Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Copy

Are you wondering why your advertising materials aren’t producing the results you want? The calls just aren’t coming in? Maybe your well-intentioned copy isn’t selling your product. Full color flyers may attract attention, but it’s the copy that keeps the customer reading them. Take a closer look at your copy and make sure you aren’t doing any of the following common copywriting mistakes.

Advertising the features instead of the benefits. What are you trying to sell in your marketing materials? One of the biggest copywriting mistakes is to sell the features of a product or service instead of its benefits. Advertising flyers that tell your customers that your “cutting-edge GS-500 doohickey comes with XYZ technology” do not mean a whole lot to them. The customer wants to know how your GS-500 will help them and how the XYZ technology will benefit their lives in some way. People buy solutions, not features. Will your product save the customer money or time? If so, tell them! You’re just wasting your flyer printing, budget if you just show off the features of your product.

Not enlightening or schooling the reader. Does your copy contain a lot of fluff? Is it more emotional without a lot of substance? If you’re promoting a new fabric softener using an advertising flyer for instance, prominently tell the customer how it will help them (the benefits), but then also give factual information of how the new ingredient works in the fabric softener for those who want to read more. Use the benefits to pull all potential customers in, and also add more information for those customers who are “label readers.” Those who want to learn more. This way you’re appealing to a broad range of customers and specific customers at the same time.

Boring the customer to tears. So, you’ve got the benefits and some facts to back up those benefits. Now, to keep the customers’ attention, you need to add some emotional appeal or drama. This is where understanding your customer comes into play – what are their fears? What do they like, need, want? Where does your product fit in to help them? Full color flyers can help you avoid a boring look, but it won’t help get your message across, that’s the copy’s job.

Overstating promises. Most people don’t believe everything in ads anyway, so you figure you might as well keep up the trend? Not a good idea. Surprise your customers by being honest. If you believe in your product (and you do, right?) then let your great product do the talking for you. No need to exaggerate benefits or make up any claims. Don’t be ashamed to emphasize your strengths, but don’t let that emphasis turn into exaggeration.

Not editing. Customers don’t spend a lot of time reading ads – a few seconds is the usual time given. A glance over. What do you want customers to see as they glance at your copy? A big block of small text is not going to draw them in. Use precise, short headlines and edit any long sentences by either cutting words or splitting the sentence into two sentences. It’s easier for people to read short sentences. Editing may also give you new ideas on how to pitch your product – coming up with one powerful word that says the same thing as three mediocre words can put new life into your ad. If you’re using flyer printing, that flyer doesn’t have a lot of room for needless words.

Not including a call to action. You create marketing materials for a reason – to get customers to your door. But how will they know the way unless you tell them? You have to tell them to call, visit your Web site or come to your store. And then give them the information they need to do that call to action. It’s hard for people to visit your Web site if you don’t give them the address!

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