CHAPTER 1

Part 1The Basics

1. Strategy

Most people wrongly believe that good ads have to be funny, well written orvisually dramatic. The truth is, the very best ads work because of the strategybehind them.

Here's a good analogy. If you've prepared a delicious meal and your dinnerguests are hungry, they won't care what kind of plates you use. Put another way,if your message and offer appeal to the people you're writing to, it barelymatters how you present them.

Of course, there are things you can do to make your ad clearer, more direct, andmore interesting, but these are definitely secondary concerns. If your strategyis wrong, the best penmanship combined with the best graphic design in the worldwon't save you.

Imagine trying to encourage teenagers to invest $400 a week for theirretirement. On the surface, it sounds like a reasonable idea, but realistically,you'd be lucky to get a single interested adolescent. The strategy is completelywrong. First, you're going after the wrong people, and second, the amount you'reasking for probably exceeds their weekly incomes.

That's an extreme example, but a good one to highlight the problem with mostadvertisements: saying the wrong thing to the wrong people.

Usually ads are saying nothing much to no one in particular. That's a far moreserious issue. If you've been writing the kind of ads that just say, "Hi, there.My business name is X, and my phone number is Y," you shouldn't be surprised ifyour ads haven't been successful. These types of ads rarely do anything, exceptfund a newspaper or magazine. People will not read them unless you promise togive them something.

Behind all of this is a strategy. So let's look at what the word strategy means.It is defined as a plan: what you want people to do and how you're going to getthem to do it.

Let's take an example. A local butcher wants to place an ad. Not being thesmartest businessman around, he simply writes his name at the top and his phonenumber at the bottom. He sits back and looks over his ad. This will bring inheaps of customers, he mistakenly thinks. Of course, nobody bothers to look athis ad, as it's completely uninteresting.

He's missing a strategy. So let's work one out for him. First, we need to thinkabout what it is he's trying to achieve. Put simply, he wants to encouragepeople to come in and buy their meat from him. But we have to be more specificwhen we talk about people. Thinking about it, he's really interested in thepeople who do their weekly grocery shopping in the local area.

So, how's he going to encourage these people to come in? They're probablyalready quite satisfied shopping at the supermarket four minutes down the road.He needs a good reason for them to come in and see him. How about a specialoffer? For every $10 you spend on meat, you get a $3 credit. That's notbad—people would probably go out of their way to claim that. Throw in alarger choice of meats, cheaper prices, higher quality, and friendly service,and you've got something that looks like a strategy.

Once people have come in and taken up his special offer, they're more likely tocome back again the following week. He may not make a killing on the first ad,but he will see some customers, as opposed to none. Over time, this strategywill pay off with repeat and referral business.

So give it some thought—what is your strategy? Whom do you want to dowhat, and how are you going to encourage them to take that action now?

2. Stop Being Clever

One of the most common mistakes people make when they first start writingadvertising copy is being too clever. They try to impress people with theirability to write humorous or clever advertising copy, rather than simply gettingthe sales message across.

So why do they fall into this trap? Well, it's simply what they've learned fromwhat they've seen, heard, or read. It's what they've been exposed to inmagazines, newspapers, and on television and radio.

You see, all around the world advertising agencies spend thousands of dollarstrying to produce award-winning advertisements. These "clever" advertisementsare not designed to make sales for their clients but rather to impress judges.The judges themselves have no interest in how successful a campaign has been.They simply look for the best play on words, the biggest, the brightest, or thefunniest advertisements.

They miss the point of the whole exercise: making sales.

Advertising is about one thing and one thing only: getting people to buy yourproduct or services—getting customers coming through the door and spendingmoney with you.

The problem with clever advertising is simply that it doesn't make people buy.To prove my point, consider how many ads you read, see, or hear in the course ofan average day. If you consider the number of billboards, in-store displays,window signs, taxi-signs, and outdoor signage you go past on an average day, youprobably won't be surprised to hear that you, like most people, are exposed toover 1500 advertisements each day!

Now how many of those do you stop and take notice of? How many can you actuallyrecall seeing? Probably not too many. In many cases, people would be lucky toremember 10. That's not many out of 1500. It's hardly surprising we can recallonly a handful; after all, if we were to stop and pay attention to every ad wewere exposed to, we'd spend our entire day reading advertisements.

So the problem with clever advertisements is that people simply don't have thetime to stop and think about what the ads are trying to say. If your ad doesn'tget the sales message across quickly, it will fail to achieve its true purpose:additional sales.

To give you an idea of how this works, consider these two headlines for a fishand chips shop that is trying to advertise a two-for-one fillet of fishpromotion in a newspaper:

"If you think there's something fishy about this offer, you're right."

Compared to:

"Buy one fillet of fish, get another one FREE!"

Now the first headline uses a clever play on words. A fishy offer in relation toa fish sale is quite humorous. But people have to stop and think about what itmeans.

Chances are that rather than reading the rest of the ad, they'll simply turn thepage and keep going. Compare this to the second headline, which gets the messageacross quickly. People thinking about what they were going to have for dinnerthat night would be tempted to read on.

The second ad might not be as glamorous, but it works.

It's all about getting people to read your ad, and then take action. If peoplehave to decipher what you've written, they'll simply pass your ad over andforget about...