How to write an H1

There are only two ways to write an H1.

Or to be more accurate... there are only two GOOD ways to write an H1.

Maybe you're not marketing-pilled and you're thinking, "what the heck is an H1?"

For the normies, it refers to the main headline at the top of your website. It’s called an H1 because in HTML that headline is labeled “heading 1.”

A caveat: all the following advice applies mainly to B2B software companies. If you’re selling shoes direct-to-consumer, this likely won’t be of much value to you.

Before we get to the good H1s, let’s look at some not-so-good ones together:

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Maybe you’re starting to see a pattern.

The main issue: these headlines don’t say anything!

They are pure marketing fluff. You could slap them on any enterprise B2B website and it wouldn’t make a difference.

(Side note: If you thought those headlines were good, then you can probably stop reading right now and unsubscribe. Our perspectives are as far from each other as the east is from the west.)

Maybe you’ve heard that a headline should “spark curiosity.”

We could not disagree more.

The goal of the headline is to establish a point of reference. It should make visitors think, “I’m in the right place.”

But finding a reference point is harder than it sounds, especially when it comes to software.

Let’s start with a company that has been confounding positioning experts since 2012.

What is Airtable?

Airtable can be many things depending on the context. This is why their H1s have been historically not so great…

How do you summarize across all these different use cases and audiences?

If you try, you end up with statements like, “Connect everything. Achieve anything.”

The reason these headlines aren’t good isn’t just because they are vague or filled with jargon.

It’s because they lack a reference point.

What is positioning?

This is a positioning newsletter for Pete’s sake, so let’s define it:

Positioning is the process of earning a defined place in people’s minds.

The best way to do this is by taking something people already know, and then showing where you fit in relation to it.

For example, if you wanted to launch a new apparel brand in the early 2,000s, you needed to find a spot to thrive in the overall ecosystem of brands.

Each of these companies made it obvious they sold clothes… but then they showed how they were different from other clothing brands by making it explicit who they were for.

Abercrombie was for the preppy kids.

Zumiez was for the skaters.

Hot Topic was for the emo kids.

These companies found a reference point (clothing stores) and then showed how they were different in order to gain a foothold in the minds of their potential customers.

High schoolers had a mental map of the mall and knew which brand was for them.

If there were brands that didn’t fit any of these defined categories, they didn’t stand a chance of surviving.

The non-distinct quickly became extinct.

That’s all well and good for clothing… but what about for software?

There are two types of reference points that are most relevant. The first is a “product category.”

Let’s play a game. Can you fill in the blank for these companies?

If you have heard of these companies, this exercise should be a breeze.

Here’s the answers:

You might not have used the identical phrasing, but you probably thought something pretty close to this list.

The category is the core reference point that explains what the software is.

And for audiences that know the category, it is 100% acceptable to simply say, “Salesforce is a CRM.”

But not every software fits into a category.

Startups that are doing something new and novel might not actually live in an existing bucket.

For them, you need a different reference point: a “job-to-be-done.”

Another acceptable reference point is to name the exact reason for the usage of the product.

To borrow from more nerdy vernacular, we can call this the “Job-to-be-Done.” This concept was pioneered and popularized by people like Clayton Christensen, Bob Moesta, Tony Ulwick, etc.

The main idea is that people “hire” products to accomplish specific tasks, or “jobs.”

For example, you hire a hammer to “drive a nail into wood.”

If you have a new software tool that doesn’t fit into a known category, you can still position it relative to a JTBD: (i.e. “this software is for X,” with X representing the Job-to-be-Done.)

That way, software can still be understandable—even without a known/named category—because it’s connected to a reference point the customer already knows (i.e. the task/workflow/initiative they are trying to accomplish/achieve.)

Jobs-to-be-Done can be very small, as in the case of Calendly:

Or, Jobs-to-be-Done can be much larger, initiative-style Jobs-to-be-Done, like in the case of Vanta:

In order for a Job-to-be-Done to be a useful reference point, it needs to be something that someone is actually trying to do.

The bigger the JTBD, the more senior the person reading it has to be.

For example, if your software was built to help “implement AI across your entire enterprise” (a real JTBD that’s written in countless boardrooms right now), then likely the intended audience would need to be someone in that boardroom.

Choosing the right level of JTBD from a organizational hierarchy perspective can have big implications on your go-to-market.

If all your positioning/messaging is geared towards the CEO but none of your marketing materials ever make it to the CEO, then you might want to choose a lower level JTBD that speaks to a VP or director that you have a better chance of reaching.

1) Using too broad of a JTBD to be understandable

If you find yourself saying things like, “at the end of the day, we are really helping companies automate their systems” you may have an issue.

“Automate systems” as a job-to-be-done is likely too vague for any person to identify with it.

In this case, it’s almost as if you have no reference point at all. If people read your headline and ask, “but what does that mean?” you’ve failed.

2) Using too lofty of a JTBD to be believable

You may also find yourself saying things like “at the end of the day, we are really helping companies drive revenue.”

While everyone in a for-profit company is by definition trying to make more money, using “increase revenue” as a job-to-be-done is simply not going to be believable for the majority of software companies.

To prove my point, I want you to think about the software tools you recently used.

Then I want you to think about your revenue over the last month.

Which of these tools gets credit for bringing in that revenue?

It’s likely that your brain just stopped functioning for a second. This is because no software drives revenue.

Revenue comes from paying customers, and new paying customers are the result of every single part of your business working together.

Just as one department doesn’t get “credit” for a paying customer, no piece of software gets the credit either.

We’ve established that there are two types of reference points:

1) Categories and 2) Jobs-to-be-Done

Writing an H1 for each looks different.

Your H1 should list two things:

1) the category

2) your differentiation in the category relative to the other vendors in the same category

Here’s an example from a former client of ours called Optise. They were competing directly with Google Analytics.

The H1 hits both the category (website analytics tools) and the differentiation (i.e. “our analytics aren’t confusing to use as a non-technical marketer”).

DuckDuckGo’s H1 names the category (web browsers) and shows what makes them different from other web browsers like Chrome: they actively protect your personal information—something Chrome would never say.

Campfire, launched by Jason Fried, is an alternative to Slack that can be run on your own servers without needing to pay a subscription. Both the category and differentiation are abundantly clear from the H1.

Klaviyo lists the category right at the start of their page (CRM) and their differentiation (i.e. their focus on B2C and the fact they are “autonomous.”)

When I say these are “good” H1s, I am not commenting on whether or not the differentiation is compelling or believable.

(I’m not positive Klayivo calling themselves “autonomous” will hold up in the court of public opinion as being defensible differentiation — I’ll leave that up to the actual potential customers to decide!)

My “good” comment is purely referring to whether or not the positioning is clear from the single headline (i.e. “here’s the reference point and here’s the differentiation”).

If your reference point is in fact a job-to-be-done, then you need to make sure the H1 covers:

1) the Job-to-be-Done

2) your differentiation related to the current way people accomplish the job

Here’s an example from a former Fletch customer. They were allowing companies to offer loans to their customers (the Job-to-be-Done) in a unique way: directly inside their software platform (the differentiation).

Here’s another example from the Scroll Lab (the sponsor of today’s newsletter!), also a former Fletch customer.

They help companies that make paid media landing pages (the JTBD). Their differentiation is that the paid landing pages they produce will actually work.

Another example here is from Datadog. The Job-to-be-Done is “monitoring and security” (a sprawling Job-to-be-Done, but Datadog is a very large platform). The differentiation is that they do this in a modern way (as opposed to legacy ways it has been done).

Many companies are multi-product. What should the H1 do then?

Essentially, you have three options:

This is what Owner does, despite having 20 products.

Rippling attempts to do this with one global JTBD (“manage your entire workforce”) despite having 20+ sub-products. Their differentiation is it can be done “on one system,” rather than the countless point solutions that would be required without them.

This is what PostHog does, despite having many sub-products.

Am I being slightly hyperbolic in suggesting these are the only ways to write an H1?

Probably.

But these are great starting points for B2B software companies of all sizes.

We would love your feedback on this newsletter! Please shoot over your thoughts to [email protected].

Additionally, if you have someone who you think would be interested in product positioning, consider inviting them to subscribe (just send them this link).

FletchPMM is a product marketing consultancy that has helped 500+ B2B software companies find their positioning strategy, document it in an internal deck, and share it on a rewritten homepage.