Encouraging customers to buy your products or services is the goal of every small business owner. Writing effective copy for your ads and other marketing materials plays a key role in turning potential customers into paying ones.

Every product or service has its own strengths and weaknesses. Effective marketing copy can emphasize strengths while minimizing weaknesses. Whether you’re writing an ad for the newspaper or a sales letter, you can write persuasive copy by keeping the following guidelines in mind.

Write your copy from the customer’s point of view

Given how hard you work to turn out a good product, your first inclination may be to write copy from the viewpoint of your company. But the fact is, your customers are concerned only with filling their needs, and good marketing copy is always written with those needs in mind.

The better you understand your target audience and what their concerns are, the more effectively you can target your copy. If you don’t already have a sense of what your customers are looking for, ask them. You also can conduct formal and informal focus groups or even join sales staff on customer calls.

A good way to make sure you focus on prospective customers, rather than your product or company, is to address the prospect directly as “you” – even if it’s only indirectly. For example, instead of writing “We watch pets for customers,” shift the focus so your ad says, “We care for your furry loved ones when you can’t.”

Remember to ask yourself when writing copy, “who cares?” Do most people really care that one more company released one more product? Unless your copy conveys to customers why your product or service would be useful to them, it’s hard for them to get excited about an ad that announces, “Company A now offers Product Z.” But an ad reading, “Product Z now saves you thousands of dollars in shipping costs,” is much more likely to perk interest.

Emphasize benefits, not features

Virtually all effective copy emphasizes benefits of the product or service. For example, if a pest exterminating company came up with a new chemical that effectively killed bugs without dangerous fumes, a good ad would focus on the benefits of the chemical rather than the chemical itself. Instead of just saying, “We use only XYZ chemicals,” more effective copy would start with, “Safely get rid of insects bugging you and your family.”

Once the copy stresses the main benefits of your product or service, listing features (like using only XYZ chemicals) then helps convince prospective customers that you can deliver the benefits promised in the ad. Again, knowing your audience is important in deciding how to strike the right balance between features and benefits. Ads that advertise technical products in technical publications will sound very different from those targeted to a lay audience.

For example, itemizing the features of a computer’s new processor may be enough for a catalog aimed at techno-savvy customers, but a more general ad would highlight that the new computer is ten times faster than the previous model. Use language that your least informed customers might use, and make sure your copy is written in terms anyone can understand.

Differentiate yourself from the competition

Customers today have more products and services to choose from than ever. Effective copy makes your product stand out in the buyer’s mind, and it convinces her that it is better and different than what the competition has to offer.

This concept often is referred to as a “unique selling proposition.” In other words, what is it about your product or service that makes it unique? What do you offer that your competitors can’t? Why should customers do business with you when they can choose from a number of other competitors?

If you offer the lowest price or specialized service, emphasize that in your copy. Dry cleaners can be found on every other street corner. But dry cleaners that pick up items to be cleaned and drop them back off once they’re done offer a service to customers that can’t easily be found elsewhere. Good advertising and marketing copy would highlight this again and again.

Use headlines to gain attention

Many copywriters spend more time on headlines than on the rest of the copy combined -- and for good reason. Headlines cut through the clutter to get your prospective customer’s attention. Just as consumers have numerous products to choose from, they also have numerous media clamoring for their attention – from the news and programs they choose to consume to the countless ads sent their way through everything from print and broadcast ads to ads on the train and even on their food. 

Few customers will get to the body of the ad unless the headline grabs their attention first. Your headline must convey a benefit or your unique selling proposition. Featuring an offer that is free, low in price, or unusually attractive can effectively get attention. Injecting news into copy or announcing something that is new or improved also can help your business pique interest.

Once more, knowing your audience – both the audience who will be reading your ad and the one you’re trying to reach – is critical to developing headlines to grab attention. One particularly effective series of ads on commuter trains and buses promoted the antibacterial agents in a laundry detergent. Because the ads ran during cold and flu season, headlines offered facts such as how long germs could live on the surfaces that thousands of commuters touched each day. Very memorable! 

Be sure to test different headlines to see which ones read best, and lay out your copy so headlines will be seen first. Your headlines and section headers will guide customers through your copy. Use them thoughtfully to control of the order in which customers participate in the “tour” that is your marketing piece.

Keep it short

The most effective copy conveys your most important points as quickly and effectively as possible. To distill your thoughts, start by writing down everything you want to say about your product or service, keeping your target audience in mind the whole time.

Once you have your master list of benefits and features, prioritize them. What is the benefit you think your customer would be most interested in? What features of your product or service support that benefit? How would you convey these benefits and features in as few (but still powerful) words as possible?

By working from a thoughtfully prioritized list, you can quickly develop materials for a variety of media. Need to write a very short ad? Use the top items on your list to create a punchy headline and a bullet point or two. Need to write an important sales presentation? Organize your thoughts around your prioritized list, breaking paragraphs into succinct, easy-to-read pieces.

Close with a call to action

Once you raise your customer’s interest in your product or service, spell out how they can move forward with buying your product. Never assume a prospective customer will know what to do next. Tell them specifically:

• Call (800) 123-4567 today to order
• Bring this coupon to our store at 789 Main Street and get 30% off your purchase
• Get a free estimate by visiting our website at www.mycompany.com

Finally, read everything you write out loud. This final read-through will help you catch grammatical errors and awkward phrasing that may look fine on paper until you hear yourself say it. Restructure and reword sections that make you stumble so your readers don't stumble as well. It will provide the finishing touches to your carefully crafted marketing copy.