/skills/landing-page-copy/references/hero-formulas.md

Hero Headline Formulas

The hero headline is the most-read line on the page. It earns the rest of the read or it doesn't.

These are not magic templates. They are starting points. Apply them, then make them sound like the brand.

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Formula 1: Outcome + audience + mechanism

Pattern: [Specific outcome] for [specific audience] with [specific mechanism]

Examples:

• "Ship features 3x faster, for engineering teams who hate meetings, with async-first project management."
• "Cut payroll processing from days to minutes, for finance teams of 50+, with one connected system."
• "Build a remote team that doesn't burn out, for founders scaling past 20 people, with rituals that actually work."

Strengths: Highly specific. Hard to confuse with a competitor.

Weaknesses: Can become long and clunky. Not always elegant.

When to use: Product is in a crowded category and needs to differentiate quickly.

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Formula 2: Pain reversal

Pattern: Stop [specific pain]. Start [specific outcome].

Examples:

• "Stop losing customers to slow checkout. Start converting at industry-leading speeds."
• "Stop digging through Slack threads. Start finding answers in seconds."
• "Stop guessing what your users want. Start knowing."

Strengths: Direct. Names the visitor's current frustration.

Weaknesses: Depends on the pain being widely felt. If the pain isn't recognized, the headline doesn't connect.

When to use: The audience is actively frustrated by something specific.

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Formula 3: Surprising claim

Pattern: A specific claim that contradicts what the audience expects.

Examples:

• "The note-taking app most people actually use."
• "Email outreach that doesn't feel like spam."
• "The CRM that sales reps don't try to escape from."

Strengths: Pattern-breaks. Creates curiosity.

Weaknesses: Must be defensible. A surprising claim with no proof feels like marketing puffery.

When to use: You can back up the claim with evidence in the page below.

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Formula 4: Direct address

Pattern: Speak to a specific situation the visitor is in right now.

Examples:

• "You have 47 unread Slack messages. Here's what to do."
• "Your team just lost three candidates this month. Here's why."
• "Your app crashed at 3 AM. We watched your monitoring system miss it."

Strengths: Visitor recognizes themselves immediately.

Weaknesses: Risk of feeling presumptuous if the situation is wrong.

When to use: The audience is highly specific and the scenario is universal among them.

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Formula 5: Question they're already asking

Pattern: Pose the question the visitor came to find an answer to.

Examples:

• "How much should you actually spend on Google Ads?"
• "Should you build it or buy it? Here's the framework."
• "Why does your team's productivity drop after lunch?"

Strengths: Aligns with search intent. Strong for SEO landing pages.

Weaknesses: Less common in product hero copy. Better for content-driven landing pages.

When to use: The page answers a specific question the visitor brought.

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Formula 6: Comparison (us vs. them)

Pattern: [Our category] without the [familiar pain of the category].

Examples:

• "CRM software without the bloat."
• "Project management without the meetings."
• "Customer support without the tickets."

Strengths: Defines you in opposition to known alternatives.

Weaknesses: Lazy version becomes "X but better." Specific version requires you to actually deliver on the difference.

When to use: The category has a well-known pain point you avoid.

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Formula 7: Number + outcome

Pattern: Specific number that quantifies the value.

Examples:

• "Cut your churn in half within 90 days."
• "Onboard your team in 15 minutes, not 15 weeks."
• "Generate 200 hours of meeting transcripts per month."

Strengths: Specific and credible.

Weaknesses: The number must be defensible. Made-up numbers undermine trust.

When to use: You have real data backing the claim.

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Formula 8: First-person promise

Pattern: "Get [specific thing]" or "Find [specific thing]" - speaking as if to a friend.

Examples:

• "Get insurance quotes in 60 seconds. Compare 30 carriers."
• "Find a contractor your neighbors actually recommend."
• "Get back the 6 hours a week you spend on email."

Strengths: Conversational. Low-friction.

Weaknesses: Casual register may not fit every brand.

When to use: Brand voice supports a conversational first-person register.

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Subheadline patterns

The subheadline supports the headline. It usually does one of three jobs:

Job 1: Mechanism

The subheadline explains how you deliver the headline's promise.

Headline: Ship features 3x faster. Subheadline: Our async workflow eliminates the meetings that slow your team down.

Job 2: Audience qualifier

The subheadline names the audience precisely.

Headline: The simplest way to manage your inventory. Subheadline: Built for ecommerce stores doing $1M to $10M in revenue.

Job 3: Specificity / proof

The subheadline adds the credible detail.

Headline: Stop losing leads. Subheadline: Top performers reduce response time from hours to minutes. We help you do the same.

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What to avoid in hero copy

Generic adjective stacking

Bad: "Powerful. Intuitive. Scalable."

These adjectives apply to anything. They distinguish nothing.

Vague benefits

Bad: "Streamline your workflow with our innovative platform."

What workflow? What's innovative? What does the visitor actually do?

Brand-name-only headlines

Bad: "Acme: The Future of Work."

The visitor doesn't know what Acme is yet. The headline must tell them.

Cleverness over clarity

Bad: "Where productivity meets possibility."

Sounds nice. Means nothing. Visitors do not have time to decode poetry.

"Welcome to" openers

Bad: "Welcome to the [Brand] platform."

Treats the visitor as a guest rather than a person trying to solve a problem. Wastes the most important real estate on the page.

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Testing hero headlines

Don't ship the first headline you write. Generate 5 to 10 variations using different formulas. Read them aloud. Show them to people. Pick the one that:

1. A target-audience reader recognizes themselves in
2. Differentiates from at least 3 specific competitors
3. Sets up the rest of the page (the rest of the page must deliver on the headline's promise)
4. Sounds like the brand (not generic marketing speak)
5. Survives the "why now" test (why does this matter to the visitor today)

If a headline can't survive all five, generate more variations.

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CTA patterns to pair with hero headlines

The headline and CTA must rhyme. If they don't, the visitor's mental model breaks.

Hero promise	CTA pattern
Get specific outcome	"Get [the outcome]"
Save time / money	"Save [the thing]"
See how it works	"Watch demo" / "See it in action"
Try the product	"Start free trial" / "Try it free"
Get information	"Get the guide" / "Show me how"
Talk to a person	"Book a call" / "Talk to sales"

The CTA copy is part of the hero, not an afterthought. Treat it with the same care as the headline.