The four elements of a successful ad
Posted on May 2, 2008
Here’s how to get the best readership on your ad and beat out the competition:
Work most on what’s important. Readers usually view your ad elements in this order: photo, headline, caption, and text. Notice that the text (a.k.a. body copy) is at the bottom of the list. Lets take a look at each element.
Photo: Pick up any newspaper or magazine and find a page with several ads on it. Pay attention to what you look at first. If there are a lot of text ads but one with a photo - I’ll bet your eyes went there first. It’s nearly impossible to control. Now, if there is more than one ad with a photo, but only one has a picture of a person you will jump to that ad. Photos draw attention away from your competitor’s ads.
Headline: If you don’t have a photo, the next best thing is your headline. (Of course you need a good headline even if you have a photo.) Keep it short and to the point. Nothing kills an ad worse than a long, rambling headline. Important: spend more time on creating your headline than you do creating your body copy.
Caption: People may not read your body copy, but they nearly always read the caption under your photo. In fact, if you have an important point you want to make, try putting it in the caption.
Text (body copy): this is the least viewed part of your ad. There are two things you can do to make it more likely that your reader will, in fact, read it. (1) Keep your text down to as few words as possible. People tend to avoid large amounts of text. (2) Keep it focused on what’s important to your customer.
Paying attention to these four elements will pull the reader to your ad and away from the competition’s.
More posts coming up:
- Ad placement
- Differentiating your ad from the rest
- Writing the ad copy
- Writing a successful news release
- Picking the right publication for your ad
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