Feb 2009
10
10 Ways to Write More Effective Ads – Part 1/10
Categories: Copywriting
1. Focus on Them, Not You
When a prospect reads your ad, letter, brochure, etc., the one thing he will be wondering from the start is: “what’s in it for me?”
And if your copy doesn’t tell him, it’ll land in the trash faster than he can read the headline or lead.
A lot of advertisers make this mistake. They focus on them as a company. How long they’ve been in business, who their biggest customers are, how they’ve spent ten years of research and millions of dollars on developing this product, blah, blah.
Actually, those points are important. But they should be expressed in a way that matters to your potential customer. Remember, once he’s thrown it in the garbage, the sale is lost!
When writing your copy, it helps to think of it as writing a letter to an old friend. In fact, I often picture a friend of mine who most closely fits my prospect’s profile. What would I say to convince this friend to try my product? How would I target my friend’s objections and beliefs to help my cause?
When you’re writing to a friend, you’ll use the pronouns “I” and “you.” When trying to convince your friend, you might say: “Look, I know you think you’ve tried every widget out there. But you should know that…”
And it goes beyond just writing in the second person. That is, addressing your prospect as “you” within the copy. The fact of the matter is there are many successful ads that weren’t written in the second person. Some are written in the first person perspective, where the writer uses “I.” Other times the third person is used, with “she,” “he,” and “them.”
And even if you do write in the second person, it doesn’t necessarily mean your copy is about them.
For example:
“As a real estate agent, you can take comfort in the fact that I’ve sold over 10,000 homes and mastered the tricks of the trade”
Although you’re writing in the second person, you’re really still focusing on yourself.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Oct 2008
17
An Introduction to Blogging – The Basics
Categories: Blogging
The blogging phenomena have reached the attention of the masses far and wide. Those who appreciate journalism would enjoy the engaging in the new hype of writing articles. Blogging’s popularity is constantly devouring the multimedia industry through the contributions of the literary advocate.
It’s a web page jam packed with all the journalistic compositions and discussions about different agendas. A combination of having an on-line diary, compact topics, the role of blogging has become vital to cyber society.
Blogs are updated on a regular basis and is arranged chronologically considering the first subject being the newest. Categories are organized. From archives to commentaries, to blogrolls down to the feeds.
Content
Typically, a blog’s content would greatly depend on the topic it’s dealing with. If you’re advertising something, perfume, apparel, or a vintage automobile, you could feature catalogs of the products mentioned. Personal blogs consists of daily happenings, observations, comments about another’s comment.
Schools and universities can put posts containing write-ups regarding their campus’ historical background, faulty and subjects or courses offered. A blog should be updated daily to give readers reasons to keep coming back for more. A human mind always seeks for something new. Therefore, update.
Feedback
Comments are very much welcome. Come one, come all! It doesn’t matter who would give out a comment for as long as somebody did write something. Bottom line: what you’ve written had an effect on that mind and aroused some opinions to merit it. Be glad you have a comment. At least someone has read your posts. Here, interaction takes place.
Tools and Concepts
Blogging can be a fuss if you don’t how the process works. What in the world does RRS, URL, blogroll, and all that jazz mean? How can I use it? For greater understanding, here are some terms and definitions of some of the tool usually used in blogging and the concepts that go with it.
Below are the letters comprising the blogging alphabet. Some letters were not included for the reason that it’s totally irrelevant to the readers and might cause confusion on their part. I’ve just enumerated the frequently asked terms.
Archives – records of important documents or files preserved
Blogrolls – categorized list of networks to web pages
Comment Spam – irrelevant comments posted on a web page containing to one or more domains
Downloads – a verb pertaining to the pictures, audios, or videos streamed from the author’s device memory
Excerpt – summarized ideas of the post usually having a part of the entire article
Feeds – part of another’s site supplying the material for one site
Guests – are the readers, viewers, spammers, etc., who visits your site
Hosts – web sites willing to accommodate your registration as a blogger
Introduction – preliminary part of the blog page showing the personal profile of the author or a brief description of the subject
Links – a tie up with a series of sections in the web suitable for navigation from one site to another; also known as a “permalink” or “hyperlink”
Plugins – combined term for plug-ins, these are characters or scripts adding additional function to the site
And that’s it. All primary words elaborated above embody the blogging community. Easy access to the blog doesn’t mean easy manipulation. It must have certain concepts and tools to make blogging possible. The posts are one thing, how to capture the attention is the objective.
Popularity: 4% [?]
