6 Useful Tips For Writing Good Ad Copy

I started out as a copywriter, so you may be surprised to hear me say that I don’t think you need to pay someone a fortune to write your ads for you. In fact, I believe writing a good, effective advertisement that gets results is really not that difficult. The real secret is to engage your target audience because for advertising to succeed it has to be remembered. Here are six useful tips:
1. Think of the environment. I don’t mean that sort of environment. I mean where the advertisement is going to appear. There are literally hundreds of forms of advertising, from posters to websites and from taxi sides to advertisements on supermarket clocks. Within a single medium the environment may change. Consider the full-page colour advertising in magazines versus the tiny little black-and-white ads at the back. Anyway, you should be familiar with the nuance of the medium you choose and design your ads to meet its specific visual and editorial requirements.
2. Target your audience. How well do you understand your target audience? Your ad should immediately appeal to prospects and speak to them in their own language, including any buzz words that they may recognise. Your ads must ring true, without the use of gender or cultural stereotypes or exaggerated claims. Prospects must automatically understand that your offer directly relates to their needs and wants.
3. Give your ad a strong visual focal point. Competing visuals can make a small space advertisement appear cluttered. I am not saying you shouldn’t show lots of different products or small photographs but just make sure that your ad has a visual focal point.
4. Create a wow moment. Why do so many advertisements use the word ‘new’? Because our brains are actually alert for new information and so therefore the word ‘new’ attracts people’s attention. Another effective word is ‘free’. Whether you use the word ‘new’ or ‘free’, what you want to do is create what I call a ‘wow moment’: something that will grab greater audience attention and increase your response rate.
5. Make something happen. Any advertisement worth its salt should move the reader to take some kind of action. If you highlight a strong benefit in your headline and include details in your body copy, your prospects will be excited to learn how to take advantage of what’s offered. It is essential to close by providing what is generally referred to as a ‘call to action’ that takes prospects to the next step. In other words – tell them what to do!
6. Present the benefits, not the features. If you want to create a headline that pulls in readers, always highlight a desirable benefit or offer. Understand what your customers want that you can provide. Put your promise up front in your headline, and then use the body copy to explain how you will deliver that benefit. Remember: a good salesman sells benefits, not features.