Understand copywriting techniques for advertising copy

It is not enough for you to know how to create headlines and slogans or to write strong advertising copy. You must also know how to create gripping messages in every medium, from traditional and emerging. In order to accomplish this, you need a solid copywriting foundation. You need to understand various script formats, creative brief templates, media restrictions and compositional structure. Using that, you must build on that knowledge and cement it with strategic thinking, analytical insights, audience-relevant messages and sound writing techniques.

Copywriting principles used in advertising

Along with the five main purposes of copywriting, there are also four principles you should know to achieve success. These are basic guidelines that almost all copywriters follow. The following are not hard-and-fast rules but are good advice for anyone who wants to successfully engage with their customers.

What makes for good marketing copywriting?

It starts with grasping as well as internalising these four basic sales and marketing principles:

1. Know the audience

For any project, always know who your target audience is. Ensure that you understand their most important pain points and then write about these with the words or communication style that will be most likely to get through to them. The question “Who’s the audience?” is the first you need to ask when beginning any project.

2. Highlight benefits and features

Prior to starting to write for a client, uncover what the benefits and features are for their product or service for the particular target audience.

3. Create a unique selling proposition (USP)

The USP is the core message which differentiates your client from the competition. Think about what the business that you’re writing about does better than anyone else. If that’s difficult to narrow down, look at what is not being highlighted by the competition. This is even if they provide comparable products or services. Discover a way to assist your client stand out and showcase that advantage in all the marketing materials which you write.

4. Beware of the curse of knowledge

We’ve all seen websites frightfully unclear about what the business does:

• Totally indecipherable instruction manuals.
• Brochures that create more questions as opposed to answers.
• Emails that have you scratching your head regarding their meaning.

In every case, the organisation is assuming that readers or visitors know far more than they really do. So, when designing any marketing piece, ensure you can answer “yes” to this question:

• If I knew nothing whatsoever about this subject (which is very possible), was in the middle of doing something else entirely when it crossed my path (which is highly likely), and had a short attention span (which is a given), would I “get it” quickly?

If you can’t respond to this question with a definitive “yes,” rework the copy until you can.

Copywriting does not necessarily require the strictest adherence to formal English grammar. Owing to the fact that your objective is to build an empathetic rapport with your readers, you want to write in the way which they speak. Depending on the circumstances as well as your intended audience, making use of slang, sentence fragments, contractions and colloquialisms is perfectly acceptable. Grammar, as with all things, slowly changes over time. Linguistic patterns, etymologies, jargon, and societal trends change with time so paving the way for new definitions and contexts.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Are you keen to learn more about copywriting? If you do, then you should really check out our National Diploma of Copywriting. For more information, please follow this link.