The following excerpt is from Craig Simpson and Brian Kurtz’s book The Advertising Solution. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes
Whether he was writing copy for direct mail or print advertising, advertising legend David Ogilvy had some tricks up his sleeve that worked well for influencing people to buy the product he was selling. These seven techniques can work for any kind of promotional writing today, offline or online and will help you write more effectively and get a bigger response.
1. Readers read ads as individuals, usually while they’re by themselves. So don’t address them as though they were a crowd in a stadium. It makes you seem cold and distant, when your aim is to be seen as a trusted friend. It also makes the reader’s attention flag. As you write your copy, think about the one person you’re “talking” to. Pretend you’re in a one-on-one conversation with that single reader, presenting information on what you’re offering, “one human being to another, and second person singular.”
2. You can’t bore people into doing what you want them to do. You can only interest them into doing it. So hold their interest by writing short sentences arranged in brief paragraphs. Don’t use difficult words. If you’re not sure whether a word is too difficult for the average person, Ogilvy suggested you take a bus trip to Iowa, talk to a farmer for a week, then come back by train and talk to your fellow passengers. And then, at the end of that time, see if you still want to use that word. There may be something dated in the way Ogilvy described this fact-finding adventure, but the advice is still valuable today. Listen to the people you want to appeal to,…