Fred's Advertising Clinc Part 3: You've Got Their Attention - Now Get Them Interested

In our last installment of Fred's Advertising Clinic we explored the first part of the formula for writing effective copy: Gaining attention.

We did it by asking a question or making a statement that got your audience to want more information; something that would induce them to pay attention to the rest of your message.

Fair enough. We've got their attention, now what? Well, it's time for Step Two: Building interest.

Building interest is the meat of your presentation. It's where the listener gets rewarded for paying attention. You answer their questions, explain how your product can help them. You even entertain them or shock them, if that's the approach you've chosen to go with.

Let's return to the example we used earlier, dry-erase markers. We came up with some good workable attention grabbing lines, so let's build on them.

Our first attention grabber was a simple statement: "You're only human." So it follows that humans make mistakes and the great thing about dry-erase markers is that they make it easy to correct your mistakes. (Remember in our last installment we decided to focus on the mistake angle for our ad.) You can go into as much detail as you want about fixing mistakes, that's up to you as the copy writer. The important thing is that you interest the customer in the benefits he or she can derive from using your product.

We also came up with a simple attention grabbing statement: "Everybody makes mistakes." The approach to this lead is almost identical to the above. The audience wants to know about how they can fix their mistakes, and you tell 'em.

We also tried a lead that set up a specific scene in the audience's mind as our attention grabber: "It's the biggest presentation of your career...and you don't want to blow it." This can be a bit more of a hard sell style ad, but that's okay. Tell the audience how dry-erase markers can save their jobs, maybe even help them win a promotion. How? By making sure they've got the full line of dry-erase markers in the briefcase to correct those little spelling mistakes that might crop up - like misspelling their client's name on the big whiteboard; or helping them to express their ideas clearly by using all the different colors the markers come in. Or maybe, you hope along with them that they will never have to take advantage of the easy-erasure feature, but it's comforting to know it's there just in case.

My favorite attention grabber of the bunch is this one: "Dry-erase markers don't taste very good." It's the sort of attention-grabber that lends humor and personality to an otherwise dull product. So build interest in your product by playing on the humor. Contrast the great features with the one (quite inconsequential) disadvantage they have. "Dry-erase markers come in 36 different colors, but don't eat them for breakfast."

Interest the customer in your product and its benefits by building on your attention grabbing lead. Sell your product's features, sell its benefits, or sell its personality. Just keep it interesting.

Next time we'll talk about Step Three - Desire. You gotta want it!

Attention grabbing, interesting spots
that sell is what Brown Cow Studios of Boston is all about.
Visit www.BrownCowStudios.com to learn more.