The term ‘topline’ entered our lives not so long ago. Whilst mainly associated with Instagram, it can easily be applied to SMS as well.
What is a topline?
Quite simply, it is a kind of title. At its core, it is the first sentence, or rather the first few words in your message. They should catch the reader’s attention. They are key to ensuring that the message will be opened so that the rest of it will reach the client, enabling further engagement.
There are two unspoken requirements for toplines:
- they should be short (about 4-5 words);
- they should be specific.
Why? Because you don’t have the time or space to tell clients the full story. You need to convince them to spend their time reading your message in 4-5 words which take 3-5 seconds to read.
Topline and SMS
When talking about topline, many people immediately think of Instagram. But topline can be used in SMS marketing as well. Subscribers typically scan rapidly anything you send them, rarely reading the entire message. Making an immediate impact is therefore critical and this is where the notification line (consisting of just several words) comes into its own..This is the topline of your SMS mail-out.
The question of topline is therefore just as relevant to SMM specialists as it is to SMS marketers.
Using the topline, you can:
- convince;
- lure;
- inform;
- puzzle;
- ask.
It all depends on one thing – the goal that you want to achieve with your mass messaging.
How to create a topline?
There are no guaranteed recipes to ace creating compelling toplines; their goal is to attract attention. When it comes down to it, there are two classic ways to approach writing them:
The first is the AIDA formula – the so-called ‘queen of selling texts’:
- Attention;
- Interest;
- Desire;
- Action.
If we write a full message using this formula, then it would look like this:
“Do you dream of speaking Spanish like you do your first language? This can be done in just six months! Want to? Go to our website”
However, this is too long for a topline, so you have to cut it. Reducing the formula itself to just 2 points (for example, attention and interest) should be just enough to catch the eye of a client:
“Fluent Spanish in half a year! How?”
Done! There’s a good chance this way that the subscriber will open your message after seeing this topline and read the rest of your content.
The second way is the ‘Pain Formula’, structured as follows:
- pain;
- more pain;
- hope;
- solution.
A classic example of a message written using this formula is:
“Can’t learn Spanish? Do you quickly forget new words? We know how to start speaking a foreign language from the very first lesson. And we will teach you”
And again, to get the topline, we need to shorten the formula. And in the end we get:
“Can’t learn Spanish? We’ll help!”
All we have is ‘pain’ and a ‘solution’.
While working on toplines, you can use many copywriting techniques. The main thing to remember is that toplines should be directly related to the rest of your message and contain truthful information.
Once you’ve refined the content for your SMS mail-out, it’s then really easy to send it out using Intis Telecom’s intuitive, easy to use, Messaging platform.
