Defining Your Objectives: Writing relevant ad copy

Writing advertising copy begins with defining your objectives. What precisely do you need this ad to accomplish? These objectives will be unique to you and your firm, to each campaign, and to each ad. They dictate that the copy -- as well as all other elements of the ad -- are focused and relevant.

Ads seem to work best when you...

• Know your prospect. Not only who your prospect is, but what kind of service your prospective clientele really wants, and what kind of problems they'll depend upon your service to resolve.

• Know your service. Know your service in terms of what the prospective client is willing to buy, not what you're offering to sell

Writing is not the manipulation of words, it's the expression of ideas. Words, grammar and punctuation, are merely the tools and devices we use to express ideas most clearly. To think of copy as a configuration of words is the same as thinking of a symphony as a configuration of notes.

Why do ads that seem well written sometimes not work? Because they miss these points of advertising. Because they attempt to merely translate somebody's idea of persuasive talk into the ad medium, which can sometimes be like wearing a tuxedo to the gym, Somebody didn't recognize that the art of advertising copywriting is not the art of literary writing. It is a different medium with a different purpose.