To gain more revenue, a company needs to market and promote its products or services. This is done through advertising. Advertising is essential for the business to promote the product or service, informing people about it, and convincing people to purchase or avail of it. Advertisements can be of any form such as TV or radio commercials, print ads, posters, flyers, Internet ads, or even word-of-mouth.
The text in advertisements needs to be constructed or developed in a way that would get the people's attention to be effective. Therefore, advertisement copies should catch the eye, provoke the thought, bend the mind, or intensity the emotion. Having all of these qualities in an advertising concept or copy requires an advertisement's maker to be very creative. This is where an advertisement agency's or department's copywriter comes in.
Copywriting is the process of composing the concepts and the words that promote a person, business, opinion, idea, product, or service. The people who do copywriting are aptly called copywriters.
Copywriters are a very important element of an advertising team. Usually, copywriters are partnered with art directors. The copywriter composes the advertisements' verbal and textual content, and the art director makes visuals of the ad.
Marketing wise, the text that copywriters write is very important in convincing people and gaining sales. However many copywriters make mistakes in their pieces. This copywriting mistakes are often labeled in the industry as ¡°deadly. That's because they have the potential of killing the sales and profits of the company.
Here are five of the deadliest copywriting mistakes.
- The biggest and easiest mistake is for the text to be more focused on the copywriter, or the company he represents, rather than the market the company is trying to get. Copies with phrases such as ¡°We're the best in the industry, ¡°we've been in business since 1879, or ¡°we have the latest state-of-the-art facilities do not attract
at all because these phrases focus on themselves. The market's most likely reaction would be ¡°What does that mean to me and my life or my business?
To avoid this pitfall, try to focus on the customers' needs. A good rule of the thumb is to write about the things that matter to the customer. Instead of writing in a we, us, or our sense, try to write in a you or yours sense. Let the customer speak praises for the company, not the company telling of praises about itself.
- Using a weak or bad headline is a big copywriting mistake. An attractive headline is quite important; it is the one best chance to grab a reader's attention. The headline text should be strong, aggressive, and compelling. The headline is a sales pitch that prompts the would-be customer to be interested in the ad.
An example of a poor headline would be ¡°Our Experienced Staff Can Tend To Your Every Automotive Need. A more attention-grabbing headline would be ¡°Is Your Car Telling You Something With Those Squeaks? See Us.
- Not using bullets is a copywriting mistake. Bullets are essential because they improve the ad's readability. People tend to scan what they read, and bullets increase the chances that the copy will catch the reader's eye.
Bullets also make it easier for the reader to pick out key words and phrases.
- Using big, complicated words and jargon is another copywriting mistake. It may sound impressive, but it also makes the text harder to understand. Ideally, the copy should read as if the copywriter is conversing to the reader; it should flow naturally and be easy to understand. Strong words and simple, clear writing is the best way to do it.
- The last deadly copywriting mistake a copywriter can commit is using weak or bad subheads. Subheads should be strong and compelling just like headlines. The difference is that they act as headlines for each section of the copy. It is a way to stop the eye and lets the reader slow down to read the sections in detail. Ideally, subheads should be presented once every three to four paragraphs.
Now you can ferret these mistakes from your copy and generate some sales.
