We ignore many ads that interrupt us while watching our favorite series on TV, YouTube, or browsing social media, while we continue watching some ads and we may memorize the song contained in it or use the comics used in it, so what makes us reluctant to read or watch an advertisement, while kissing each other? There is no doubt that the secret lies in how to write ads, which is what this article deals with by reviewing marketing advertisement models that help us write a successful advertisement that achieves the goals of the product or service.
table of contents:
- What is copywriting?
- Where do we start writing a marketing ad?
- How to write an ad
- Tips when writing ad text
What is copywriting?
Copywriting is writing persuasive messages that urge people to take a certain action, and it is a skill in addition to being a field of work to write promotional offers and marketing materials for products and services, to persuade people to take a specific action, whether buying a product or service or subscribing, pressing a certain button, or donating.
A good advertisement is an advertisement that was written and designed to communicate emotionally with the target audience and persuade them to buy the product or service, by creating a desire in them to acquire it and feel its value, and not just by adding keywords. Your audience doesn't care how well you use your keywords, they care about how your product or service solves their problems.
The way the ad is written and the number of its words differs based on the type of media on which we advertise. There are print ads, whether in newspapers, roads, or posters, as well as audio, visual, and third ads on social media. Advertising on the Internet and social media differ from one platform to another, as YouTube advertising differs from Facebook, Google, Instagram, and others, as each medium defines a set of its own standards, whether in the number of words or the size of the image, and others.
How do we write a successful advertisement that will increase the number of sales, if you know that:
- The percentage of digital ads that were banned in 2014 was 41%.
- 90% of TV viewers report that they skip the ads.
- 8% of people reported being interested in online ads, 16% in radio ads, and 14% in billboards, while ads in apps and games decreased by 5%.
Where do we start writing a marketing ad?
First: know your audience
The first step before writing an ad is to know the target audience. The success of the ad depends on targeting. You must know what is important to your target audience. Know your audience well to know the advertising message that you will direct to them, and remember that you are not writing the ad for the owners of the company but rather for the target audience, so it is important to know the ideal customer for your company in terms of age group, gender, economic and social status, geographical area, etc.
And then knowing their language and the tone in which you will speak to them, and then writing an advertisement that addresses your audience directly. We usually pay attention to advertisements that speak directly to us, provide solutions to our problems, or provide entertainment materials. Some methods help you know the target audience, including:
- See websites that advertise products similar to yours, and learn about the language used.
- Read as much of the competing brands' marketing materials as possible, and learn what makes some more effective than others, and what they offer.
- Hear potential customers on different social media, what they say in comments, and reviews of products and services.
- Talk to your customers directly if available.
Before writing a marketing ad for a product, determine who your customer is
- Who do you want to be to attract the customer?
- Write an emotional ad based on that persona.
- Focus on the benefits, not the features.
- Tell the audience how your brand will change their lives.
- Use you to craft the ad, or make your ad personal.
- Use the fear of losing or being left out, and use countdown timers.
- Know that people are driven more by the fear of losing than by the desire to gain.
It can be difficult to pinpoint an exact target audience, but it is preferable to create a fictional target audience persona that includes age, gender, location, hobbies, income, education level, who they trust, who they like, what they dislike, and what they read and watch.
And do not forget to pay attention to the response of customers, it is good to take the position of your customers when writing the advertisement, put yourself in the place of your potential customer and think through it, then write your advertisement.
Second: set your goal
Determine the purpose you are writing the ad for, do you want customers to buy, share, book, etc.
Third: Do the necessary research on the product or service
Before you start writing the advertisement, you must conduct the necessary research to know the product or service that you will provide to customers, what are its advantages and what problems will you solve for customers? What distinguishes you from competitors? What are the reasons that will drive customers to buy your product? Put specific answers to these questions, while supporting them with scientific research and statistics that support them, if any.
Fourth: Understand the rules of selling
When writing an ad, keep the three selling rules in mind:
1. People don't like the idea of selling
People usually do not like the idea of being sold to them, so do not write the ad in the form of direct sales to your customers, but understand their expectations and language and proceed from them. Offer them the product or service in the form of solutions to their problems.
2. People buy for emotional reasons, not rational ones
People usually buy products for emotional reasons, and for this reason, effective advertising addresses the desires and feelings of the potential customer and makes him want to buy the product on an emotional level. To address your audience's positive emotions such as curiosity, optimism, love, and confidence.
And in general, know how your audience feels when they read the ad. According to research conducted at Harvard University, 9 out of 10 purchases from consumers were motivated by emotion, and this proves to us why the emotional response is important when writing marketing ad templates.
3. Once sold, people need to satisfy their emotional decisions with logic
People usually like to satisfy their emotional purchase decisions with rational ones that add value to the product or service. So keep in mind when writing the ad that once the potential customer has made his decision to buy your product, provide him with logical and rational reasons to enhance the motivation to buy the product.
Fifth: Talk about benefits, not features
When writing marketing advertisement templates, talk about the benefits that your product will provide to the public, not the advantages, and as Calvin Klein says, the only way to advertise is to "not focus on the product."
Sixth: Start your ad strong
If your ad is not strong and attracts the reader from the beginning, it will be a failed ad. The strength of the ad is concentrated in the title and the introduction. Make sure that your ad contains the main benefits of the product or service and the values that emanate from them. Experts recommend that your editorial account should be between 10% to 30% of the total ad, and it should contain a big idea and a big promise to your customers. Use clear, personal language when writing your ad.
Claude Hopkins said: “No person with a university education should write an advertisement for a mass market.” He meant here that the language used in the advertisement should be the language of the audience, not a difficult language.
Seven: End the ad with a call to action.
End your ad with a call to action ( CTA). Audiences love that you tell them what to do directly. For example, you could ask your audience to click on a specific link, buy a product, schedule a consultation, enroll in a course, etc.
For your ad to get the desired results, it must include a strong call to action, whether to buy now, book or call, so that the action you want is thoughtful and specific. Be sure to write an ad that increases your conversion rate.
- Some studies show that when a call to action looks like a button, there is a 45% increase in clicks.
- There was a 371% increase in clicks on call-to-action emails and a 1617% increase in sales.
How to write a call-to-action
- Start with powerful words like “join, connect, discover, and share.”
- Include necessary contact details such as phone number, email, website, etc.
- Motivate customers to take action with offers.
- Provide a reason for taking the action.
- Use numbers.
- Create a sense of urgency, eg 30% off for the first 20 customers.
- Use alliteration, homonyms, and emotional language to elicit an emotional response from the reader.
How do you write an advertisement for a product?
To write effective marketing ad templates, you need three elements:
- compelling offer.
- Interesting title.
- Provide your contact information.
First: the address
The ad title should provide a quick and concise idea of what the reader will find inside the ad. Use any of these:
1. Use the logo as a compelling element
A slogan is a short sentence used to represent or sell a brand. It is usually short and easy and uses anagrams, puns, or rhymes to make it more memorable.
2. The show
A good advertisement usually presents an offer to the audience or a potential benefit and serves as a link that makes the reader more focused and attentive, to complete the advertisement or purchase the product.
There is a group of structural elements of the title, including:
- The title should be short and catchy to grab the attention of the audience
- The headline provides a simple summary of what the ad contains.
There are several ways to write the ad title, including:
- The problem/solution
This type of headline states a problem the consumer is facing and then offers a solution. For example, You suffer from a toothache using such and such toothpaste (target brand name).
- Certificate
This title is based on text from a customer testimonial. For example, I lost 15 kilos in a week after taking such and such a drug (the name of the drug advertised).
- Question Title
This headline poses an important question to the audience and searches for an answer, for example: Do you spend a lot of effort to get your orders? Are you paying a lot of money for a gym membership? And so on.
Tips when writing the title of the ad
- Use numbers in the title because they are very popular and make the text concise, through which you can easily convey the added value of your product or service.
- Use promises to get the user's attention.
- Describe the added value of your product or service.
- Rely on emotion, and use words that describe the specific feelings your customers will have after using your product or service.
- Make sure your title is easy to read and not too long, between six and eight words.
Second: the logo
A slogan is a short-sentence phrase used to represent a particular brand, usually short and simple for the audience to remember.
Third: the presentation
A tempting element of the advertisement, showing the target audience why they should buy this product now. The offer may be a discount for a specific period, for example, a 30% discount for two days, the purchase of two products and the third as a gift, and so on. The offer can be at the end of the ad, with a request to take action. Nick Walney, content manager at Super Connector Media, says: “To get the reader to take an action, don’t answer the question, why? But why now?”
Fourth: The body of the advertisement
The text of the advertisement must be good and organized, and there is more than one method of writing commercial advertisements, including the APSA model, which is four steps in the writing sequence that are an abbreviation for the first letters of these steps:
- To be noticed
There are many ways to structure ad texts. One of these methods is APSA, in which the ad text begins to attract the reader's attention to a product or service, through the title and opening of the ad.
- the problem
Experts in copywriters often advise learning how to sell a solution, or that's fine, but it's always best to start selling the problem first, meaning showing your customers why your product or service is relevant to them.
- the solution
After presenting the problem, the role of solutions comes. At this point, we need to know how to solve the customer's problem and the added value that we will provide to them.
- Call to action
Ask the customer to take a certain action, and there are two ways to push the user to make a purchase decision:
-
- urgency
- rarity
Urgency: It is giving the customer a convincing reason to buy now, for example, a limited-time offer, or a two-day discount, do not miss the opportunity. When using urgency and scarcity in ad texts, be honest so you don't lose the trust of your customers.
The second method of writing the advertisement is “testimonial”
Many advertisers use the certificate to write marketing ad templates, but some use it more convincingly as follows:
- Step 1: Begin the testimonial by having your current customer recount their experience before using the product or service, what their life was like, and what problems they were facing. At this stage, he will create contact with clients who are facing the same circumstances.
- The second step: is to talk about his life after using the product or service.
- Step Three: Ask the audience to take action.
In general, the advertisement should include an attractive title, an editorial, and a text, provided that the brand name (service or product) comes in the foreground and that the advertisement makes a promise, discount, or a specific offer to the public, and ends with a call to action, which includes and means of communication whether: No. phone, email, or pressing a specific button.
Tips when writing a marketing ad
There are a set of tips that must be taken into account when writing marketing advertisement templates, including:
- Speak to your customer directly Use “you” as if you were talking to them face to face, and avoid using the plural form “we” or “you”.
- Don't focus on your ego, focus on your customers' ego.
- Write content that sells you.
- Know the common questions your customers have and provide clear answers to them.
- Provide content that includes valuable and interesting information.
- Make your ad give them a quick look at your product or service.
- The advertisement should be short, clear, and in simple language, and contain only one or two ideas at most, so as not to lose the interest of the audience.
- Every word in the ad should matter.
- Make the title impactful and interesting.
- Don't write clever and creative ad copy, write copy that sells.
- Don't talk down to your audience.
- Write an easy and simple ad
- The more keywords your customers are searching for when writing your ad, the better. Make sure your keywords are clear to your audience, and don't let them guess what you're selling.
- Ask questions, and use some questions in your title, the ones that will get your audience's attention.
- Solve a problem for your customers.
- Bring humor into your product.
- Numbers and statistics convince many clients, especially those who are looking for logical and scientific evidence, as they respond more to mental cues.
- Make your customers trust your product, and adopt a set of reliable statistics in your address. McDonald's, for example, uses statistics in its advertisements.
- Make your social media hashtags your inspiration.
- Take advantage of the character limit.
- Pay attention to spelling and grammar.
- If your brand sells abroad in languages other than your native language, be sure to write ad copy in the proper language.
- You can take advantage of the advertising campaigns offered by your competitors, and know the keywords they use, some tools help you know that.
In conclusion: In this article, we talked about writing marketing advertisement templates, the most important things that must be taken into consideration, including the type of advertising medium, knowing the target audience, studying the market, and the most important rules that must be taken into account when writing an advertisement formula for a product.