The 12 Answers of Great Ad Writers

Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

My observation during the past 40+ years as an ad writer has been that television and radio professionals spend so much time trying to sell television and radio ads, they have no time to learn how to make those ads work.

When you know how to make ads work, and can prove it, television and radio are incredibly easy to sell.

Instead of asking a salesperson to help you with your ads, let me tell you everything you need to know.

“Q” represents your unspoken questions.

“A” represents my answers to those questions.

Q: Who should I be targeting?

A: I’ve never seen a business fail because they were reaching the wrong people. But I have seen lots of businesses fail because they were saying the wrong things in their ads.

Q: Are you saying you don’t believe in targeting?

A: The most effective way to target is to write ad copy that speaks directly to the felt needs of your customer. Targeting isn’t accomplished by reaching the right address, but by demonstrating to people that you feel the way they feel, and that you believe the things they believe.

Q: Are you saying I can write ads that target specific types of people in mass media?

A: Yes, but you get a lot more than that. Mass media reaches not only your target; it reaches all the influencers of your target. Is there anyone that you don’t want to know you, like you, and say good things about you? Every person is an influencer, and decisions are never made in a vacuum.

Q: If targeting the right person is no longer my primary objective, what is?

A: You want to become the solution provider that people think of first and feel the best about. When you say the right things to the largest number of people you can afford to reach with sufficient repetition, you become a household word.

Q: Which media will work best for my business?

A: The media doesn’t make your ad work. Your ad makes the media work. The media is just a vehicle that delivers your message, your ad. The wrong message will fail in every media, and the right message will work in every media. It is the message, not the media, that either works or does not.

Q: Is there a proven way to create the right message?

A: Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.

Q: Can you give me some specific tips?

A: Sure. Here are 4 of them.

1. Talk to the customer about what the customer already cares about. Most ads answer questions that no one was asking. This is why people hate most advertising.
2. Always say something new, surprising, and different. Never say what people expect you to say. Predictability is what makes ads sound like ads.
3. Don’t just describe the process of what you do and how you do it. “We use only the freshest ingredients, and everything is made from scratch.” The process is informational. The outcome is motivational. Describe the outcome. “Food so good your head will explode.”
4. Bad ads are about you and your company. Good ads are about your customer and their happiness. Ads filled with “me, my, we,” and “our,” are about you and your company. Ads filled with the words “you” and “your” are about the customer and the happiness you want to bring them.

Q: Should every ad have a call to action?

A: No, because if they did, your ads would be predictable.

Q: Are you saying that NO ad should have a call to action?

A: I’m saying that 60 percent of your ads should be written to cause people to feel like they know you, like you, and trust you. The other 40 percent of your ads should make specific offers at specific times to trigger sales activation.

Q: Can you tell me how to write sales activation ads?

A: Yes, the keys to short-term sales activation are

1. RELEVANCE: they have to want what you are selling.
2. CREDIBILITY: they have to trust you and believe you.
3. AUTHENTIC URGENCY: The time window must be limited, or the available number must be limited. Authentic urgency is the strongest possible call to action.

Q: Since you obviously know what you’re doing, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to just let you write all my ads?

A: Yes, and we would be happy to do it.

Roy H. Williams

PS – If you count the questions I have answered, you will find there are only eleven. I decided to keep the 12th answer to myself.

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