BUSINESS SUPPORT
How To Write The Perfect Advert In 7 Easy Steps
I
can’t touch my toes. I’ve never been able to touch my toes. This is a great source of mirth and merriment in our family, as my wife, who can with little effort fold herself into a shoebox, uses children’s parties and Christmas and New Year’s Day to have the congregation watch on in astonishment as I can barely get my ring finger past my knees. It’s not my fault. If you look carefully I have slightly shorter than average arms. I explained this to my other half, who after much cynicism, declared that yoga would sort me out. I trust you can empathise with my reluctance to join a class. Afterall it’s one thing after a few sherries demonstrating to my elderly aunts that I have the flexibility of a cucumber, it’s quite another looking like I’m in a fully body cast whilst in a room full of people with the elasticity of Stretch Armstrong. So when I saw a leaflet on the coffee table in my local community centre for private yoga lessons I nearly snapped a hamstring in my enthusiasm to pick it up and enrol for course of sixty sessions (the number I reckon it would take me to get the tips of fingers to my ankles)… that was until I read the advertisement. The headline read – ‘Learn Yoga.’ “Oh no!” I thought “I have to learn something. Man that sounds like hard work, I mean who wants to have to learn something.” I read on: ‘Improve your Yoga by practicing with a yoga master who was taught in India.’ “Oh brother, it gets worse.” I lamented “I’m probably going to have to chant and stuff.” I read on, now with trepidation ‘I’ve been practicing for twenty years.’ I was devastated! “He’s been practising for twenty years…you’d have thought he would have
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learnt how to do it by now. I don’t have twenty years, it’s my mum and dad’s golden wedding next month and I have to be able to touch my toes by then!” I pointed out to the puzzled lady at reception. I dropped the leaflet and pondered hiring a body double for the upcoming night out. This is a common problem for small business people: - not their lack of flexibility, but that there are few resources to teach us how to write a decent advert. And as such we waste thousands of pounds every year getting leaflets printed and placing ads in magazines that nobody reads. So what should the yogi have done differently? 1. Write a strong headline, that’s written in customer terms. I’ve tested many and ‘How to’s’ work best for me. For example ‘How to improve your flexibility, fitness and lose weight, in ten weeks or less, or your money back!’ If you need help writing this, go and buy a Cosmo or Men’s Health and substitute your product or service in the headline. 2. Continue the benefit from the headline into two to three benefit-driven bullet points with strong evidence in the next part of the advert. For example, ‘After ten weeks of yoga you’ll be at least 20% more flexible’, ‘if you keep going for a year you increase your life expectancy for a further two years.’ 3. If you want to brag about your achievements then tell the customer what’s in it for them. For instance ‘I became a certified yoga instructor in India, I know secret moves to help you get fitter faster than a teacher trained in the UK.‘ 4. Use social proof. Who else says you’re great other than you? ‘Jim Smith, who couldn’t bend down to tie his shoelaces before taking my class says “This Yoga class is brilliant, I now sleep upside down in my wardrobe, and my wife finds me irresistible.” Keep it truthful though – I mean the wife bit…come on!
FORTH VALLEY • SUMMER 2013
5. Use a guarantee. ‘If you can’t touch your toes after ten weeks you get your money back.’ 6. Offer a bonus and a call to action. ‘Call before the 1st of May and you get your first lesson free.‘ 7. Offer a freebie to get permission to start a relationship. ‘Call this 24 hour answerphone to get my free booklet on how to get do basic yoga moves at home’ I’ve still never taken that Yoga class and I’m much worse off for it. I wonder how many of your potential clients have not bought your product simply because your advert didn’t stop them in their tracks and feel compelled to pick up the phone!
The author, Stuart Corrigan, is Managing Director of change management consultancy firm Vanguard Scotland and author of “The Need for Change” – the world’s smallest and easiest to read guide for making your business better.
Stuart Corrigan