E. St. Elmo Lewis, an American advertising and sales pioneer, said that “the mission of an advertisement is to attract a reader, so that he will look at the advertisement and start to read it; then to interest him, so that he will continue to read it; then to convince him, so that when he has read it he will believe it. If an advertisement contains these three qualities of success, it is a successful advertisement.”

Advertising and marketing professionals are finding that traditional media channels and one-way communications are losing their effectiveness. And as they, along with business owners, experiment in finding the right blend of traditional and digital strategy to adopt, one prerequisite for a successful advertising campaign that needs to be satisfied is that for quality copy. It serves as the backbone of a campaign by commanding attention. It highlights the main selling points of a particular product or service and conveys it clearly and concisely. It examines subjects from different perspectives and is empathetic to people’s problems and needs. So without further ado, here are a few tips on improving the copy you produce.

Do your homework.
Read everything you can get your hands on, ask questions and take notes. You won’t be able to clearly articulate a message if you don’t. Throughout the process, ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve with each bit of progress so as to stay on point. If you’re in a copyblogging role or writing online collateral, make sure all new copy supports the content strategy for the website.

Understand your audience.
Understanding the demographic that makes up your audience will help you find and utilize an appropriate tone as well as identify selling points to leverage in messaging. Before you lay any words down on the page, figure out who you’re speaking to and write with them in mind. Put yourself in a prospective customer’s pair of shoes and think about what might spur you to action.

Say more by writing less.
Each and every channel adopted has its own unique attributes. Writing for Twitter will be different than writing an e-mail to a client which is different than writing to a Facebook fan and so on. While microblogging to the tune of Twitter’s 140-character-limit might seem like a burden, it forces you to think outside of the box while being judicious with the content that does make the final cut. Studies show that the more words you add to a web page, the less time people spend reading it so your writing will have to intelligibly and simply state a message.

Be prepared to make revisions.
Copy is almost never embraced and loved instantly. More often than not, it will require tinkering and revising, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, so don’t expect to get it right on the first try. Be willing to change your copy to meet a goal. And if that doesn’t work, don’t be afraid to start over.

The war wages on.
Even if you do build a campaign that succeeds in marketing a product or service, with effective messaging, your work is far from over. History shows us that brands that have been successful, and continue to be, are constantly fighting to defend top spots. Give yourself a pat on the back and then move on. In the world of advertising, your work is never over.

If you have any questions as to how Bravo Design, Inc. might contribute to your growing business, please fill out a contact form listed here or leave a comment below, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Aside from the smashing design work and web development you’ll see throughout our portfolio, we write copy built to convert.