Lately we have shared a lot of content related to ad design, its importance for your business or ways to create and use online ads for different kinds of marketing activities. However this time we would like to focus on another element that may determine the success or failure of your ads: the copy. Beautiful looking visuals will draw the attention to your ad but the eye-catching headline and powerful copy is what will convince people to follow through and click on your link. The good news is that you don’t need to be a professional copywriter to write great copy. All you need to do is apply one of our copy “recipes” for an engaging and clickable ads:
1. Share a Story
People like to peek into lives of others and witness all good and bad moments that are happening to them. Because of that one of the most engaging ways to communicate your brand is to share a story of a person that has suffered from the same problem as your audience (weight gain, no job, stressful life, etc) but has managed to solve it with the help of your product or service. Keep the copy short and to-the-point but try to intrigue people into clicking the ad and finding out more about the story.
2. Show “How to”
This is one of the most simplest and classical copy recipes where you need to show ways in which your customers can solve their current problems. Since people’s eyes are drawn to numbers you can even combine “how to” recipe with a certain number. For example: “How to save money in 3 easy steps” or “How to exercise at work: 5 amazing tricks you didn’t know”. Its interesting to say that odd numbers (like 3, 5, 7, 15) do 20% better than even numbers because they suggest that the content is more authentic, since it’s been dictated by the nuggets of information available.
3. Talk About Benefits
People want to be successful, appreciated, accomplished and knowledgeable. Show how your product can improve their life and they might be inclined to pay attention. Try not to communicate long technical details or the number of steps it takes to apply your solution. Leave those information for your website or brochures. Be careful with words you select and try to include many “power words”. They can have a positive (“youthful”, “glowing”, “healthy”, “younger”, “incredible”, “effortless”, “free”) or a negative tone (“embarrassing”, “shocking”, “heart stopping”, “outrageous”) but either way they grab the attention by triggering desires or past experiences. As you think about your product try to find power words that could best describe issues your customers might have and include them in your copy.
4. Use the FOMO
FOMO, or fear of missing out, works incredibly well in ad copy. If you place a deadline date on your offer or say that an offer is available to a limited number of people you will create a scarcity element and successfully persuade people to take action or face possibility to loose such a great opportunity.
5. Include Special Characters
If you are facing a character limit try using special characters such as “$”, “&”, “%”, as they can stand out and attract the attention. Feel free to come up with playful, relaxed copy and combine it with relevant photo that will tie the whole thing together.
6. Influence Through Social Proof
Your customers don’t want to experiment or serve as your guinea pigs. They want to know that other people have used the product successfully so try to include in your copy words like “recommended by doctors”, “used in over 50 countries”, “over 3 million people joined”, “5-star rated product”, etc. Combine such statement with a photo of professionals who support the claim or emphasize with different size or color the number you have mentioned in your copy.
7. Speak to Your Audience
People like to hear someone talk to them and not about them. They don’t want to know specific details about the product. They just want to know what impact can that product have on their life and problems. To address that need use words such as “you” and “your” as much as possible in your copy. These words imply personal relation and can therefore strengthen your relationship with customers.
Those were 7 simple recipes that will help you create a good copy for your banner ads. Try them out, pair them with visuals you have created in Content Creator and let us know which one works best for you. We are looking forward to hear from you!