Copywriting for adverts

Introduction

Fundraisers are copywriters. We write letters, copy for our newsletters, copy for our direct mail letters, copy for our leaflets. The following is taken from Patrick Quinn's Copywriting Manual. You can purchase your own hard copy of the book described by Patrick as 'a workbook'. It lays out the nuts and bolts of copywriting, and then shows you how to assemble them via tried-and-tested methods.

If you wish to receive a copy (135 pages) please telephone UK on 01721 730 350 and his address is One-to-One, Cowieslinn, Eddleston, Peebleshire, EH45 8QZ. Cost is approximately £30 at the time of going to press. Please tell him that you got the address from Alba Fundraising Ltd.

Taken from patrick quinn's book

"Advertising is a splendid device for helping to keep the money going round in a free enterprise society. You make the product, you advertise that product, and people buy it.

The greater proportion of all sales come about because advertising has influenced the buyers. A lesser proportion of sales come about via word of mouth or because the product happens to be in the same place as the buyer at the point of sale - when he feels the impulse to buy.

So advertising plays a very important part in shifting of product.

But wait. A recent survey suggests that something like 30% of all press advertising makes no sales proposition.

Now, it seems logical that any advertisement, which doesn't attempt to sell you something from the word go, but hides its proposition behind some tortuous message or some convoluted graphic, is hardly worth the name.

What are we trying to do when we commit advertising?

We are trying to:

1. Create awareness of our products and services
2. Pull consumer response or consumer traffic
3. Increase public confidence in those products and services
4. Counter and, hopefully, upstage competitor's efforts.

Compile direct mail and rep's follow-up lists via coupon response. When you write advertising, talk to your audience the way a good salesman addresses a potential customer. Be self-assured. Be convinced of the efficacy of your product. Above all, be positive.

Of course, the more positive your advertising is, the more probable that some people won't like it. But the more certain others will be. Thus advertising which sets out to please everyone is likely to end up pleasing no one at all.

Summary

Before you write anything, dig deeply into the facts, figures and benefits of the product or service or cause. Insist on examining it first-hand, or demand a demonstration of its capabilities. Try to make yourself as familiar with the product as the fellow who makes it.

The basic standard ad

1. The headline
   This features the main product benefit
2. The illustration: This demonstrates the product in relation to the headline benefit
3. The body copy: An opening paragraph enlarging on this benefit. To communicate a message in the smallest space, via the least number of words, in the shortest possible time.
4. Further paragraphs of facts to support the benefit claim
5. Penultimate paragraph warning the reader of what he will miss if he doesn't buy the product.
6. Final paragraph as a call to action. (Get in touch right away)
7. The company logo: A symbolic device whose function is to give immediate identity to the company
8. Tag line: A phrase designed to leave the reader with a comfortable impression of the company  

Points to ponder

1. Clever or clarity

The first of these important things is the urge to display cleverness at the expense of clarity. Advertising, as I've said over and over again, is a business of communication and persuasion; and perhaps the most carelessly read words in print are those in an ad. Therefore, by all means be as clever as you like; but not at the expense of making your message clear to the people who will be reading it, if you're lucky, with only half an eye and only a quarter of their attention.

Clarity is without doubt, the greatest virtue an ad can possess.

2. Getting to grips with the Market known as Quinn's Second Law. It runs like this:

"The more deeply a person is immersed in any given subject, the harder it is for them to float to the surface in order to explain it to those standing on the jetty."

As difficult as it may seem you must put yourself into the shoes of the typical person who inhabits your marketplace; and then write accordingly.

3. A pint pot holds only a pint

It's better to say one thing clearly than a dozen things indistinctly. A copy should be to the length necessary to make its point. It should be as long as it needs to be. There is nothing against long copy, providing it is a good long copy. Copy for its own sake is not only self-indulgent. It is also unlikely to be read.

4. Money won't save a bad idea

No amount of money can prevent a bad idea from falling flat on its face, or save a bad product from the scrap heap.

5. Don't write a word until you know the facts

A clear brief, detailing the product and its benefits, along with the media to be employed and the market you wish to reach, is mandatory before you even think of putting pen to paper.

6. Hard sell or soft sell?

I am generally and generously in favour of soft sell; and not only because it is more civilised. Banging people over the head has only one result: you render them unconscious. This means that hard sell turns off more people than it turns on. What's more, ears, which are deaf to shouts, are often wide open to whispers.

7. Research isn't definitive

You can tell how well your last campaign did, and how well your present campaign is doing. What it can't predict is the outcome of any campaign you intend to run in the future.
Fortunately, the business of advertising is still very much a case of doing what your heart tells you to be right.

8. Puns and clichés

Advocate puns, but only as long as they are worthy puns; not that infantile piece of nonsense one sees betimes. Clich's defeat the object.

Patrick Quinn runs a series of exercises each containing 3 projects for you to work on to firm up your skills. Our project is assessed in writing. One of the exercise topics is Press Advertising. Contact him on the address in the introduction if you are interested (Price £35 per exercise).