondering of that question applied directly to my own situation.

“Addicted to Work?    Hmmm…am I?
“Are You an Empath?”     Hmmm…am I?
“Are You Playing the Victim?”      Hmmm…is that what I’ve been doing??

The tactic of using questions in titles is one I’ve often suggested to blog content writers. After all, people are online searching for answers to questions they have and solutions for dilemmas they’re facing, and often we can help searchers formulate their questions by presenting one in the blog post title itself. Sometimes the question in the title serves to arouse readers’ curiosity about which side of the issue your opinion is going to represent.

Those Breathe Magazine questions, though, seemed to be taking things to a whole new level, I thought. Sure, in a publication about mental health, readers expect the content to be more “touchy-feely”. But couldn’t that technique of using title questions to make readers stop and examine their own business practices and purchase decisions work for all business owners and professional practitioners, I wondered? Hmmm…

“The purpose of a blog post headline is to convince readers to click on the link, or to scroll down and continue reading the post. A good title grabs attention and compels your target audience to check out what you have to say,” Team Kapost of uplandsoftware.com writes, and “questions create intrigue, serving as an invitation to participate in a conversation”..

Open-ended questions help you create better content, advises Neil Patel. But, before you can successfully convert blog readers into customers, he adds, you have to know what they’re worried about. (Then, as you become aware of their problems, you can have the case studies you need to provide a better experience, Patel explains.)

The specific genius in open-ended questions that make readers go “Hmm” may lie in the fact that one thing people tend to be worried about is – themselves! The blog topic might be plumbing, or hairstyles, or sports equipment, but title questions that force readers to stop and question their own ways, feeling compelled to read what you have to reveal about them – well, those titles can be show-stoppers!.

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Put the Main Blog Idea on the End Cap

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“Supermarkets have gone to great lengths to make you think that ‘impulse buy’ was really an impulse,” observe the authors of The Big Book of Big Secrets, explaining that the ‘end caps”, shelves at the outer end of each aisle, are “the equivalent of beachfront property.”. Although supermarkets use other tactics to promote their wares, including mood lighting and even aromas, studies have shown that placing items on end caps can boost sales by as much as a third, not because those items re on sale, but because end cap placement conveys the impression that those items are special. A second grocery store tactic is based on studies showing that the average grocery shopper is “lazy”, tending to choose things placed at eye level. (Some marketers put the most expensive items there – on purpose, the authors note.) When it comes to blogging for business, I teach at Say It For You, the “end caps” of blog marketing are titles and closing lines.

Let’s talk first about titles. There are two basic reasons titles matter so much in blogs:

  1. search – key words and phrases, especially when used in blog post titles, help search engines make the match between online searchers’ needs and what your business or professional practice has to offer.
  2. reader engagement – after you’ve been “found”, you’ve still gotta “get read”, I remind our business owner and professional practitioner clients.

While “pow opening lines” can come in different flavors, in helping high school and college students write effective essays, I often suggest they introduce their readers to both their topic and their thesis, doing both those things on the “end cap” where they’ll get the most attention. That way, I teach each the student writer, your readers will understand not only what issue will be under discussion, but “which side” you’re going to take.

In business blog writing, for the opening “end cap”, you may choose to present a question, a problem, a startling statistic, or a gutsy, challenging statement. Later, on the “back end” of your blog “aisle”, your “pow” closing statement ties back to the opener, bringing your post full circle.

Main blog marketing ideas belong on the end caps!

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