Sunday, December 21, 2008

Writing effective advertising copy for the rest of us

By Mike Lake

Last night, as my 8 year old son was looking though that day’s stack of holiday mail, he stopped and shouted, “Hey, (the name of our heating fuel company) wants to help us!” I smiled as I immediately envisioned the source of his excitement and then thought to myself how invisible that same message had been to me as I had earlier poured through that same stack of mail.

A letter from our heating oil supplier had teaser copy that claimed that they want to help us. Honestly, I hadn’t even noticed it, and at the moment of my son’s innocent enthusiasm, I was reminded how jaded most of us adults are regarding advertising copy – and how important (and difficult) is it to write it well.

First, I must give kudos to my heating oil company for… adhering to a cardinal rule of advertising copy: Write from the perspective of the customer. They did this when they wrote “We want to help you.” Far too many advertisers continue to write copy that speaks about them: “We’ve been in business over 50 years.” “We have locations throughout the Northeast.” or “Our service can’t be beat.” None of that copy would excite my 8 year-old son. So how do you write copy that resonates with grownups who are likely to buy your product or service?

Let me give you a list of questions, that if answered correctly, will provide you with powerful ad copy. Before I give them to you, it’s critical that you know where to get the answers. They do NOT come from your advertising agency and they don’t even come from an internal meeting of your senior staff. They come from your customers. Ask each of these questions of your customers and your ad copy will turn to gold.

  1. What are the goals of my customers and what are the main problems that stand in the way of them achieving them that my product/service eliminates?
  2. What do they believe about the problems they’re trying to solve?
  3. What other options do my customers have that might also eliminate the above problems?
  4. What do they believe about products like mine?
  5. What do they need to believe about my product/service in order to buy now?
  6. What are their objections about buying my product now?
  7. Who/what are their enemies – people or products they distrust?
  8. What are their dreams for the future?

Ask these questions of your customers either in person, through surveys or by reading on-line blogs and forums so that you can gather answers to as much of the above as possible. Then find some commonality between answers and write your ad copy as if your customer were speaking it themselves.

P.S. My son was elated by another envelope, this one from an insurance company carrying a message beneath the clear address window that read, “Pay to addressee or bearer”. As my son yelled, “Dad, someone wants to give you money!”, I asked myself in this day and age, if anyone BESIDES an 8 year-old is taken in my that trick! Don’t use gimmicks. Just good copy that resolnates with your audience.

Published by Mike Lake on December 21st, 2008 in Blog, Marketing, Personnel, Previous


One Response to “Writing effective advertising copy for the rest of us”

  1. Lou Martorelli Says:
    December 24th, 2008 at 11:41 am

    Mike,

    I haven’t had a chance to “dig in” to the blog yet but, I LOVE what I’ve seen so far. This is something that might actually help my business. You’ve already given me ideas.

    I will be in touch!

    Lou

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