How to Write Killer Ad Copy

Ad Copy, referring to the spoken words or printed text on an advertisement. I see businesses constantly giving us ad copy and we have no idea after reading it what they want from the consumer or what they are providing their customer. So, how do you go about creating killer ad copy?

Before you develop ad copy, you must answer the following questions:

• Clarify the objective of your advertisement: What is it your ad should do for you? Generate inquiries, make a direct sale, etc.

• Small description of your product/service: What is your product all about? What are its uses and features? What it does? How it works? Finish it off in a concise, small paragraph.

• Define the target audience?: Who is advertisement addressed to? What expectations or hopes does the audience have? What objections may they have about your product/service?

• Set the price: How much should your product/service be priced at?
  

• Include special offers: The key to instant attention, especially in today's economy, is to include an incentive, special offer, money back guarantees, limited time offers, etc.

• What are the benefits? How does it help your audience? What's in it for them? Why should they buy it?
  

• Who are your competitors? Compare advantages, prices, terms of your competitors

• What is the best media to use? Define the best medium to reach your customers. If your demographic (target audience) is seniors, a PregnancyMagazine would not be on your list.
  

Now you understand what you want to do, the question becomes "How do I say it?" That is what the ad copy is all about. To the point! Now its time to develop the ad copy:

1. Set your goal, NOW!! : Now is the time to define the message of your ad. The message has to hit your customers and get them to react or else it’s all a waste. Everything you do to create ad copy should support the goal in some way or the other.
   
   
2. Start with something similar: Understand your product/ service and industry. Go through competitive advertisements that are similar to your product/service. DO NOT COPY. Do you like their ad? If you don't like it chances are your customers won't either. Be honest though. Do you not like it because it is your competitor? Are you confused by their message?
   
   
3. Observe well: You don’t have to smack the side of your head to get your brain to generate ideas. Look around at other advertisements, observe what is around, even non competitive companies.
   
   
4. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid): Yes, it applies here too. No one wants to read an encyclopedia full of long, heavy sentences. They are not interested in how awesome you think your company is. They are thinking about themselves, period. So, how can you help them? Also, although you are appealing to a specific mass, address your target audience individually.
   
   
5. Give them the best: Remember you only have seconds to push your customers to a position that they are able to take a decision without any hesitation. The better the deal, the stronger will be their response.
   
   
6. Grab more than attention: Don't just try to grab their attention. Capture their emotion. Consumers use emotion more than logic. How does this help me? What's in it for me?
   

Practicing these little tips will help you create killer ad copy. So start thinking and observing... It takes time to perfect but the key here is it takes time. Ad copy should not be just on a whim.

Flash Websites Getting Crawled?

After years of wishing, whining and wailing by web developers, Google announced today that it can index "textual content in SWF files of all kinds. This includes Flash 'gadgets' such as buttons or menus, self-contained Flash websites, and everything in between." according to the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog.

In a move that has been long over do and in the wish list for flash based website owners since the 90's, Adobe Systems is teaming up with both Google and Yahoo to make Flash more searchable. Flash developers have been wishing for ways to make their content searchable for close to a decade. Adobe acknowledges this in its announcement, saying that although search engines are able to index static text and links within Flash SWF files, "RIA (Rich Internet Applications) and dynamic Web content have been generally difficult to fully expose to search engines because of their changing states—a problem also inherent in other RIA technologies."

Director of Client Distribution and Business Development in Adobe's Platform Business Unit,
Eric Wittman, said the company is providing optimized Adobe Flash Player technology to Yahoo and Google to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently non-discoverable by search engines.

The new relationship will provide more relevant search rankings of the millions of dynamic content that run on Adobe Flash Player. In addition, interactive web developers will not need to do anything to make future content searchable, said Justin Everett-Church, Senior Product Manager for Adobe Flash Player. They can be confident that their Flash-based content can now be found by users around the globe, Everett-Church said.

"We've wanted to make an announcement of this impact for several years now," Wittman said. "There are millions of things built in Flash and there have been concerns because of search engine compatibility. We have a piece of technology to remedy this and we’re working with Google and Yahoo. Google has integrated it and Yahoo will in a period of time."

Mark Bold, CEO of Jive3 Media Group that develops RIA and Phoenix Arizona based Interactive Advertising and Marketing studio commented; "We're very excited about this new push for indexing Flash. This allows clients such as ours to harness the power of Flash and be confident that their site no longer just looks cool and engages their visitors, but they can be assured that, more importantly, users can now find their content when searching Yahoo and Google, the two leading search engine companies."

With this announcement, Google can now additionally follow URLs embedded within Flash files to add to the crawling pipeline. This new indexing technology does not include FLV files (video files that are found on sites like YouTube) because those are generated as videos and don't contain any text elements like SWF files do.

What about images in Flash? Google (and eventually Yahoo) won't be able to index everything embedded within a Flash file—at least not yet. Anything that is image related, including the text that is embedded into these images, will be invisible for the time being.

For some reason Microsoft's Live search engine is noticeably missing. Either Microsoft is choosing to sit this one out or perhaps the Microsoft Silverlight platform, a competitor to Adobe Flash, makes Adobe a bit upset, and now its revenge!

Small Businesses need to Wise Up.

When it comes to small businesses advertising, I am often amazed that they are willing to risk their business, and sometimes even family over a concept and idea without any marketing plan or any fundamental understanding of marketing / advertising.

I am not saying here I don't appreciate the risk of the entrepreneur, to the contrary, I am an entrepreneur and there isn't a demographic I can appreciate more than those risk takers. What I am saying though is they have a great product or service, but then when it comes to how they spend their advertising dollars, where to spend it, who the target market is, what should be the message, they have no clue.

Small business advertising is both art and science. Companies often miss the fundamentals of advertising. Regardless of the size of the business, a simple understanding of advertising can reap huge rewards.

According to Small Business Administration, 5% of an entrepreneur's gross sales should be budgeted for advertising. 5% isn't that much, but if done right, it can be extremely beneficial.

Here are 6 Rules for Small Business Advertising Success

1. Have One Message: A high response rate ad usually conveys a single message. Your advertising needs to quickly communicate its core message in 3 seconds or less. You're fighting for eyeballs. Consumers want the "What's in it for me?", and you have merely seconds to tell them. Why should I leave my dentist for your dental firm? Why should I eat at your restaurant? An example of "To the Point" messaging success are the series of books, "________ for Dummies". People thought, I am a "Dummy" on this topic, so although their may be a myrids of other titles dealing with that topic, the "For Dummies" series have been extremely successful, because they focus on one message.

2. Add Credibility: It has become human nature to distrust advertising. All too often, businesses make unrealistic and unfounded claims. Claims need to be credible and realistic. Roy Williams, author of the "Wizard of Ads" states, "Any claim made in your advertising which your customer does not perceive as the truth is a horrible waste of ad dollars." Resist the idea to tell the consumer how great you are. They know you think you are good, or you wouldn't be in business. Again, what's in it for them. Focus on what you CAN do.

3. Test Everything: No business should waste money by guessing if their advertisement is working. Test. Ask. Rarely do I show up at a Restaurant and they give me a survey asking me how I heard about them? Are they all soo successful that they don't need to know where my wife and I heard about their businesses? No matter how successful, you need to know where your customers are coming from. Use surveys, coupons, codes, and specials to measure the headline, timing, and placement of your ad.Testing can be as simple as asking every customer for several weeks how they heard of your business. Most people are happy to share.

4. Easy to Contact: Every advertisement, brochure, email and all company literature should have full contact information including: website and email address, phone and fax numbers, and company address along with your tagline. Simply put, be everywhere.

5. Match Ads to Target Audience: Successful advertising speaks to one target market only. Know your medium. Who is the demographic? Speak to your market. Focus your message to the target group.

6. Create Curiosity: Successful advertising does not sell a product or service. It may be strange to say, but your goal is to generate interest. You want your potential customer to say "Hey, I want to check that out, we should give them a call / stop by." This can be as simple as a coupon offer, free video, publishing a testimonial of a satisfied customer, special for new clients. Why should they contact your company?

After you have addressed these rules and you market, it will be trial and error. Having a poor reponse rate is not the medium's fault. Remember, advertising is not a guarantee. Timing, current economics, location, your product or service need, price, etc., are just a few examples of factors involved in the consumers decision. Also, have realistic expectations. Getting a 2% response rate is often a huge response. Two things that are guaranteed to work in advertising is, consistancy and longevity. Applying the above rules, over and over again, will generate the business you need.

Again, having a poor response is NOT the medias fault. All too often we see businesses blame the medium and pull their ad, but yet they told the designer how to design their ad, told the advertising agency what to write, and often had a friend or family member create their advertisement for them, and they thought it looked good. Companies don't think twice about hiring a book keeper or accountant to handle their books, hire a lawyer to handle their legal affairs, but then they handle their own advertising instead of getting council from an advertising agency. I am not saying you must hire an agency to be successful, but I am saying, advertising should be an investment, not an expense and you should listen to outside council, to your customers, employees and yes, advertising firms.

Often the problem is the message. Advertising is not just running a quick advertisement to getting more business. It takes planning, testing, inquiring and constant exposure to have an impact. Done correctly, advertising is a winning strategy.