It’s amazing how much I have learned in a very short time about successful copywriter after reading books from great copywriters:
- Ogilvy On Advertising
- The Ultimate Sales Letter by Kennedy
- Words That Sell
- Tested Advertising Methods by Caples
They show you the formulas over and over again in these books and focus on the important stuff that makes the bank balance nice and fat. It’s not magic or artsy writing that make the cash registers ring, it’s simple stuff that’s as easy as putting one step infront of the other.
After reading these books, practicing with creating new ads and being on the look out for good ads, and even more important BAD ADS, I have gotten a feel for good copy and will follow up later with the results and the lessons learned when the results are in.
It’s a good tip to be have your eyes opened and be on the lookout for bad ads, they’re all around us, it makes me want to pick up the phone and call these advertisers and tell them to fire whoever is responsible for these bad ads because they are missing the mark and leaving a lot of money on the table. When you’re looking for ads take note of things like how there are no headlines going for the sale or when you have ads that you have no idea what they are trying to sell, lots of advertisers with deep pockets do this, but as a small business owner (with aspirations to be a larger business owner) I cannot afford to be indirect in my headlines and the ads I run.
Without a clear and strong headline the person skimming text will not see any point in stopping to read your ad and more importantly, buying what you are trying to sell, that’s the point of it all, to sell the stuff.
A good way to learn about selling copy that works is to look at newspapers or established magazines and see how they lure you in with STRONG headlines and reiterate and expand on benefits or provocative details that excite you and touch you emotionally.
It’s funny how all this time I thought people buy based on logic and factual information, but I have learned that it’s not the case and we buy with our emotions and it’s more about what we WANT and not what we need, we buy based on emotion and then we rationalize the purchase with logic to satisfy a human need to have an easily explainable reason for the impulse purchase (“it’s got a 32gb hard drive” translation: “it makes me feel cool” or “it goes 0 to 60 in 4.2 seconds” translation: “people will think i’m a badass and crowds of woman will be fighting each other to be seen with me”).
Because the emotions are running the show it’s good to use words that relate to the five senses to really close the deal, like mouth-watering, smooth as silk, screaming with pain, jumping for joy, hyperventilating after seeing how many zeros my bank balance increased since I took this copywriting course.
Happy writing and I will keep you updated with the results of this latest campaign and the lessons learned.