How to Ensure Your Sales Message Gets Read

No one reads your advert just for the sake of reading it.  If you want your reader to continue to read your advertising, give him a reason to do so.  Otherwise he will take one look and switch off.  You'd be surprised by the numbers of ads which actually do just that.

When you write a sales letter, don't make it so blatantly obvious you're selling something.  And certainly do NOT make it dull.

You cannot bore people into buying your product.  You can only interest them in buying it. David Ogilvy

What you want to ensure is to write your advert in such a way as to ensure your reader's attention is grabbed... and kept.  This is what increases the value of your advert: The fact that people actually remain interested in it from the headline to the subhead; from the subhead to the first paragraph; from the first paragraph to the next.  And so on.

As you can see from the paragraph, the sales message begins with the headline.  If your headline can grab your reader’s attention by the eyeballs, and keep hold of it, 80 to 90 percent of the job of the ad is accomplished.

... the headline is 50 to 75 percent of the advert. John Caples

David Ogilvy went even further. He said:

On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.  It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.

When you take into account the fact your headline is competing with other headlines, especially if your advert is in a print magazine or newspaper, you can see why it's even more important to get it right.

One way to ensure you have a successful headline is to ensure it contains some news element.  You could announce a new product; a new way of doing something which already exists or a new way of making use of it; a new way of saving money.   Or basically anything with news which pulls at the heartstrings of your reader: An emotional desire.

Whatever it is you say you need to make a big promise.  As far as your reader is concerned it has to be worth his while taking the time to stop everything else and reading your message.

Leave your comments and let me know what you think.

Best,
Rezbi