Should You Write a Lengthy-Copy Ad or Hold it Short?
Okay, youre prepared to write the ad of a lifetime. The 1 that will pull like crazy and leave them begging for your product like Somalians for food. So, do you whet their appetite with a brief and sweet ad? Or write a lengthy-copy ad thats stuffed with info?
The 80-20 rule says 80% of the men and women only read the headline (and perhaps a caption, if you have a single). But the truth is, readers will read a long-copy ad. 1 McGraw-Hill study looked at three,597 ads in 26 enterprise magazines. What they discovered was that ads with 300 or more words were far more efficient that shorter advertisements in making item awareness, inducing action and reinforcing the choice to get. Another ad for Merrill Lynch crammed 6, 450 words into a single New York Times page. It pulled more than ten,000 responseseven without a coupon! The truth is, the purpose folks read advertisements has nothing to do with copy length.
Nobody reads lengthy advertisements and other urban ad legends
People great steak menu shun too many of todays adslong or shortbecause a number of misleading myths have stubbornly remained with us. Things like unfavorable headlines are a downer since men and women want to feel excellent when reading your ad. Or show the item or theyll never know what youre selling. Then theres the stuffy axiom, theres no location for humor in organization marketing. Or the ubiquitous saw, all your ads should appear the identical, blend in or be swallowed up. The list goes on and on. Presented with unabashed hubris by the high priests of advertising. The fundamental reality is, advertisements truly fail for three causes.
Your advertisements are all about you
Youre telling customers what you want to hear, not what they want to know. Impressive sounding characteristics are fine to motivate your sales force, but your client is only interested in one point: Whats in it for me? This offense is especially egregious in business-to-company advertising, which is infamous for its addiction steak and fries to phrases like the XP90 does it all or now with Duo-Pentium Processorwithout a hint of what these attributes do. Also contaminating several of todays ads are such chest-pounding headlines as Taking the lead, The promise of tomorrow, right now, or A tradition of good quality. They sound excellent but say nothing.
Your ads are boring
Youve got to break the boredom barrierbig time. Many ad gurus say blend in, be 1 of the pack and survive. No wonder so several advertisements look alike, proudly showing big images of their goods, or worse however, featuring a giant photo of the companys CEOusually with a caption thats been scrubbed clean of originality or compelling details. If you want men and women to stop and read your ad, you have to make the ad a lot more intriguing than the editorials in the publication youre in. Give them genuine news, a fresh new way to look at what youre supplying them. Stand out from the crowd. Begin trends, dont stick to them. 1 of the most fascinating car ads I ever saw showed the vehicle only sparingly as an alternative, it featured an animation of a human heart beating furiously to the soundtrack of an accelerating engine. Breakthrough stuff.
Your advertisements dont make human get in touch with
Theyre not reaching readers on an emotional level. We all want to be liked, appreciated and loved. We want to really feel secure in our lives and our jobs. So be a mensch. Develop ads that touch the soul. Use an emotional appeal in your visual, headline and copy. Dont just show a auto on the road show the guy captivating his sweetheart with the auto. If philly cheese steak menu your customers had been on the moon, would they care about your cars styling? No. Theyd get an ugly, crawly automobile that got them from crater to crater. Selling computer systems to business? Show the guy finding a raise or promotion for choosing your most current model. Youre promoting the emotional finish outcome, the human need to have-based bottom line, not a box, or car with four wheels and an engine.
So if youre struggling with the notion of no matter whether to write a lengthy- or short-copy ad, you can do each and nevertheless get results. The key is not length or lack of it, but information, interest and involvement in your buyers requirements. These are the ingredients to producing a productive ad.
