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"Copywriting Businesses - How Can I Get Started?"
"Copywriting Businesses - How Can I Get Started?" Do you have the training and skills needed for copywriting? Are you looking for a way to get your foot in the door? Will you have what it takes to succeed with your copywriting businesses? For...
Does Your Copywriting Trigger What Makes Your Visitors Buy?
You study your website stats and see the amount of traffic coming through. Nice numbers. But when you compare your traffic against your sales, what do you get? A small fraction of 1%? Wouldn't you love to see those conversions grow? But how can you...
Online Copywriting vs. Writing Copy for Print
Online copywriting has the same goals as print content, but there at least seven distinct points of departure between writing copy online and for print.
Online copywriting and print copywriting are very different. You hear that all the time....
Ten Tips for Writing Effective Web Copy
On the Internet programmers and designers rule, not the writer. Yet words drive targeted traffic to your site, carry content, make the sale, convey marketing messages, persuade people to buy and make the difference between your site’s success or...
The Writer's Dilemma: Should You Write For Free?
*Article Use Guidelines* Use in opt-in publications, or on Web sites, but please include the resource box. Please send me a copy, if possible. Many thanks. ** Summary: If you're a professional writer, it goes against the grain to write for...
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Should You Write a Long-Copy Ad or Keep it Short?
Should You Write a Long-Copy Ad or Keep it Short?
by
Alex A. Kecskes
Okay, you're ready to write the ad of a lifetime. The one that
will pull like crazy and leave them begging for your product
like Somalians for food. So, do you whet their appetite with a
short and sweet ad? Or write a long-copy ad that's stuffed with
information?
What the studies showed
The 80-20 rule says 80% of the people only read the headline
(and maybe a caption, if you have one). But the fact is, readers
will read a long-copy ad. One McGraw-Hill study looked at 3,597
ads in 26 business magazines. What they discovered was that ads
with 300 or more words were more effective that shorter ads in
creating product awareness, inducing action and reinforcing the
decision to buy. Another ad for Merrill Lynch crammed 6, 450
words into a single New York Times page. It pulled over 10,000
responses--even without a coupon! The truth is, the reason
people read ads has nothing to do with copy length.
"Nobody reads long ads..." and other urban ad legends
People shun too many of today's ads--long or short--because
several misleading myths have stubbornly remained with us.
Things like "negative headlines are a downer since people want
to feel good when reading your ad." Or "show the product or
they'll never know what you're selling." Then there's the stuffy
axiom, "there's no place for humor in business advertising. " Or
the ubiquitous saw, "all your ads should look the same, blend in
or be swallowed up." The list goes on and on. Presented with
unabashed hubris by the high priests of advertising. The basic
fact is, ads really fail for three reasons.
Your ads are all about you
You're telling customers what you want to hear, not what they
want to know. Impressive sounding features are fine to motivate
your sales force, but your customer is only interested in one
thing: "What's in it for me?" This offense is particularly
egregious in business-to-business advertising, which is infamous
for its addiction to phrases like "the XP90 does it all" or "now
with Duo-Pentium Processor"--without a hint of what these
features do. Also contaminating many of today's ads are such
chest-pounding headlines as "Taking the lead," "The promise of
tomorrow, today," or "A
tradition of quality." They sound good
but say nothing.
Your ads are boring
You've got to break the boredom barrier--big time. Many ad gurus
say blend in, be one of the pack and survive. No wonder so many
ads look alike, proudly showing big pictures of their products,
or worse yet, featuring a giant photo of the company's
CEO--usually with a caption that's been scrubbed clean of
originality or compelling information. If you want people to
stop and read your ad, you have to make the ad more interesting
than the editorials in the publication you're in. Give them real
news, a fresh new way to look at what you're offering them.
Stand out from the crowd. Start trends, don't follow them. One
of the most interesting car ads I ever saw showed the car only
sparingly; instead, it featured an animation of a human heart
beating furiously to the soundtrack of an accelerating engine.
Breakthrough stuff.
Your ads don't make human contact
They're not reaching readers on an emotional level. We all want
to be liked, appreciated and loved. We want to feel secure in
our lives and our jobs. So be a mensch. Create ads that touch
the soul. Use an emotional appeal in your visual, headline and
copy. Don't just show a car on the road; show the guy
captivating his sweetheart with the car. If your buyers were on
the moon, would they care about your car's styling? No. They'd
get an ugly, crawly vehicle that got them from crater to crater.
Selling computers to business? Show the guy getting a raise or
promotion for selecting your latest model. You're selling the
emotional end result, the human need-based bottom line, not a
box, or vehicle with four wheels and an engine.
So if you're struggling with the notion of whether to write a
long- or short-copy ad, you can do both and still get results.
The key is not length or lack of it, but information, interest
and involvement in your customer's needs. These are the
ingredients to creating a successful ad.
About the author:
Alex Kecskes is a former ad agency Copy Chief who provides a
full range of copywriting services to agencies and Fortune 500
companies. He has created effective copy for brochures, mailers,
multimedia, articles, newsletters, PR and web content. For
samples and more information, please visit:
www.akcreativeworks.com
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