Don’t risk reducing the effectiveness of your advertising

With so many tips and tricks around for how to write effect copy for your business, today I thought we could look at the mistakes to avoid. Before we begin, let’s refresh and remember the most important word in advertising is ‘you’. It’s all about you!

• Who’s ever read a pretentious quotation and had no idea what message the ad was trying to portray? Me! Avoid the use of quotations unless they are short, clear and relevant to your message. Testimonials are a great alternative as it’s about you and your business.
• Avoid writing in all capital letters. It’s been proven that a block of capital letters is harder to read than normal text and worse still, it’s seen as shouting at your readers. I picture an old cartoon of a mother telling off her naughty child with the caption all being written in capital letters!
• Have one thought per sentence and make it short. Too many ideas in one sentence are hard to grasp. Sentences feel spongy if you cram too many abstract words into it and readers won’t see your main point.
• Don’t repeat yourself. I said, don’t repeat yourself! For example, if you mention that your company is Australia wide, there is no need to mention this again as it is comprehensive enough the first time.
• As a cheery person, this is my favourite point – don’t write negatively. Be positive and you’ll make the reader want to know more about your business. Avoid statements such as: “We don’t have a big range of products” and change to “We have the right product range for you”.
• Our target audiences are usually not dills! Let’s not insult their intelligence by stating the obvious. If you start a sentence with ‘obviously’, then your reader will see this as a point not worth making in the first place.

The above are simply some more of the basic rules for copywriting. Over the coming months, I will continue to give you more clues and insights on how to write copy for your business.

If you are a small business owner and you’re still unsure if your copy is working, I offer you a review service. Simply send me what you’ve done and together we can review your work to win your clients.