Recently, I saw two headlines that caught my attention on my wife’s Yahoo home page. Actually she saw one of them and read it out loud to me.  That’s powerful.

Both headlines had to do with political candidates and both were interesting enough to get both my wife’s attention and mine before we read the story.

Well, isn’t that what a headline is supposed to do? Yes... But most business owners and entrepreneurs don’t understand the power or importance of a powerful, attention-commanding headline.

Think of a headline as an ad for your ad. It’s supposed to grab a prospect's attention and get committed interest from them. Not just fleeting interest. But get them interested enough to read the story or the advertisment. The copy should then be crafted to keep the right audience committed to reading it.

That’s why if your ads are only for a specific group of people and not for everyone your headline should call them out or be written to resonate specifically with them.

In this case these were news stories for people interested in the political race. News headlines are a great place to get inspiration for advertising headlines.  First I’ll give you both headlines and then I’ll tell you a secret strategy they both used that you can use to make your headlines more attractive.

"Barack Obama's wife Michelle a 'baby mama,'" says Fox News

Obama campaign says wife never said 'whitey'

Whichever side of the fence you are on is irrelevant here. This is not a political discussion. What I want you to notice is the words used in both these headlines. Words you don’t normally see in headlines…”whitey” and “baby mama.”

Using these cultural, slang, street talk words and phrases in headlines and marketing copy grab people’s attention because they are not commonly used in marketing.

Most companies, when they use a headline, use corporate language. This language is from the street. It’s real and people can relate to it.

If your target market uses an insider language or lingo, using words and phrases that only they are familiar with will help create affinity with the group and make your headlines and body copy more intriguing and captivating.