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June 7 - September 11, 2017
But the goal of advertising is not to be liked, to entertain, or to win advertising awards; it is to sell products.
The advertisements which persuade people to act are written by men who have an abiding respect for the intelligence of their readers, and a deep sincerity regarding the merits of the goods they have to sell.
For copy to convince the consumer to buy the product, it must do three things: 1. Get attention. 2. Communicate. 3. Persuade.
The Internet has made consumers more savvy, training them to shun promotion, more easily detect hype, become increasingly skeptical, and prefer educational-type advertising material: advertising that respects their intelligence, does not talk down to them, and conveys information they perceive as valuable in solving their problem or making a purchasing decision.
“The best headlines appeal to people’s self-interest, or give news.”
Each of these headlines offers a benefit to the consumer, a reward for reading the copy. And each promises to give you specific, helpful information in return for the time you invest in reading the ad and the money you spend to buy the product.
Your headline can perform four different tasks: 1. Get attention. 2. Select the audience. 3. Deliver a complete message. 4. Draw the reader into the body copy.
Another effective attention-getting gambit is to give the reader news. Headlines that give news often use words such as new, discover, introducing, announcing, now, it’s here, at last, and just arrived.
When you write a headline, get attention by picking out an important customer benefit and presenting it in a clear, bold, dramatic fashion. Avoid headlines and concepts that are cute, clever, and titillating but irrelevant. They may generate some hoopla, but they do not sell.
Ogilvy recommends that you include the selling promise and the brand name in the headline.
To draw the reader into the body copy, you must arouse his or her curiosity. You can do this with humor, or intrigue, or mystery. You can ask a question or make a provocative statement. You can promise a reward, news, or useful information.
Many advertising writers claim if you begin with how to, you can’t write a bad headline. They may be right.
The “4 U’s” copywriting formula—which stands for urgent, unique, ultra-specific, and useful—can help.
When you have written your headline, ask yourself how strong it is in each of the 4 U’s. Use a scale of 1 to 4 (1 = weak, 4 = strong) to rank it in each category. Rarely will a headline rate a 3 or 4 on all four U’s. But if your headline doesn’t rate a 3 or 4 on at least three of the U’s, it’s probably not as strong as it could be—and can benefit from some rewriting.
before we let our clients pronounce an ad dull, we first ask them, “Dull to whom?” Dull to you, the advertiser? Or dull to the reader, our potential customer? It’s easy to forget that the real purpose of an ad is to communicate ideas and information about a product. Too many ads are approved because of their entertainment value. That’s a waste of money.
“Borrowed interest” is a major cause of confusing copy. There are others: lengthy sentences, clichés, big words, not getting to the point, a lack of specifics, technical jargon, and poor organization, to name a few.
One technique to help you write for the reader is to address the reader directly as “you” in the copy, just as I am writing to you in this book.
Pincus begins with a headline that conveys a promise, shows how the promise is fulfilled, and gives proof that the product is everything the copy says it is. Then he tells the reader how to order the product and explains why the cost of the product is insignificant compared to its value. Before you create an ad or mailer, write down your sales points. Organize them in a logical, persuasive, clear fashion. And present them in this order when you write your copy.
Paragraphs should also be kept short. Long, unbroken chunks of type intimidate readers. A page filled with a solid column of tiny type says, “This is going to be tough to read!”
The average sentence length in these and dozens of other ads I measured ranges from 6 to 16 words. The average sentence length of your copy should also fall in this range.
In advertising copy, you are trying to communicate with people, not impress them or boost your own ego. Avoid pompous words and fancy phrases. Cecil Hoge, the mail-order expert, says the words in your copy should be “like the windows in a storefront. The reader should be able to see right through them and see the product.”
“If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point,” write Strunk and White in The Elements of Style, “it is this: the surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definite, and concrete.
when copywriters have little or nothing to say, they fall back on fancy phrases and puffed-up expressions to fill the empty space on the page. The words sound nice, but say nothing. And the ad doesn’t sell because it doesn’t inform.
Many novice copywriters fall into this trap. They spend the first few paragraphs “warming up” before they get to the sales pitch. By the time they do start talking about the product, most readers have fled. Start selling with the very first line of copy.
“As you revise, ask yourself if you would ever say to your reader what you are writing. Or imagine yourself speaking to the person instead of writing.”
His rule of thumb for writing strong bullets: Be specific about the problem; be vague and mysterious about the solution. Plus, do it with a twist, hook, or unusual angle.
In their pamphlet “Why Don’t Those Salespeople Sell,” Learning Dynamics Incorporated, a sales training firm, cites poor ability to present benefits as one of ten reasons why salespeople fail to make the sale. “Customers don’t buy products or services,” the firm explains. “They buy what these products and services are going to do for them. Yet many salespeople describe only the features, assuming the customer knows the benefits. Salespeople need to know how to translate features into benefits, and then present them in a customer-centered language.”
False logic, a term coined by my friend, master copywriter Michael Masterson, is copy that, through skillful writing, manipulates (but does not lie about or misrepresent) existing facts. The objective: to help readers come to conclusions that these facts, presented without the twists of the copywriter’s pen, might not otherwise support.
The idea is this: If your product is no different from or better than other products of the same type, there is no reason for consumers to choose your product over someone else’s. Therefore, to be promoted effectively, your product must have a Unique Selling Proposition: a major benefit that other products in its category don’t offer.
But what if such a proprietary advantage does not exist? What if your product is basically the same as the competition, with no special features? Reeves has the answer here, too. He said the uniqueness can either stem from a strong brand (already discussed as an option 95 percent of marketers can’t use) or from “a claim not otherwise made in that particular form of advertising”—that is, other products may also have this feature, but advertisers haven’t told consumers about it.
Herb Ahrend, founder of Ahrend Associates, Inc., once said, “A copywriter has to create perceived value. He has to ask, ‘What is the nature of the product? What makes the product different? If it isn’t different, what attribute can you stress that hasn’t been stressed by the competition?’ ”
1. Stress an underpublicized or little-known benefit
2. Dramatize a known benefit in a compelling fashion
3. Dramatize the product name or package.
4. Build long-term brand personalities.
The secondary promise is a lesser benefit that the product also delivers. Although not as large as the big promise, the secondary promise should be big enough so that, by itself, it is reason enough to order the product—yet small enough so that it is easily believed. This way, even if the reader is totally skeptical about the big promise, she can believe the secondary promise and order on that basis alone.
But the basics of good print advertising are pretty much the same no matter what medium you’re writing for. Here are nine criteria that an ad must satisfy if it is to be successful as a selling tool:
“You cannot bore people into buying your product,” writes David Ogilvy in Ogilvy on Advertising. “You can only interest them in buying it.”
The key to being believed is to tell the truth.
Clever advertising can convince people to try a bad product once. But it can’t convince them to buy a product they’ve already tried and didn’t like.
A salutation that identifies with the reader’s special interest—Dear Farmer, Dear Lawyer, Dear Computer Enthusiast, Dear Future Millionaire—is always better than Dear Sir, Dear Madame, or Dear Friend.
Mail, “Don’t tell your prospect about your grass seed, tell him about his lawn.”
Some of the strongest sales letters center around powerful, dramatic human interest stories.
Good brochure copy does more than list facts or product features; it translates these facts and features into customer benefits—reasons why the customer should buy the product.
Comp. Short for “comprehensive.” A comp is an artist’s drawing of a layout. It is used for review purposes and as a guide for the printer.
