I am always looking for new and inventive ways to make my articles, email marketing and online campaigns stand out from the rest of the competition, so it is not surprising that I spend a lot of time researching into headlines and ad techniques.

Yet the most frustrating thing for me is the use of ‘templates’ by online marketers.

In one article I read recently, I was confronted with 9 easily adaptable headlines that have been used – over and over again – for the last 40+ years – I know since the 1960’s! And the most worrying aspect to this article was how prevalent all these headlines still are.

Take a look and you’ll see what I mean: http://www.infomarketingblog.com/9-headline-templates-that-have-a-prayer – you can find any one of these ‘headline templates’ on the internet, being used and modified for a variety of different markets.

Now I understand the reasons behind why the man who created this article did this. His ultimate goal was to show online marketers – like you and me – what type of headlines work, and how they can easily be adapted to every niche available.

And also, I cannot deny that these headlines do, do their job – they grab you hook, line and sinker, and make you want to keep reading.

I suppose what bothered me most about this article is the whole lack of creativity. For me, personally, I love playing around with headlines and experimenting, and with these 9 templates there is none of that. If anything they are highly repetitious.

Take the following example he provided.

Original: ‘For golfers who are almost (but not quite) satisfied with their game – and can’t figure out what they’re doing wrong:’

Examples provided:

• ‘For Internet Marketers who are almost (but not quite) satisfied with their conversions – and can’t figure out what they’re doing wrong:’
• ‘For mutual fund investors who are almost (but not quite) satisfied with their portfolios – and can’t figure out what’s missing:’

See what I mean? Now obviously this headline is more suitable for offline publications, but the impact is still the same. It is the same headline being recycled over and over again.

Now maybe I am looking into this too much. But this article does get you thinking about all the different headlines which are currently being used – and recycled – across the market. It is surprising how little variance there is.