At some point in your life – whether at home or at work – you will probably need to prepare an advert. It could be to sell unwanted personal items on a website or in your local newspaper; it could be to recruit new staff or sell your products if you run your own business. So, it’s worth spending a few minutes considering the best way to go about it.
I know it’s stating the obvious but the purpose of an advert is to sell. So, if you are asked to write one, it’d be a good idea to know what you should be including to make it a selling success. Adverts are an art form and great ads can go down in history. So, how do you make yours the best it can be?
The following is a list of some of the things you need to keep in mind if you want to write great advertisements.
1. Your ad must have a clear goal. By this we mean it must ask the person reading it to do something, what that something is depends on what you are selling. If it’s a college course, you want the advert to get the reader to request a prospectus, so the aim of the text should be to do just that.
2. Tell the reader as much as you can in the words you have available. The reader must know everything they need to entice them to request more information, ask for a sample, visit the showroom, whatever it is you want them to do.
3. Show the benefits of the product to the reader. Benefits are what sell the product, so you need to show the reader how they’ll benefit from your product. How will it make their lives easier, better or more enjoyable? If you have unique selling points (USPs) you should definitely highlight these.
4. Create some positive feelings about the product. This can be telling people how many others are using the product or service and what they think of it, or simply using reassuring words and phrases, such as ‘proven’, ‘charming’, ‘reliable’, ‘quality’.
5. Tell the reader how to respond to the advertisement. Give them a telephone number to call, a coupon to fill in or a website to visit and ask them to contact you.
6. Compare your ad to others in the same category. This will allow you to see whether you’ve succeeded in highlighting the benefits that’ll make your product or service the most desirable.
Now, once you’ve completed your advertisement, you should put it to one side for about a week. If you don’t have that long, leave it at least a couple of days before you go back to it. This way you’ll see it with fresh eyes and, hopefully, you’ll be able to see if and where it needs to be tweaked.
You should assess the advertisement by asking yourself the question:
If I were looking for a product or service like this, would this advertisement attract me? But make sure you are honest and objective when you answer this question.
Have a look at this highly successful piece that appeared in a holiday magazine. It contains all the elements of a great advertisement:
Charming waterside cottage, fully equipped for a quiet, independent, self-catering holiday, full central heating, luxury bathroom, dinghy available. Phone 01706 677863 for further details.
You can see warm feelings are created through the use of charming, fully equipped and luxury; dinghy available gives a benefit that sets the property apart from the others on offer and the phone number gives the reader an easy way to get hold of the cottage owner for more information.
So, there you have it – how to write a great advertisement that sells. If you need further help, our Complete Copywriter course is perfect. It covers everything you need to know to set yourself up as a freelance copywriter and next week we’re offering a £25 reduction on the normal price of the course.
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