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Why does some advertising work and some not work?

Don't Try To Make Sense... MAKE SALES!

Here are some basic guidelines that I think will be very helpful to anyone trying to market their product or service whether online or offline.

Writing good ad copy is a combination of art and science. Anyone that tells you it is easy is simply not telling you the whole story.

It CAN be easy... if you learn some of the basic skills involved in writing effective ad copy.

But if you are like most people, you look at this stuff and just start scratching your head wondering what in the world you should do next.

I'm not going to tell you that I have the answer to all of your questions, but this will get you moving in the right direction.

Why does some advertising work and some not work?

There are a few reasons. The first is that you need to be sure you are in the right market place. If you are offering some sort of business opportunity, you need to be sure you are advertising to a group of people that have an interest in such information. That is a pretty wide open market so you can find a LOT of resources that can help you there. That part should be easy.

But, if you are selling a service that would appeal to hunters and sportsman, you wouldn't want to spend much money to advertise in a gun control publication or site.

If you are trying to reach a market that consists mainly of senior citizens, retirees, etc... you would definitely not get much benefit by advertising in a skateboarding site or publication.

Some of this stuff is really just common sense. Ask yourself, "Are the people visiting this site or reading this publication the kind of people that would have an interest in my offer?".

If not.. keep looking. If the answer is "Yes" then it is time to move on to the next step in the process.

This is where most advertisers miss the mark in a big way.

They try to make sense or appeal to logic with their ad copy.

Forget trying to "make sense". The objective of your ad is to MAKE SALES or at least generate someinterest so that you can MAKE SALES.

Here's what I mean:

Many people feel like their product "just makes sense".  That's great... and it may very well make sense to you and to others.

BUT..

People do NOT make purchasing decisions logically.

Most people make their buying decisions emotionally.

Think about that for a minute.

People will rarely buy what they need. They will more often buy what they WANT. How does your offer fill an emotional need or protect the prospect from some potential loss.

When you boil it all down, we are basically the same. We want the things that give us pleasure and/or help us to avoid pain.

Take a look at some of the commercials we see for acne products. They aren't really focusing on how the product can help someone cure their acne. The real focus is on helping someone to avoid the embarrassment of going to the prom or on a date with a big zit on their forehead.

Does anyone really "need" any of the carbonated soft drinks that are available? Of course not... but we want them. And we buy them.... A LOT OF THEM.

Do we buy it because of the quality? (Give me a break)

We buy this one over that one because we want to be a part of the new generation... or we want to be like those guys that sing songs while riding their skate boards and catching soda cans that are shot from around the world at a billion miles per hour... or we want to somehow think that if it's good enough for Cindy Crawford, well....

Why did I buy my clothes from The Men's Warehouse instead of some department store?

The owner GUARANTEED I would like the way I look.  (He said so in his commercials). I want to like the way I look, don't you?

Why buy this car instead of the other one? They will both get you back and forth from one day to the next, right?

But one car makes you "look" or "feel" a certain way.

I think you get the point, here. In order to sell, we have to appeal to our reader's emotional side.

Think about your offer from their perspective and then answer the big question that is on their mind:

WHAT WILL THIS DO FOR ME?

Answer that question in your headline or subject line and you'll see a LOT more people reading your ad.

Answer that question throughout your ad copy and you will see a LOT more people responding to your ad.

Realize that advertising is a science... but not an exact science. If we could tell you which ads will pull and which will not, we would be in a totally different line of work. Big ad agencies have ad campaigns that totally flop. And, they have big winners.

The key is to write your ads from the perspective
of filling an emotional need or protecting from a
potential loss.

THEN... and this is probably the MOST IMPORTANT part...

TEST YOUR AD FOR RESULTS!

Every once in a while, I get an email that reads
something like this:

"Your system must not be working... no one is responding to my ad".

Let's look at the first part: The system.

The system really works very well. It sends the ad.
That's the beginning middle and end of what the system
does. They show the ad. Much like a newspaper ad,
when you send it... there it goes. People see it.

Here's the real problem:

"... no one is responding to my ad.".

This may shock you... but...

I HAVE HAD THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM!

Yes.... I have run ads that were total bombs.

Shocked? Surprised? Don't be... it happens every single
day... to everyone.... including me.

I already know the system works. The ads are going out.
So the variable... or the thing I need to work on... is
my ad copy.

I go through and I read my ad copy again.

Is my headline (email subject line) inviting? Does it
create curiosity? Does it make the reader want to know
more? The "trick" is to read it as if you don't have any
idea of what the ad is about. Will this headline make me
want to read further? If not, I start there. I may rewrite
my headline a dozen times until I get it right.

I'll write the headline until I get one that I think
is good. Then, I run the ad with the new headline for
a few days. That's the great thing about the internet.
I can test ad copy instantly!

I use the same approach when writing the rest of the
ad, or the "ad copy". There is only one reason to have
any line of text at all in your ad copy. That reason is:

TO MAKE THEM READ THE NEXT LINE!

If your ad copy doesn't make the reader want to read
more... learn more... order more... then it is not doing
the job it was designed to do.

Create curiosity... list the BENEFITS of your offer...
What will it do for the reader? Tell them! And then
be VERY CLEAR on what they should do in order to
either place an order or learn more.

Use small words. The average person has a reading
comprehension level of a 6th grade student. You can
confuse and even scare people off if your words are
too big or your sentences are too long. Make it
simple... make it exciting... make it clear. Your
goal is NOT to impress someone with a big vocabulary
but to make them want to know more about your offer.

Ok... that's enough for now. This information should
get you started in the right direction.
Go through your ad copy with a critical eye. Act
like you have never seen any of your information before.

I noticed that one of my ads was not working very well.

By "not working very well" I mean that I hadn't had a
sale on that particular web site in over a week.
I looked at my ad copy and I realized that I could do
a much better job. I changed just a couple of lines
in the ad and I had a sale within 20 minutes!

So, believe me when I tell you: I know EXACTLY what it
feels like to have an ad that doesn't work. And, I know
what it is like to have to rewrite the ad to make it work.

It's worth the effort. And it is precisely what separates
the successful advertiser (Internet Marketing Specialist)
from the "wannabe" advertiser.