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who reads copy anyway?
Copy is king. Copy alone -- even with no graphics or music -- can have an enormous impact. It can make you laugh out loud. It can bring tears of sorrow. It can make you pick up the phone and dial a number, credit card in hand. Good copy grabs you by the necktie, interrupts whatever thought process you were involved in and holds you spellbound. Good copy anticipates questions and objections, raising and answering them before you even thought of them. Good copy sells.
Good copy is hard to write.
Who reads copy? You do. Yep. You. People always tell me that they never read copy. Nonsense! They read books, don't they? You're reading this. One of the great advertising gurus used to point out that anyone will read an entire page of small copy if it matters to them. For example, if your name is Jane Doe and you saw the headline, "This Ad is All About Jane Doe" you would probably read every word.
What matters is not how much copy there is, but how relevant it is to you and how well it is written. If you recently purchased a car, you probably won't even notice most car ads. But if you're trying to decide between two models chances are you can't find enough information to help you make the final decision. As David Ogilvy says, "you can't bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it."
So how do you create interesting copy? Here are a few tips.
Present a powerful headline or audio/visual impact
84% of the effectiveness of any ad is that initial two-second impression that keeps people on the page or channel. Remember to mix a bent headline with a straight picture, or a bent picture with a straight headline. Never use both a bent picture and a bent headline together.
Writing a story often works
Some people think this approach is no longer fashionable. Nonsense. People will always respond to stories.
Make your ad communicate to one person at a time
The word "you" is so important in advertising. You can't appeal to a group. People read ads one person at a time. In television you can communicate to each individual by showing that you understand their unique feelings about a subject.
Forget analogies and comparisons with other products
Comparing your product or service with something else that the reader or viewer understands is fine. Just not a competing product, as this will only confuse them and may end up elevating the competitor instead of your client. And forget those silly metaphors. We've grown past that.
Be careful who represents you
Testimonials are great, but they work best if they come from the person next door, not some celebrity. Especially if that celebrity does something unseemly.
Don't be clever for the sake of being clever
Most attempts to write clever ads are embarrassing failures. Clever or funny ads are very difficult to write in a way that makes them effective.
Try not to make your ad look like an ad
Think about that for a moment. The reason a person is reading a newspaper or magazine or watching a television station is because of the content they came for. The more your ad fits in with that content the more effective it's likely to be. And don't apologize for being an ad, either. If your ad is relevant and meaningful, what's there to apologize for?