What Works In Print?

by
David Pascal

What makes an ad work? What makes an ad persuade?

What makes it get someone who sees it do what you want?

What makes them want to make a purchase or a call or a donation? To sign up or tune in or log on?

You may be surprised to learn that it isn't a secret. In fact, it's nearly a cliche.

Rules have emerged from testing the results of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of winning ads. Rules that show you how to write and judge a persuasive, compelling, effective ad. Rules that are well-known among competent business writing professionals.

But a business client doesn't always know them. And he should -- if he hopes to be able to rightly judge the quality of the advertising he's paying for.

How To Make Ads That Work

Now a print ad -- the sort of thing you see in every magazine you open -- is the classic embodiment of such rules. Know what makes a print ad work, and you can make virtually any marketing document work more effectively, and get the responses you want. The yellow page ad, the sales letter, the web page, the mailing envelope, even the blurb on the back of a paperback -- all are variations on the classic print ad.

So let's take a look at those principles.

The Three Basic Parts of An Ad

Ads have three basic parts: the headline, the body copy, and the illustration. What do marketing studies tell us about each?

Headlines:

1. 95% of your readers read the headline. Only 5% go on to read body copy. (If it's good. If it's bad, your advertisement is dead and so are your sales.)

2. The most effective headlines promise a benefit rather than a feature.

(What's the difference? A feature is a description, a benefit explains what specific advantage the buyer gets out of that feature. '4000 Mhz' is a feature. 'Fastest computer speed ever!' tells you how the buyer benefits from that feature. '43 MPG' is a feature. 'Save up to a thousand a year in gas' tells how the buyer benefits from that feature.)

3. The most effective headlines promise helpful information.

(A headline that goes 'Buy Crisco' does not offer helpful information. A headline that 'How To Cook Low-Cholesterol Pie With Crisco' and includes a recipe, does.)

A whopping 75% more readers read copy with helpful information than that which deals only with simple product description.

4. Headlines with news are remembered by 22% more people than those without news.

5. When you put your headline in quotes, recall increases 28%.

6. Headlines should name the product and its benefit. When your headline is 'blind' -- ie, doesn't say what the product is, or what it can do for you -- recall decreases 20%.

7. If your headline is intended to appeal only to a select segment of readers -- housewives, scuba divers, clergy -- place a word in your headline to flag specifically your target market. (And/or place it in the appropriate publication or newsgroup.)

8. Headlines with more than 10 words get less readership than headlines with fewer than 10. On the other hand, headlines with more than 10 sell more merchandise!

A paradox? No. As we shall see below, long copy almost invariably sells better, but doesn't automatically receive more instant attention. Ask yourself, then, whether it's sales or simply attention that you want.

9. Specifics sell better than generalities.

10. Markdowns, special offers, sales, all have better recall.

11. 'Tricky', witty headlines -- puns, etc. -- typically do worse than straight headlines.

12. Certain words draw far more attention than others -- crusty old warhorses like 'new' and 'improved', of course, but also less expected ones such as 'darling'. (John Caples' book Tested Advertising Methods is a treasure trove on this subject.)

13. Time-limited offers do better than ongoing offers. If the body is not given a reason to act now, he'll wait till later -- and forget to act.

(Regarding time: in a study of 70 sales campaigns, it was found that every single before-and-after campaign increased sales). Showing the successful end result of using a product works; and adding your target reader's current situation for contrast as well, works better.

Body Copy:

14. Only 5% of your readers read the body copy. 95% read just the headline.

This bears repeating: the first few words you write will make or break both your ad and you.

Bear in mind too that five percent of your readers do read the body copy. And readers who do are a lot more likely to become buyers than readers that don't. Body copy sells: don't neglect it.

15. Whoever reads your ad, reads it alone. Despite the fact that you may be addressing a million people, you must speak directly to only one person. Don't address Congress: write as thought you're speaking to one particular individual.

(The great advertising writer David Ogilvy sagely advises the copywriter to pretend he or she is writing a friend a letter casually explaining why he or she is happy using the client's product or service.)

16. Never never never never bore. The great ad man Howard Gossage struck the truth on this point like a Zen archer: "People do not read advertisements. They read what interests them; and sometimes it is an advertisement."

17. Think Short. Short paragraphs, short sentences, short words. Shun the clause. Fear the adjective. Abhor the adverb. And avoid difficult (usually Latinate) words. Use the language of everyday conversation. And if you don't know what it is, go sit in a mall and LISTEN.

18. Use the imperative mode. The declarative sentence. The sentence fragment. Parallelism. The second person singular. And the question. And use them almost exclusively. (And if you are a business writer and do not know what these things are, place a paper bag over your head for utter shame.)

19. Don't write your opinions; write stories. Describe. Tell the story of what the product will do for the reader (or has done for some other reader), and tell it with believable detail.

20. Avoid analogies. (I.E., 'Colgate! The Oprah of toothpastes!' People will assume you are peddling Oprah collateral, not your toothpaste.)

Avoid superlatives ('The Big Mac -- now with Bacon Bits. Mind-shattering! Soul-rending! Comparable only to drug-induced orgasm!' Perhaps so; but how is the consumer able to take a bite while his lips are busy murmuring 'Rubbish'?).

Avoid the improbable-sounding claim, even if true. ('Zippy Pop will TRANSFORM you on the CELLULAR LEVEL!' This is true: eating and digesting anything passes nutrients into cells, which modifies them on the cellular level. But while your cells are mutating, your target audience is walking off snickering.)

21. If possible, state the price of whatever you're selling. Specifically. People are afraid to ask. They do not wish to seem cheap or poor if the price is out of their range. With smaller goods this effect is lessened. But with large ticket items, such as cars, naming the price outright invariably gets a better response.

22. Use testimonials, especially if the giver is an expert, or believably resembles the reader. (Testimonials by those obviously for hire, such as celebrities, are considerably poorer in effect.)

23. Long copy all but invariably sells better than short. David Ogilvy, in an illustrious career spanning forty years, noted that only twice in that career had he ever stumbled when allowed to use long copy.

Of course, length does not mean empty length. Success increases as the number of pertinent facts in your copy increase. (And that the long copy ought to be well-written should go without saying.) But the fact remains, the old sales axiom, "The more you tell, the more you sell," continues to hold good.

(Web writers take note: there is a myth that web readers don't read long copy. Not so. People looking for informational content will read it if you supply it, and simple experience will demonstrate that people are able to keep their noses to the monitor for hour after hour. But not at long unbroken copy. What web studies show that people are not inclined to read long paragraphs. So break those paragraphs up. Rule of thumb: try not to have a paragraph longer than an inch in length.)

24. A numbered list of facts (such as this) are more likely to be read than an single unbroken run-on paragraph of them.

25. Particularly important paragraphs or phrases or sentences should be bold-faced or italicized!

(See how that line sticks out more than this one?)

26. Copy which gives readers a reason (however silly) to purchase the product still does better than that which does not give a reason.

27. Rational copy works best with rational products, ie, products where you can clearly assess and compare objective facts and advantages -- aspirin, cars, technology in general.

With irrational products (perfume, drink, art, lingerie), association beats logic. The question there becomes, 'What good things can we most effectively associate with this product?' -- ie, perfume with flirtation, beer with wild frat parties, art with aesthetic pleasure or cultural one-up-manship, lingerie with romance, etc.).

Illustrations:

28. Tests show that nothing so catches the eye as the human face. It is the first thing people look at. Text comes second.

29. The human face also holds the attention longest. (Although, curiously, larger than life photographs of the human face tend to repel.)

30. Captions under illustrations are read more often than body copy.

31. Headlines below the visual are read by 10% more readers than headlines above it.

32. Advertisements that look like articles or editorials have more readers than advertisements that look like advertisements.

33. Plain text beats fancy. Readable text is better than 'arty'; conventional fonts are better than quirky. If what you're saying is visually hard to read, people won't read it. Period. (Ogilvy & Mather founder David Ogilvy once took an fund-raising ad with white words on a black background; reversed the color so that it became simple conventional black on white; and doubled -- doubled! -- the amount of money raised.)

34. Photographs gets more responses than art illustrations, where purchasing decisions are involved.

35. Where illustrations are, persuasive reasoning and informative writing is not.

Never forget this critical trade-off. Faces and pictures and photos attract attention -- to themselves. If that distracts attention from your message, you are sunk.

Visuals are like anchovies: to indulge is nutritious, but do so sparingly. The words, "30% Off Furniture At Sears This Week Only", with no illustrations whatsoever, will sell a lot more furniture for Sears than a photograph of furniture with no words whatsoever.

Remember: a picture is not worth a thousand words. Know the message you are trying to send, and never let the illustration distract attention from it or diminish it.

36. White space sends no sales message. Though a certain amount of blank space may very properly be used to emphasize a particular piece of text, the function of a marketing document is to send a message, and if the majority of an ad is awash in blank space, that space is not being used to send any message at all. If white space emphasizes a message, it's good. If white space takes up space, it's being wasted. And so is your advertising dollar.

The System Works

So. These are the rules. (Some of them, anyway. Professionals do have to keep some tricks up their sleeves to get you to give us a call.) But while bearing in mind that it is better to break any rule rather than do something that is outright silly, the competent copywriter bends the above maxims at his peril, and his client's. Implement them and you will prosper; flout them and you will not.

John Caples, the great copywriter and Vice President of BBD&O, said in one of his books that by applying principles like these he had seen one ad get 19 1/2 times as much business as another.

Would you like to have 19 1/2 times as much business as you're getting? It can happen. It has -- to businesses smart enough to use business writing the right way.

Take a look at your current advertising. Check the document against what you've just read. And if it's breaking more than two or three of the above rules, I'll tell you what it's not breaking: any sales records.

Learn from the pros. It could.

-- David Pascal

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