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Advertising Copywriting 101

Written by: Kristin Marquet

Article Overview: Copywriting is the single most important aspect of advertising. We must know what our market wants before we give it to them.

Advertising Copywriting 101

We must understand emotional triggers. We must understand consumer buying habits. Most importantly, we must hit hot buttons to make our markets open their wallets and right then, pull out the credit card, and make the purchase on the spot. Effective copy must be tailored to your audience. If you are writing to an audience of lawyers, write on a level they will understand. Don't write on a level that you would if you were writing to children.

1. Figure out who your market is. Find out your market's buying behaviors, demographics, location, and anything else that is relevant.

2. Before you write any copy, make sure that you have thoroughly studied the product or service's benefits and features, but more importantly the benefits. Always remember the phrase, "What's in it for me?" Consumers are only concerned with what you can do for them.

3. Make sure the copy flows. Use short sentences, ideally seventeen words at most.

4. Stay away from using the word "I." Consumers are not interested in you as much as they are as themselves.

5. The headline must captivate your audience's attention.

6. People are emotional buyers. No matter what you are selling, make sure you list benefit after benefit. Features are nice, but they will not sell the product or service.

7. Develop a strong call to action. You can have great sales literature, but without a call to action, you are only going to delay getting a direct response to whatever you are trying to sell.

8. Don't let the reader drift. If so, the prospect will grow bored and go elsewhere.

9. Review, read it one time, read it again. Put it down and then read it again. After all, you want customers and clients to keep coming back to you for business. That's why you are in business -- right?

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Article Tags: audience, benefit, business right, buying habits, consumers, credit card, demographics, direct response, drift, hot buttons, lawyers, nbsp, phrase, sales literature, sentences, using the word, wallets



Related Forum Posts
Top 19 Copywriting books - 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley. 2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner. 3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill. 4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin. 7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books. 9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association. 11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books. 12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books. 13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books. 16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books. 17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall. 18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop. 19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley. This should keep you busy for at least a year. Enjoy!
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