Have You Got Style?Written by Wild Bill Montgomery
Writing Ad Copy with Style takes practice, patience and preparation.I can't give you practice or patience, but I can help you to prepare! Product Vocabulary List: Start by building a "Product Vocabulary List". You may be asking yourself, "What heck is a Product Vocabulary List?" Well, a Product Vocabulary, are actually building blocks of your ad copy. When you are preparing to write new advertising copy, begin by creating a list, actually 4 separate lists. Broken down, you should be compiling following information that describes or relates to your product: 1. Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and Synonyms. 2. Slang, Familiar Phrases, Cliches and Puns. 3. New Ideas and Ways to approach your product. 4. Product Facts (positive and negative). Write down everything you can think of. Much of this material you will compile while creating, devising and defining your Advertising Strategies. Once you start using these lists in this manner on a regular basis, you'll wonder how you ever got by without them. Themes What's a theme? A theme is "Punch Line" of your ad copy. Your theme could be conveyed by written, visual or oral means. It's how and where you want to go with your copy. You will most commonly notice Themes in banner advertising, but they are used in almost every form of Advertising. Most successful advertising campaigns have great themes. An advertising theme should focus on one point and be "catchy" or easy to remember. The theme will help you decide how you will get their attention and what thought they will leave with. The key is to leave a thought embedded with them. Whether it's one word or a slogan, don't let them leave without planting that one thought in their mind.
| | MAKE YOUR EZINE AD STAND OUTWritten by Lisa Lake
In my experience, I've found that advertising in ezines is a great way to get response. The problem is, there are a lot of people out there who have realized same thing.It used to be that your classified ad was only competing with one or two other ads per issue. Now that everyone has discovered this advertising technique, your ad may be competing with eight, nine, or even ten other ads. What a conundrum! Now, this increased competition COULD be a problem for effectiveness of your ad, but if you just take a little time with your copywriting, you'll soon realize that its easy to make your classified ad stand out from rest. Here are some pointers: 1) Don't do what everyone else is doing. Take a look at ads that appear in ezine and get a feel for what other ads are doing. Then, think of a way to be effective without doing exact same thing. For instance, if you notice that every ad is in all caps and phrased like a question, then make YOUR headline a strong statement that only uses capitalization for key terms. The variation in style will make your ad appear different from rest! 2) Use resources that other ads don't. Take a good look at restrictions and requirements that ezine has for its ads. This will give a good idea of what is possible -- then USE those possibilities. If you notice that ezine has HTML capabilities, don't be afraid to use color or formatting -- just don't go overboard! Also, use styles that other ad writes don't think about. Bullet points and small numbered lists can work well in some ads, but most copywriters don't even think to use them.
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