You offer a great product you know it, your customers know it, and you want other people to know what you can offer them. But when people are inundated by ads every day, getting their attention can feel daunting and sometimes hopeless.
Before you create your ad, ask yourself one important question: What does the customer already know about your product and the problem it solves?
High Knowledge And Familiarity
If you offer a product people already understand and use, most of the work is already done for you. Your job is to provide a reason for why they should purchase your product. This could be a reminder of how your product will help them. It could be a limited-time offer.
Nike, benefitting from the gift of brand recognition, released this ad in 2013. They kept it simple and to the point, appealing to athletes by essentially referring to themselves as the master of speed, on par with the running cheetah.
They kept the copy simple, providing only one reason to tip their customers over the edge to converting. Knowing their audience would respond to the promise of speed, Nike appealed to their brand loyalists, the people who just needed a reason to tip them over the edge to become return customers.
Familiarity With The Problem, But Not The Product
Some people may realize they have a problem, but do not know there is a solution. If the audience you are addressing falls into this category, you need to hook them with the problem. Appeal to their emotions, so they feel the problem. Then explain how you can solve it.
Life Alert is a prime example of this. Many elderly people fear a fall, especially if they live alone. The I’ve fallen and I can’t get up ads address the feeling associated with this fear, and then go on to explain how their product can put your fears to rest.
Don’t Realize They Have a Problem
Many products may solve a problem people didn’t even realize they had. This is where a copywriter’s job becomes especially creative.
In this case, the audience needs to be made acutely aware of this problem, even if it’s one they’ve never given a second thought. Show them why it is something they should pay attention to, and then show them the product you offer to solve their newly discovered problem.
This was represented by the Snuggie trend. Everyone knows the feeling of covering up with a blanket in the winter, but having cold arms when you try to read a book or reach for the remote. But no one was consciously aware of this problem before Snuggie advertisements ran if cold arms were an issue, you got a sweater or turned up the heat.
The tagline, “The blanket that has sleeves!” became so well known that everybody was getting one. Suddenly everyone was aware of this problem they had never thought twice about, and the Snuggie seemed like a simple solution.
Some ads focused on how you could lower your heating bills, while others focused on how kids could play their video games and stay warm. The brand was enormously successful while the trend lasted, thanks to the clever and digestible copy and tagline.
Building your copywriting tactics around what a customer already knows and feels (or doesn’t yet know or feel) is your first key to finding a creative way to convince them to convert. Without a doubt, there are countless other levels of customer knowledge to tap into that will help you hook customers with web copy that sells.
For help with your copywriting strategy, contact Sweet Rose Studios today.
