Ad writing: The right strategy

By Iain Macfarlane

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If you have ever run an ad, you know the anticipation, sometimes the pain, of waiting for the results, of hoping people will come to your business, will come to your store, of expecting the sales -- and the profits -- to begin flowing ... and then the results fall below your expectations, and sometimes you get nothing.

Failed advertising attempts are a subject most business owners would rather forget. Many business people wrongly believe that "good" ads have to be funny, well written or visually dramatic. Advertising people like to produce "cool" ads that are clever, slick and above all, win creativity awards. However, the best ads are successful because of the strategy behind them. If your strategy is wrong, the best writing combined with the best graphic design in the world will not make the ad work.

Here are four strategic reasons why your ads may have failed in the past:

• You did not identify the specific target audience for your product or service, you did not make it clear whom your ad was for. Eighty percent of people will read only your headline in print ads, or take notice of the first few seconds of your television commercial or radio ad.

• You did not tell your customer what they wanted to know. Ad agencies tend to focus on what's entertaining and many media reps just want to sell you space. Research shows that customers are natural window shoppers and are looking for products and services that interest them, but they also want to know whether your product or service can uniquely make their lives more pleasant and meet their needs.

• Your ad did not tell your 'selling story' or appeal to the 'self-interest' of your customer. Your customers want to know 'what's in it for me?' Does your pro-duct have some-thing they like and enjoy? Your ad must tell them so, and must do so quickly. If it does not, the newspaper reader, TV watcher or radio listener will move on, and you will have wasted your money.

• Your customers did not associate your brand with a unique benefit. There is an enormous amount of money wasted on what business owners wrongly think of as 'branding.' Many businesses think of branding as a look that must stay consistent in their ads. They hope that this will have a magic effect on sales. Most of them are disappointed, because unless your customers associate your brand with a differentiating benefit, you have wasted your advertising investment.

Creating effective advertising is even more difficult in today's consumer communication world where consumers are shunning ads in general because the volume and intrusiveness is too high and the relevance of the majority of ads to the consumer's needs is too low.

According to a research study conducted by Forrester Research, when asked what would cause them to sign up for products or services that would block or skip ads, 79 percent cited too many ads, 69 percent said ads are too interruptive, and 66 percent said it was their right to do so. Another 63 percent reported that most ads are not relevant, 60 percent found ads to be misleading and 54 percent said they manipulated consumers. With ad saturation abounding, consumers think they need to eliminate ads where they can, the study said.

Here is a simple approach to critique your or your competitor's ads in 30 seconds. Does the ad commit the four biggest mistakes seen in ineffective advertising?

• Using your company name as the headline, as the attention-getter.

• Not using the word "You" or some form of it in the headline. Using "you" personalizes the message to the consumer.

• Not opening a loop with the headline to the body content of the ad. This means the headline must force the reader/viewer to become involved in the rest of the ad. For example, "7 critical considerations you need to make in choosing a carpet cleaner" as the headline. This then requires the consumer to find the answers in the body copy.

• Not having a call to action to get an immediate response to the ad. For example, "Call 608-555-1000 NOW for a Free In-home consultation and get a 10 percent discount for mentioning this ad."

Here is a basic but effective model that will guarantee you will have ads that will work on your defined target audience. The model is called A.I.D.A.

• Does the ad as represented by the headline uniquely grab your Attention?

• Does the ad generate the reader's Interest by identifying the needs of the consumer in the body content?

• Does the ad build the consumers Desire to deal with your business by demonstrating that your product or service provides a unique solution?

• Does the ad have an immediate offer to prompt the consumer to take Action?

For a detailed practical understanding on how to develop effective ads, two books that have stood the test of time are "My Life in Advertising & Scientific Advertising" by Claude Hopkins, published in 1925, and "Tested Advertising Methods" by John Caples, published in 1930.
iainmacfarlane@action-international.com

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