Make Your Advertising Shine!

There are five major components to ensure excellent advertising copy, these must be completed in the following order for success…

• Command Attention
• Give Benefits of Products/Services
• Prove Benefits
• Persuade People to Embrace Benefits
• Call to Action

Advertising is basically sales in print.

You need to think about the unique benefits your products/services offer and showcase that in a persuasive way. Emphasise the results, not the features.

• Command Attention:

This is usually accomplished with the headline in your advertising. Your headline needs to be attention-grabbing so your potential clients want to know more about your products/services. The best headlines give a vivid portrayal of the benefits or show how a problem can be avoided with your products/services. The headline is the advertisement for the advertisement.

• Showcase Benefits:

You have to showcase the benefits of your products and services and show how they solve or prevent a problem. The buyer needs to know what’s in it for them. Include useful, factual and clear information to show precisely what the benefits are and how they are going to help the customer. Step away from giving the features of your products/services, people don’t buy these, they want to know how your products/services can help them.

• Offer Proof:

This is where you prove what the advertisement is offering. You need to establish you have a method to deliver. Consider information that establishes credibility and past performance.

• Persuade:

Add compelling reasons for your potential customers to purchase your products/services. Use a hard sell approach and create scarcity. This will ensure your potential customers feel like they have to act now. Which leads into the last component.

• Call to Action:

You need to compel your potential customers to DO something. They need to check out your site, sign up for your newsletter, purchase your products, contact you about services…something.  Offer a freebie-a booklet, sample, product, bonus, demo, consult, limited time price…the list goes on. There are lots of ways to get potential customers excited about ordering and help them feel like they are getting an amazing deal.

Good advertisements include all of these components and are not complete without any of them. You can sit down and think through any one of these components, then figure out how to best place them together for the most effectiveness.