Copywriting Elements.
You’ve already seen how the AIDA formula works to give you a virtually foolproof “flow” or sequence your copywriting should follow for maximum effect.
The next thing you need to consider is the actual structure of the piece.
Every sales letter or ad or postcard is different, although there are 5 essential elements you must have in each one. There are other elements, too, but the 5 I share with you below are the most important and are mandatory in every piece you write, no matter how long or short it is!
1.A compelling headline to get their attention
One of the biggest challenges any copywriter faces is getting people to read their copywriting – let alone for the copy to produce a result.
The main purpose of the headline is not to sell your product – it’s just to get people to read your ad, letter or other marketing piece.
This is how you get the attention in the AIDA formula.
So, all your copywriting should begin with a headline – including your Yellow Pages ads, your sales letters, your flyers and your advertising copywriting. Everything. Even the titles of your Special Reports should be written as headlines.
Because the headline is the first thing your readers are going to see and at that point their minds are probably on other things than wanting to buy your products and services.
Your headline should immediately catch your readers' attention and offer a clear benefit for reading the rest of the copy. In fact, the very purpose - and the only purpose of a headline is to get your intended reader to stop in his tracks and read the first line of the copy, especially with online copywriting.
The headline should be about your readers – not about you. If your headline has the name of your business and your logo in it, you are probably losing out.
The responses you get from copywriting with strong headlines are very strongly qualified - which means readers will be much more likely to be persuaded by the rest of your sales message.
So your headline is the most important part of your sales letter or advert because if the reader isn’t grabbed by it, the rest of the copy won’t get read.
Following just this one tip will dramatically increase the effectiveness of your copywriting.
2.A compelling first line
The next thing the reader sees after reading your headline is the first line of your copy. This is the part where you're making the transition from attention to interest in the AIDA formula.
Remember the purpose of the headline is to hook your readers, stop them in their tracks and get them to read the first line of the rest of your copywriting.
And this first line has to be strong enough, and compelling enough to get them to want to read the next line. At this point, you've got your reader's attention... but you've not necessarily got his interest yet.
So, imagine your first line is:
- Dear Sir,
- My name is Sammy Simpson, owner of Simpson's Fire Alarms, and I've been selling fire alarms in Boringsville for the last 23 years.
Then I've not only lost my readers’ interest, but I've probably also put them into a coma. Now consider how this rewrite draws them into the conversation I've just started with a good headline:
- Dear Home owner and loving parent,
- Did you know 73% of all fires in the home result in someone suffering death or serious injury? And that over half of these are children? And yet, were you aware how easily this can be avoided with one easy-to-install fire alarm... which costs less than a round of drinks to buy, and under 9 minutes to fit, even if you're a “DIY novice”?
Obviously, I don't know what the exact numbers are here, but you can see the difference in the two lines, can't you?
The second is much more compelling and interesting to the reader, and it also continues the “story” begun by the headline.
Which leads on to...
3.Compelling body copy
Copywriting legend Joe Sugarman often talks about what he calls the “greased slide” to the sale, and what he means is your copywriting tells a story, beginning with the headline and the first line of the copy... and then always moving the reader forward to the sale.
Remember: the headline gets you the attention and the opening line and paragraphs of the copy must get the interest.
Once you've got them past the headline and the first line, you've now got to keep them moving and in fact accelerate them down the slide until they're moving so fast towards the sale they couldn't get off even if they wanted to!
And how do you write your copywriting to do all this?
The simplest thing to remember is your copy is your way of communicating with your prospect in an attempt to get them to buy something from you. People tend to buy from people they like and trust, so it makes sense to write in a way to engender liking and trust.
So, this means writing using everyday language and phrases. As a rule of thumb, since the average reading age of adults in the UK is about 10½, if your letter can't be understood by a 10 year old child, it's too complicated.
It also means dropping unnecessary jargon, big fancy words, complicated and “impressive” phrases, and all those things you're tempted to put in so you sound “professional”.
Finally, you should also use “emotional connection” with your readers. All experienced copywriters and marketers know, and recently science has proven with the aid of fMRI scanners, we humans decide emotionally and then justify it logically.
This means it's no good trying to sell me a fire alarm using logic – you've got to use words and language which connects with the emotional pain of what a fire would mean to me and my family. It's no good telling me how reliable it is unless you tell me what that reliability means.
Which takes me to...
4.No one cares about you or your products, or what you do!
No one cares if your fire alarm offers the latest enhanced intelligent sensing algorithms, has an advanced laser light source and patented optical design, and gives you rotary, decimal addressing.
In fact, no one cares about your product (or you) at all: what they care about is what you and your product can do for them. In essence, they're interested in the product of your product rather than the product itself.
You’ve probably heard the old chestnut about how it’s not the drill you’re buying from B&Q but the hole in the wall it gives you.
Well, it’s even more than that: you’re not buying the drill or the hole. No, you’re buying the warm, fuzzy feelings you get from looking at your child’s face in the photograph hanging on the screw screwed into the rawplug pushed into the hole the drill drills.
We buy on emotion, every time.
So, sell benefits not features. Features are just what you do.
And while you might love your business and have a passion for what you do, your customers and clients are interested only in what you can do for them, and instead of waxing lyrical in your copy about what you and your products do, instead write in terms of what you and your products will do for the reader.
Your copywriting needs to reflect this principle.
5.Tell them why they need to respond!
The last part of the puzzle is to get them to take action.
To be effective, your copywriting has one objective and one objective only: to get people to respond. There's no other reason for writing it. Getting them to take action is crucial! It’s the last part of the AIDA formula, and the key to successful brochure copywriting, advertising copywriting, in fact all copywriting.
And what they respond to is the offer you make them, which is why it makes sense for you to make the offer generous and exciting to the point of being irresistible.
The actual offer depends on what your purpose is and what business you’re in, of course, but there are two things you must do:
- 1
- Have only one offer. Robert Collier showed as far back as 1937 making more than one offer in the same piece kills both offers; and
- 2
- Make the offer irresistible. Most business owners don’t make any kind of offer at all; and if they do, it’s usually something to do with low price. People are much less price resistant than you think, if you give them a good reason to want what you’re offering.
Running a successful business is not a matter of getting leads as cheaply as you can. The real value you’ll get from lead-generation is getting highly qualified leads. Quality is better than sheer quantity.
Good business is about relationships. And if you want to have good relationships, you have to put something in before you can expect anything out.
So, there we have it: 5 things you can do TODAY to improve your copywriting and start making more money from your advertisements and other marketing pieces.
There's a lot more “meat” to effective copywriting than I've given you here, but these fundamentals if you apply them rigorously will make a huge difference in your advertising and marketing.
Happy Copywriting!
Chris Cardell
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