I'm currently writing a post for my company's blog. I'm agonising over the headline, as I really, really want people to read this post (I'm trying to convince our users to opt in to our customer experience improvement program). However, I don't know how to find out whether people will follow a link to the post when they encounter it - and to get realistic data from the test.
Why am I so concerned about the headline?
Our data suggests that most people will learn about the existence of the post from the start-up screen of our desktop software. This screen shows the 5 most recent blog posts in a simple bulleted list, each item consisting of the post's title, hyperlinked to the full post.
Therefore, the post title must be highly enticing. I've read various articles about how to write enticing headlines (not least the CopyBlogger series on magnetic headlines)
Getting realistic predicted click rates
Now, I could easily put people in front of our software, with it showing a headline link for my new post, and ask them whether they would click it; however, I greatly doubt that I'd get an answer that genuinely reflected their real-world behaviour. I want to be able to test multiple headline options, but I really can't think how to do it without biasing the test. Given the limited number of users we have, I can't really afford to use an A/B test after publishing either, as it'll soon use up my audience. (Besides which, my blog doesn't support A/B testing.)
Does anyone have recommendations for how I can approach this, please?