Strategy
…
Most people wrongly believe that good ads have to be funny, well
written or visually dramatic. The truth is, the very best ads
work because of the strategy behind them.
Here's a good analogy. If you've prepared a delicious meal and
your dinner guests are hungry, they don't care what kind of plates
you use. Put another way, if your message and offer appeals to
the people you're writing to, it barely matters how you present
it.
Of course, there are things you can do to make your ad clearer,
more direct and more interesting, but these are definitely secondary
concerns. If your strategy is wrong, the best penmanship combined
with the best graphic design in the world won't save you.
Imagine trying to encourage teenagers to invest $40 a week for
their retirement. On the surface, it sounds like a reasonable
idea, but realistically, you'd be lucky to get a single interested
adolescent. The strategy is completely wrong. First, you're going
after the wrong group of people and second, the amount you're
asking for probably exceeds their weekly income.
That's an extreme example, but a good one to highlight the problem
with most advertising - it's saying the wrong thing to the wrong
people.
Usually ads are saying nothing much to no one in particular. That's
a far more serious issue. If you've been writing the kind of ads
that just say 'hi there, my business name is x, and my phone number
is y', then you shouldn't be surprised if your ads haven't brought
you success. These types of ads rarely do anything except fund
a newspaper or magazine. People will NOT read them unless you
promise to give them something.
Behind all of this is a strategy. So let's define the word 'strategy'
- it means a plan, what you want people to do and how you're going
to get them to do it.
Let's take an example. A local butcher wants to place an ad. Not
being the smartest businessman, he simply writes his name at the
top and his phone number at the bottom. He sits back, looking
over his ad - this will bring in heaps of customers' he mistakenly
thinks. Of course, nobody bothers to look at his ad - it's completely
uninteresting.
He's missing a strategy. So let's work one out for him. Firstly,
we need to think about what it is he's trying to achieve. Put
simply, he wants to encourage people to come in and buy their
meat from him. But we have to be more specific when we say 'people'.
Thinking about it, he's really interested in the people who do
their weekly grocery shopping in the local area.
So, how's he going to encourage these people to come in - they're
probably already quite satisfied shopping at the supermarket four
minutes down the road. He needs a good reason for them to come
in and see him. How about a special offer - for every $10 you
spend on meat, you get a $3 credit. That's not bad - people would
probably go out of their way to claim that. Throw in a larger
choice of meats, cheaper prices, higher quality and friendly service
and you've got something that looks like a strategy.
Once people have come in and taken up his special offer, they're
more likely to come back again next week. He may not make a killing
on the first ad, but he will see some customers, as opposed to
NONE. Over time, this strategy will pay off with repeat and referral
business.
So give it some thought - what is your strategy? WHO do you want
to do WHAT and HOW are you going to encourage them to take that
action now?
Stop
Being Clever …
One of the most common mistakes people make when they first start
writing advertising copy, is being too 'clever'. They try to impress
people with their ability to write humorous or 'clever' advertising
copy, rather than simply getting the sales message across.
So why do they fall into this trap? Well, it's simply what they've
learned from what they've seen, heard or read. It's what we've
all been exposed to through years of advertising copy in magazines,
newspapers, television commercials and radio campaigns.
See, all around the world advertising agencies spend thousands
of dollars trying to produce award winning advertisements.
These 'clever' advertisements are not designed to make sales for
their clients but rather impress judges presiding over major awards.
The judges themselves have no interest in how successful a campaign
has been. They simply look for the best play on words, the biggest,
the brightest or the funniest advertisements.
They miss the point to the whole exercise: Making Sales.
Advertising is about one thing and one thing only … getting people
to buy your product or services. Getting customers coming through
the door and spending money with you.
The problem with 'clever' advertising is simply that it doesn't
make people buy. To prove my point, consider how many ads you
read, see or hear in the course of an average day. If you consider
the number of billboards, in-store displays, window signs, taxi-backs
and outdoor signage you go past on an average day, you probably
won't be surprised to hear that you, like most people, are exposed
to over 1,500 advertisements each day!
Now how many of those do you stop and take notice of? How many
can you actually recall seeing? Probably not too many. In many
cases people would be lucky to remember 10. Not many out of more
than 1,500. It's hardly surprising we can recall only a handful,
after all, if we were to stop and pay attention to every ad we
were exposed to, we'd spend our entire day reading advertisements.
So the problem with 'clever' advertisements is that people simply
don't have the time to stop and think about what the ads trying
to say. If your ad doesn't get the sales message across fast,
it will fail to achieve its true purpose - additional sales.
To give you an idea of how this works, consider these 2 headlines
for a fish and chip shop trying to advertise a 2 for 1 fillet
of fish promotion in a newspaper -
"If
you think there's something fishy about this offer, you're right
…"
Compared to:
"Buy
one fillet of fish, get another fillet FREE!"
Now the first headline uses a clever play on words. A 'fishy'
offer in relation to a fish sale is quite humorous. But people
have to stop and think about what it means. Chances are that rather
than reading the rest of the ad, they'll simply turn the page
and keep going. Compare this to the second headline which gets
the message across fast. Anyone thinking about what they were
going to have for dinner that night would be tempted to read on.
The second ad might not be as glamorous, bit it works.
It's all about getting people to read your ad, and then take action.
If people have to decipher what you've written they'll simply
pass over your ad and forget about you altogether. Writing ads
is not about making people laugh, or having them think you're
a genius. It's about communicating with them in the fastest, clearest
possible way.
The average person is not skilled in reading comprehension. For
the majority of people, if it's not spelled out to them, they
won't be able to understand. You need to realise that writing
ads is not about you the writer, it's about making people understand.
If you want to write for your own selfish reasons then copywriting
is not for you. You'd be better off writing novels or short stories.
There's no place for big egos when it comes to writing ads.
If you want to be a copywriter you need to forget about beautiful
writing styles and creative expression and focus instead on getting
your message across in a fast and efficient manner. It might not
win you any awards but it will win you a lot of satisfied clients
and repeat business.
For
more information call ACTION International on 1800 670 335
