The Advertising That Sells

Everything counts in advertising: design, words, tone, - nothing can be skipped. Every detail is important and contributes to success of the overall copy. No component can be singled out as the most significant. However, as advertising text starts with the headline, and it serves as attention-grabber we will dwell on the features that make good ad’s headings.

The headline is a sort of a wire that helps the readers understand if the rest of the text is worth reading or not. On the average five times more people read only the headers not the full text. Once you have created your heading – it means – you have spent eighty cents of your dollar. If the heading does not motivate to buy, you wasted 80%of your client’s money. The greatest sin is to produce a text without a headline. Changing the head of your advertising text can make your sales boost tenfold. The headline is the basis of your advertising text. Use it to attract the attention of the target audience. Every heading should appeal and reflect the interest of the reader. Try to include news in your headers. The two most powerful words you can use are “free” and “new “.  You can hardly use the word “free” too often, but if you try   you will always manage to apply the word “ new”.Other words that work wonders are : now, suddenly, here, improvement, sensational, wonderful, revolutionary, magic, advice, fast, easy, true, compare, discounts, hurry, challenge, the only chance. Do not turn your back on these trivial patterns. You may get sick and tired of them. They may sound aggressive and banal like “Order your custom research paper here and now!” But they do work. Casting a glance at your ad, customers should from the first sight recognize and understand the brand name advertised. Include your promise stimulating to buy the product into the heading.

The customers are sure to read the main text if the headline provokes their curiosity. So you should wrap up your heading with some tempting offer that will urge the reader to proceed. Some advertising agents compose complicated headlines with puns, literary hints and other ambiguities. It is waste of space.  Your headline is to convey what you have to say and convey clearly. Do not play with the audience silly games.   It is risky to use negatives in the headline. If for example you write something like: “Not plagiarized self reflective essays”, many perspective client will miss the negation and they will think your essay are plagiarized. Avoid blind, general clichés that mean nothing unless the main text   is read.  The more types of font you use, the fewer people will read your ad. Leo Burnett once remarked,"If you don't get noticed, you don't have anything. You just have to be noticed, but the art is in getting noticed naturally, without screaming or without tricks". (Found at http://advertising.utexas.edu/research/quotes/Q100.html). It holds true for general strategy of developing the headlines.