Marketing Examples : Create Ad Headlines that Sell
This article will show you the exact process for creating amazing advertising. It will cover the following topics:
- Steps to Creating a Marketing Brand
- Questions to ask about your Products or Services
- Answer these Questions about your Customers
- Determine the Objective of the Copy
- Your Ads Must Follow these Steps
- Creating a Great Headline
- Effective Words to use in Headlines
- Great Headlines and Why They Worked
Now we are going to get into the nitty gritty of creating specific ads. The first step in advertising is to study the product your advertising. The more you know about it, the more likely you are to come up with a big idea for selling it.
Your next step is to find out what kind of advertising your competitors are using and to what success. After this information is gathered find out what consumers think of your product and why they would buy it.
The personality of a product is many things – its name, its packaging, its price, the style of its ads and above all, the nature of the product. It of course pays to give the product an image of quality. The brand image makes up 90% of what the company has to sell.
If you don’t think this is true, think about the fact that Marlboro climbed from obscurity to become the biggest selling cigarette brand based off of the same cowboy ad, which has been in use for over 40 years.
Many copywriters fall into the trap of believing that clever wordplay, puns, and cute copy make for a good headline. But think a minute. When you make a purchase do you want to be amused or do you want a quality product at a great price?
We are not in the business of being original. We are in the business of reusing things that work. The challenge is to take what works and apply it to your product in a way that is compelling, memorable, and persuasive.
It is unbelievable how consumers continue to react to the same techniques in the same way. The ad that sold refrigerators one to five years ago will sell them today.
Step by Step: Creating a Marketing Brand
First get all the material possible related to the product including competitors: Ads, Brochures, Catalogs, Articles, Market Research, Letters, Illustrations, Photos, etc.
Questions to ask about your Products or Services
a. What are the features and benefits? ( Write these down )
b. What benefit is the most important?
c. How do you differ from your competitor?
d.What attributes can be stressed that haven’t been stressed by your competitors?
e. What problem does the product solve?
f. How does the product work?
g. How long will the product last?
h. How economical is the product?
i. How easy is it to use?
j. Who has bought the product and what do they say about it?
k. What options are available?
l. What service and support do you offer?
m. Is the product guaranteed?
Answer these Questions about your Customers
a. Who is your customer?
b. What does the product do for them?
c. Why do they need the product?
d. Why do they need it now?
e. What is the customers main concern when buying this product or type of product?
f. What will motivate the buyer to buy?
g. Does the ad have to appeal to more than just the direct buyer?
Determine the objective of the copy in your advertisement?
- Generate Inquires
- Generate Sales
- Answer Inquires
- Qualify Prospects
- Generate Traffic
- Show New Idea
- Stay In-touch
- Build Recognition
- Is This a Marketing Tool
Your Ads Must Follow these Steps
a. Capture the prospects attention. How?
b. Maintain the prospects interest. How?
c. Move the prospect to a favorable action, knowing that unless enough prospects have been transformed into customers, your ad has failed. How?
An effective headline tells readers to stop a minute because this is something you want. Research has proven that there is little sales value in fine writing. It is what you say that counts, not how you say it. A valid argument presented in blunt language will sway the reader more than a less valid argument beautifully presented.
Make sure your message matters to your customers. For example Pennzoil spent millions of dollars telling America how it was the only leading brand of motor oil to meet the 1996 SAE requirements two years early. Guess what? Nobody cared nor did they understand how this would impact them and so they didn’t buy Pennzoil.
On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money. The purpose of headlines must be to convey a message to people who read only headlines. People read the headline first, then the illustration, any copy explaining the illustration, subheads and then finally the copy itself.
The headlines which work best are those which promise the reader a benefit – like whiter wash, more miles per gallon, freedom from pimples, fewer cavities. If you see a headline that offers you something you want you will make time to read the copy.
19 Rules for Writing Headlines
1. Try to get self-interest into every headline you write. Make your headline suggest to the readers that here is something they want.
2. If you have news, such as a new product, or a new use for an old product, be sure to get that news into your headline in a big way.
3. Avoid headlines that merely provoke curiosity. Curiosity combined with news of self-interest is an excellent aid to the pulling power of your headline, but curiosity by itself is seldom enough.
4. Avoid headlines that paint a gloomy picture instead take the positive angle.
5. Try to suggest in your headline that here is a quick and easy way for the readers to get something they want.
6. Discover in your own mind what argument would make you, the writer, part with good money in order to buy the product or service you are advertising.
7. Do not make your headline so short that it fails to fully prosuade
8. Avoid the type of headline that sounds as if it was written on a monument, such as “Unusual times, Unusual values”
9. Avoid the headline that instead of making readers want to buy your product simply makes them say, “How clever”.
10. Avoid meaningless headlines.
11. One way to persuade people to read an advertisement is to suggest in the headline that the copy contains useful information. One of the most successful ads of all time was titled “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
12. Get the big point of your advertisement into your headline.
13. Headlines that simply state a fact are not effective in getting people to read the copy. The reason why is because readers know what the copy is going to say without reading it.
14. Avoid headlines that require thought and is not clear at first glance.
15. Include your brand name in the headline.
16. If your advertising is named at a small group of people (Asthma, Bedwetters, etc.) address them.
17. Put your headline in quotes to get a 28% recall.
18. Avoid superlatives, “We Are the Best.”
19. Effective words to use in headlines include:
- Free (which is the most powerful)
- New
- Discover
- Introducing
- Announcing
- Now
- It’s here
- At last
- Arriving
- How to
- Why
- Sale
- Quick
- Easy
- Bargain
- Last chance
- Guarantee
- Results
- Proven
- Safe
Great Headlines and Why They Worked
How a fool stunt made me a star salesman
- It arouses the readers curiosity in that they want to find out what the stunt was and it appeals to their self-interest by offering to make them into a star salesman.
What’s wrong in this picture?
- This challenges the reader into examining the picture and then urges them to read the copy to get the answer.
How I improved my memory in one evening
- A method of improving one’s memory is very attractive and on top of that the headline suggests that the method is quick and easy.
Give me 5 days and I’ll give you a magnetic personality…Let me prove it – Free
- The method is quick, easy, and free.
ANNOUNCING – A new course and service for men and women who want to be independent in the next five years
- It announces something new and also conveys a strong self-interest note.
WANTED – Your services as a high-paid real-estate specialist
- This is a self-interest headline that offers highly paid jobs. Also note that the word wanted is a great attention getter.
I gambled a postage stamp and won $35,840 in 2 years
- Again a self-interest ad addressed to anyone who would like to gamble small and win big.
I hope you enjoyed this article. If you go through this process it is almost impossible, to not write great advertising copy. I can continue writing additional articles on writing effective advertising copy. If you want more marketing examples just comment below. You can also see additional marketing examples, in this article which lists the best magazine ads of all time!
Til next time…
[...] Questions to ask about your Products or Services [...]
I don’t usually take the time to drop a comment, but it is difficult to find actual thoughts on this topic today. You did a lovely job in this post and I think I’ll check out your other articles as well. Keep up the good work!
[...] article is a continuation of Marketing Examples: Create Ad Headlines that Sell. In this article I’ll go over the [...]
I normally dont stop to leave comments, but it is not easy to find actual thoughts on this topic today. You did a great job in this blog post and I am going to look at the rest of your blog. Keep writing!
Copywriting is also a skill that takes years of practice to become very effective in advertising what you are selling and “`