|
MARKETSTORM NEWS AND ARTICLES
The Secrets of Good Newspaper and Magazine Advertising for YOUR
Business. PART 1.
by
Duncan McAdams
Many businesses don't have the luxury of using a marketing or advertising
company or even a freelance copywriter to write ads for them. So
in the good old Kiwi fashion of "doing it yourself" we
are introducing the first in a three part series to help you write
your own advert that will help you get results.
The only reason for advertising is for SALES otherwise it's
a waste of time and money. You will still find advertisers wasting
opportunities and calling it a "branding exercise" or
some such nonsense - don't go there. Advertise then monitor the
response - if you get little or no response change your advert -
keep doing this until you find one that does work. So lets begin
with the MOST important part of every advert…
The Headline
The headline of any advert really is the MOST important
part - you must engage the reader to read on. You don't need to
be smart or clever just get them interested.
Headlines can be broken down roughly into three types:
Self interest
Use lots of "you"s and "your"s and really talk
to the reader - remember they are very interested in themselves.
How you can improve your email newsletter in 2.3 hours!
News
Be specific. 1000's of people read our email newsletters
is not as good as 2541.25 people read our newsletters every two
weeks - it has a kind of newsworthy, "yes I trust these
figures" feel. Or better still use self-interest and news:
It's easy to get 5639 readers to read your email newsletter
- find out how.
Curiosity
Try and arouse someone's curiosity - 11 Mysteries of a Good
Email Newsletters Unraveled or create a challenge: If
you keep reading I bet YOU could write your own email newsletters.
Your headline makes the reader want to read on so make it sexy,
interesting, challenging, address a problem… here's a few more
tips:
- Longer headlines work better than shorter ones.
- Keep your headline in an easy to read font - no fancy stuff
here.
- Keep your headline at the top of the page. (most of the time)
- Stress words by bolding or underlining such as "you"
& "your".
- Try to avoid using all capital letters if you're using a long
headline
- Don't be negative or boring or meaningless
- If your using a long headline make non essential words smaller
and the item for sale larger: You could make
real money with email newsletters - we tell all.
For more information we recommend the two best books on
advertising ever written:
Tested Advertising Methods
by John Caples
Scientific Advertising by Claude
C Hopkins
Another two good ones:
Cash, Customers and Ads that Sell
by Bradley Sugars/Trevor Mayhew
Great Print advertising by Tony
Antin
All are still in print and available from Borders or www.Amazon.com
Send a copy of any advertisement
you have written for a FREE appraisal - any time - we
would love to help.
The
Secrets of Good Newspaper and Magazine Advertising for YOUR Business.
PART 2.
The Secrets of Good Newspaper
and Magazine Advertising for YOUR Business. PART 3.
|
