Whether you are writing ad-copy for a sales brochure, website or email campaign, it’s essential that you have four key elements in place. Although these four elements are fundamentally different, when combined, they produce a highly effective marketing message. Once you are able to master these important techniques, you will have the recipe to create ads that sell.

Good marketing is based on psychology. It’s your job to convince your prospects that your product or service is distinct, unique and first in its class. In addition, you must create a base need for what you sell.

One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is through the AIDA method, which is the basis of all good ad-copy. In fact, it’s an age-old formula that has been used by copy-writers for years. The concept is fairly simple. You are going to move your prospects through the sales process by:

A (Attention)

I (Interest)

D (Desire)

A (Action)

To focus on each of these actions specifically:

Attention: You have about three short seconds to capture your prospect’s attention. You can accomplish this with a compelling headline or a riveting graphic, photo or video. The truth of the matter is that if you’re headline isn’t show-stopping, you’ve lost your prospect for good.
On the other hand, if you are able to command your prospect’s attention, through a headline that generates emotion, addresses a base fear or concern, or pinpoints a specific benefit, your prospect is hooked.

Interest: Once you have captured the attention of your prospect, they will be interested in what more you have to say. Your headline has created intrigue and will push your prospect to continue reading. This is where you can further peak their interest by focusing on a specific problem that they are facing.
Your goal is to create a scenario in which your prospect is able to identify closely with the problems you have outlined.

Desire. Obviously, once you have showcased the problems that your prospects face, you will need to convince them that you can offer them a solution. This is how you create a strong desire for your product or service. Show them, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your company can solve their problems and improve their life. Build your case with specific examples, testimonials and benefits.

Action. Finally, you must tell your prospects what to do. Now that you have taken them this far, it’s imperative that you tell them exactly what action to take.

A few ways to create action with your copy are:

1) Offer a Bonus: Order Now To Receive Your Free Report!

2) Provide a Discount: When You Order Before Midnight, You’ll Receive 50% Off!

3) Create Scarcity: Only The First 15 People Will Receive This Special Offer, So Act Now!

4) Showcase The Consequences: If You Don’t Act Today, Your Business Will Never Change…

5) Create Motivation: Act Today and Stop Smoking Tomorrow!

6) Appeal To Emotions: Call Us Today…Your Financial Security Depends On It!

Obviously, it’s not a simple task to create powerful ads. However, always remember that “getting back to the basics” can be the best way to create magical and powerful ads that sell.

As a small business owner, at one time or another, you will need to create a compelling ad. It doesn’t matter if your ad is a sales brochure, email announcement or a newspaper ad, ultimately, your ad-copy should grab your prospect’s attention, produce a desired emotional response that urges them to take action.

Here Are 7 Key Points To Keep In Mind, When Writing Ad-Copy:

1. Choose Your Words Carefully

There are over 175,000 words in the English language and, if used wisely, have the power to sway people’s thinking, change their perspective and even motivate them to take action.

Selecting your words thoughtfully and with precision will create an enormous difference in the quality and performance of your ads.

-  Words that create a feeling of safety: peace, relaxed, serene, secure, warm

- Words that create a sense of control: confidence, mastery, balance, self-assured, composure

- Words that create excitement: edgy, exhilarating, explosive, juicy, sensational

2. Focus On Benefits

Many small business owners make the mistake of focusing on the features of their product or service. Unfortunately, your prospect isn’t interested in mere features; they are only interested in how your product or service will improve their life.

Therefore, eliminate focusing on the mundane characteristics of your product and service and instead concentrate on how it will benefit your prospect’s life. Will it make them thinner? Happier? Richer?

If you are able to effectively portray how your product will change lives, your battle is half-done.

3. Establish Trust

One of the jobs of your ad-copy is to establish trust between you and your buyers. People will never do business with companies that they don’t feel confident about. Therefore, you need to put their anxieties to rest and convince them that their fears are unsubstantiated.

There are various ways to establish credibility:

-  Use statements that are truthful and original;

-  Offer free product samples or free services;

-  Include your name and contact information in your ad-copy;

-  Use testimonials from satisfied clients/customers

-  Avoid generalizations and include specifics

4. Create One Clear Objective

Every single piece of ad-copy that you produce (whether it is a Google Adword campaign or a piece of direct mail) should be deliberately simple.

You should have only one, crystal clear objective in your ad. Either you want your prospect to visit a website, call a 1-800 number or take out their wallet and make a purchase. If  your ad contains multiple objectives, your prospect will only become confused and overwhelmed.

As the saying goes, “Keep It Simple Stupid!” This applies to your ad-copy as well.

5. Differentiate Your Company

One of the main ingredients in successful ad-copy is to convince your prospects that you are different and unique from your competition. Your ad should always convey at least one reason why you are different.

Do you offer superior customer service? Are you the fastest? Do you produce the highest quality materials?

Discover what main attributes motivate your particular target market and make this attribute the focal point when differentiating yourself.

6. Pack Your Headlines With Power

There are dozens of research studies that suggest that your headline is the most important part of your entire ad.  In fact, you only have three seconds to capture your prospect’s interest, so your headline needs to be packed with as much power as possible.

You should always use “power words” in your headline such as:

Amazing

Announcing

Advice To

At Last

Bargains

Breakthrough

Discover

Do You

Enormous

Facts

Finally

Free

Great News

Guaranteed

Here

How Much

Inside Secrets Of…

Innovative

Love

Only

Proven

Sale

This

Which

Yes

7. Create An Emotional Response

Ultimately, your ad should produce a desired emotion in your prospect. It’s simply not enough that your prospect relates to your company in a logical manner. There needs to be an emotional connection as well.

Use words that bring about the emotions that you want your customer or client to feel: love, fear, desire, power, more control, etc.

If your prospect relates to you on both an emotional and logical level, you are engaging them in a fuller manner and they are more likely to connect with you and your company.

Although writing solid ad-copy isn’t child’s play, it can be learned through practice, patience and perseverance.

The difference between producing a mediocre ad and producing an irresistible ad that motivates your prospect to take action could literally mean thousands of dollars in extra sales, customers and clients.

If you’re interested in capturing more prospects and growing your small business on a shoestring budget, you must have a brilliant marketing message (a concise statement that explains the purpose of your small business to your ideal clients and customers).

The fundamental reason why a marketing message is such a powerful component of your small business is that it forces you to become extraordinarily clear about what you do. Believe it or not, most small business owners do a “little of this” and “a little of that” and aren’t able to effectively articulate what business they are in.

The main objective behind your marketing message is that you want to describe what you do as quickly and succinctly as possible. If your marketing message is effective, it should create an instant connection with your target market that sparks conversation.

The end result should be a one to two sentence statement that highlights the main benefit(s) your prospect will receive if they decide to do business with you. Once created, your marketing message should be used everywhere: on your website, blog, ezine, newsletters, brochures and business cards.

Here are five industry-specific marketing messages:

Fitness Trainer: “helping women over 40 create rock-solid bodies”

Dog Trainer: “achieving lightening-fast results with naughty dogs”

Insurance Agent: “creating family-friendly health-plans at rock-bottom prices”

Dentist: “delivering pain-free results for your entire family”

Virtual Assistant: “maximizing time and money for the busy business professional”

Here is an easy, three-step formula for creating your own marketing message:

1) Describe What You Do. Use an active, precise adverb to begin your marketing message.

accelerating accomplishing achieving acquiring activating adapting altering answering anticipating applying ascertaining assessing attaining attracting bringing together broadening building causing challenging clarifying collaborating combining conducting connecting constructing  contributing controlling conveying coordinating correlating creating    declaring defending defining delivering demonstrating deploying deriving designing determining developing differentiating discovering discussing distinguishing distributing dominating drawing upon driving duplicating

eliminating employing empowering enabling encompassing ending engaging enhancing ensuring equipping establishing evaluating examining exemplifying exhibiting expanding experiencing exploring extending    facilitating finding focusing following fulfilling       generating growing guaranteeing guiding helping illustrating implementing improving including increasing influencing initializing initiating integrating intervening investigating involving maintaining making manifesting matching maximizing merging minimizing modeling monitoring

observing obtaining optimizing organizing overcoming performing persisting predicting preparing proceeding producing promoting providing    reaching realizing reciprocating recognizing recommending redefining reducing refining reflecting removing repairing replacing replicating reporting representing reproducing resolving responding revealing reviewing     serving shaping sharing simplifying starting succeeding suggesting supporting     targeting teaching testing transforming transmitting understanding unifying updating working

2) Identify Your Ideal Client. Who is your potential client or customer? Are they women? Men? Small business owners? Writers? Dog owners? The better able you are to determine exactly who needs your product or service, the clearer your marketing message will be. 
3) Pinpoint The Main Benefits Your Clients/Customers Will Receive. Your product or service should ultimately solve a nagging problem or potentially improve your prospect’s life. A well-crafted marketing message will clearly accomplish this in the mind of your prospect.

It’s not easy to describe everything that you do in a simple sentence. However, once you are able to capture the essence of your small business by speaking to your target market and providing them with benefits, you will have crafted a brilliant marketing message.

Internet readers read differently than print readers. Most web readers don’t read every word of your website, blog and sales letters and instead, scan your adcopy quickly and efficiently.

The internet readers who land on your website are in a hurry. They’re looking for specific information and don’t have the time to hunt through screen after screen of text to find what they’re looking for. If your web copy is a hassle or struggle to read, your readers will quickly abandon you and move on.

Therefore, when you are writing for today’s internet audience make sure that your information is easy to understand, easy to find and easy to follow.

Here are 10 Golden Rules when writing for the internet:

1.  Always include a compelling headline. You only have three short seconds to capture your prospect’s attention, so spend plenty of time creating a headline that sells itself.

2.  Make sure to include the most important information at the very beginning of your page. Think of this as an “inverted pyramid.” Internet readers need to find out why your product or service is important to them immediately.

3.  Write short sentences of 20-25 words.

4.  Your paragraphs should only consist of 3-5 sentences each.

5.  Break up your content with bullet points, dashes, numbered lists, etc.

6.  Use sub-headings within your writing to separate ideas for the reader. This keeps your pages more scannable and it is easier for readers to move from idea to idea.

7.  Use action words to keep your writing actively moving forward.

8.  Avoid hard-to-read italics and mixing too many fonts.

9.  Write directly to your reader.

10.  ALWAYS proofread and spell check your work.

Successful marketers understand that all ad-copy, whether it is part of your website, emails, or sales letter, starts with a compelling headline. That simple, little headline at the top of your page is absolutely vital to your success, for its job is to reach out and grab your reader’s attention and keep them reading.

Well, there’s good news and bad news. Here’s the bad news: you only have three seconds to grab your reader’s attention. If your headline isn’t exciting, intriguing and interesting, your reader will stop reading and soon forget about you.

But, here’s the good news: I am going to share with you seven “headline templates” that have proven to work time and time again, producing eye-popping results.

Here they are, in no certain order:

1) The “How-to” Headline
“How To Stop Smoking In 7 Days”

2) The Testimonial Headline
“I Was Able To Tap Into Pam’s Marketing System and Double My Profits Overnight!” – John Brown, Lansing, MI

3) The Headline That Offers a Benefit
Find Out The Secrets of Throwing Away Your List Of Tired Old Leads and Instead Have Prospects Chasing You!”

4) The Question Headline
“Do You Toss and Turn All Night Long?”

5) The Headline That Provides a Solution
“Your dandruff will disappear after one shampoo”

6) The Personalized Headline
“Mary, How Would YOU Like To Lose 5 Pounds This Week?”

7) The Headline That Offers A Guarantee
“I Guarantee That You Will Make An Extra $500 Or I Will Personally Write You a Check For Double Your Money Back!”

Another simple trick is to use “power words” in your headlines. These words create an emotional connection with your readers and dramatically increase the success of your headline. Caution: only use these power words if you are looking for BIG results!

• Amazing
• Announcing
• Advice To
• At Last
• Bargains
• Breakthrough
• Discover
• Do You
• Enormous
• Facts
• Finally
• Free
• Great News
• Guaranteed
• Here
• How Much
• Inside Secrets Of…
• Innovative
• Love
• Only
• Proven
• Sale
• This
• Which
• Yes

 So, the next time you sit down to write a headline for your landing page, online newsletter or blog, take the time to create a dazzling headline that instantly captures your reader’s attention.