Three Cyber
Ad Types
Creating ads for cyberspace
takes a different approach than traditional advertising methods.
If you'd rather play it safe than be sorry, read on...
© 1998,
by Copy/Cyberwriting Expert Joe Vitale
For more than one hundred
years good advertising professionals have been using the same
formula for creating their ads. Known as "AIDA," it
represents "Attention, Interest, Desire, Action:" a
proven structure for a successful ad.
But the online
world requires a new formula. Use the old one and you're likely
to create an ad that will get you many replies: all flames. Why?
Online travellers prefer less direct forms of advertising. While
this prejudice is changing by the moment, it will be a while
before direct selling is accepted online. Until then, you need
a safer formula. I have one, and I call it "TARGET."
Before I tell you how it works, let me explain the three online
ad formats that I think will work best for you:
Three
CyberAd Types
1.
Imaginative
Bruce Barton,
co-founder of BBDO, one of the largest ad agencies in the world,
often used a method for creating ads called "Imaginative."
With it he wrote some of the greatest ads in American history.
In my book on Barton, titled The
Seven Lost Secrets of Success, I said this method "Reveals the
Business Nobody Knows." It is a powerful way to write an
online ad. Let me give you a couple of examples:
In the 1920's
there was an ad for a door that had the headline, "The Personality
of the Doorway." The copy revealed why a door was special,
as well as what it revealed about the home and the home's owner.
This ad helped sell more doors because it imaginatively revealed
something typically unseen about doors. It went deeper than the
obvious. Instead of writing an ad that said, "Buy our doors,"
it made their ad and their product new and different. The ad
was imaginative.
Back in 1925,
when Barton was speaking before the American Petroleum Institute,
he told his audience they were not selling gasoline at all. He
said, "My friends it is the juice of the fountain of eternal
youth that you are selling. It is health. It is comfort. It is
success. And you have sold it as a bad smelling liquid at so
many cents a gallon. You have never lifted it out of the category
of a hated expense."
Look for what
your product or service delivers. When people buy a drill, they
don't want a drill, they want the holes the drill will help them
create. But go deeper. Why do they want the holes? It may be
to hang sentimental pictures of their family. It may be to help
create a new room in their warm home. Use your imagination and
focus on something deeper.
2.
Interpretive
This approach
asks you to say something new about an old product. Create a
fresh viewpoint. Someone selling soap might explain (as one ad
did) "Your skin has five miles of pores. How clean are yours?"
People reading that ad stop and say to themselves, "I didn't
know that!" Your new information makes your product more
interesting.
Recently I saw
a television commercial for a long distance service that explained
how a telephone call worked. It was interesting information that
made me sit up and take notice where I might otherwise have paid
no attention at all.
Think about your
product or service and consider the history of it and facts about
it. What you take for granted may be exciting news to your readers.
I once worked with a large motor repair company. I said they
should announce that they could fix any motor within one hour.
They countered with, "Any good mechanic can say that."
I said, "But are they saying it? If not, you have an opportunity
to capitalize on a fact your peers take for granted and your
customers don't know."
What is obvious
to you that might be news to your prospects?
3.
Initiative
Confront readers
with a direct question and you're likely to involve them in your
ad right away. That's why when you go to a movie theater they
say, "Large or small soda?" They assume you want a
drink. They are taking the initiative in the sales process. When
a salesperson asks, "Which do you prefer -- a small car
or a large one?", they are taking the initivative with you.
You can plunge
a reader into an interaction with your product with this approach.
For example, the most successful ad in history began with the
question, "Do you make these mistakes in English?"
The question yanked people right into the entire ad because it's
involving, personal, and bold. It takes the initiative.
Think of your
business and how you might write an ad that suggests and even
demands involvement. Asking a personal, relevant, fascinating
question can grab readers as they are whizzing by in cyberspace
and pull them right to your ad.
Want to learn
the entire new TARGET formula and discover how to create "cyber-ads"
that SELL?
Just get your
hands on the book, CyberWriting:
How to Promote Your Product or Service Online (Without Being
Flamed)
by Joe "Mister Fire!" Vitale.
- © 1998 - 2000 Joe Vitale, all rights reserved. If you really
want to learn how to create cyberads that sell,
grab a copy of Joe
Vitale's latest book,
CyberWriting:
How to Promote Your Product or Service Online (Without Being
Flamed), a bestseller at http://www.amazon.com.
Joe is our "Copy/Cyberwriting Expert." For reprint permission contact Joe Vitale at [email protected].
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