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Moonsail Limited
Making Words Work For You |
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Clever Ads... Do They REALLY Work?
Last night I was chatting to a colleague about TV adverts. She commented on a clever car ad that’s currently showing where the car – in true ‘transformer’ style – rearranges itself into human form and starts dancing. It’s all very cleverly done, and people seem to remember it once they’ve seen it. But strangely, nearly everyone I’ve asked can’t remember the make of car that’s being advertised. There’s another TV ad at the moment which starts with a blank screen and the words ‘before you die, they say you see a white light’. Again, most people recognise it. But again, they don’t remember what it’s actually advertising.
These adverts may be memorable but are they really doing their job if people can’t recall the name of the product? Amusing and entertaining they may be, but the real goal of good advertising is to create sales. The same applies to printed media too. Just because a magazine advert is nicely designed doesn’t make it an automatic success if it isn’t persuading people to buy.
As a writer I enjoy long passages of flowery prose, long words and complex phrases, but if I’m writing an advert I forget this – and concentrate instead on short, sharp snippets of information that tell the reader exactly how they will benefit from using the product or service advertised. Salesmanship, not entertainment, is the goal.
Think about it for a second: when you read an advert, the first thing you want to know is ‘What’s in it for me?’ so the quicker this is addressed in the ad (ideally in the headline) the more effective the end result. What do you want the reader to do? What can you tell them that will get them to do it?
If you’re writing an advert for your business, ask yourself 3 questions:
- Who is my target customer?
- What are the important features of my product/service?
- How will the customer BENEFIT from those features?
If you can grab the reader’s attention with the headline, stress the benefits in the main copy and persuade them to take some kind of action then congratulations: you’ve just written a successful advert. If you can make it entertaining too, that’s great – just remember why you’re advertising in the first place: to sell !
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