This is part two of our series on effective advertising, if you missed part one you can check it out here: “What Is Advertising?”

When a prospect reads your ad, letter, brochure, website etc., the one thing they will be wondering from the start is: “what’s in it for me?”

And if your copy doesn’t tell them, it’ll land in the trash or they’ll close their browser faster than they can read the headline or lead.

A lot of advertisers make this mistake. They focus on themselves as a company. How long they’ve been in business, who their biggest customers are, how they’ve spent ten years of research and millions of dollars on developing this product, blah, blah.

Actually, those points are important. But they should be expressed in a way that matters to your potential customer. Remember, once they’ve clicked away from your site or thrown the salesletter in the garbage, the sale is lost!

When writing your copy, it helps to think of it as writing a letter to an old friend. In fact, picture a friend of yours who most closely fits your prospect’s profile. What would you say to convince this friend to try your product? How would you target your friend’s objections and beliefs to help your cause?

When you’re writing to a friend, you’ll use the pronouns “I” and “you.” When trying to convince your friend, you might say: “Look, I know you think you’ve tried every widget out there. But you should know that…”

And it goes beyond just writing in the second person. That is, addressing your prospect as “you” within the copy. The fact of the matter is there are many successful ads that weren’t written in the second person. Some are written in the first person perspective, where the writer uses “I.” Other times the third person is used, with “she,” “he,” and “them.”

And even if you do write in the second person, it doesn’t necessarily mean your copy is about them.

For example:

“As a real estate agent, you can take comfort in the fact that I’ve sold over 10,000 homes and mastered the tricks of the trade”

Although you’re writing in the second person, you’re really still focusing on yourself.

So how can you focus on them? Glad you asked.

We’ll reveal a simple technique you can use in part three of the series.

Internal related posts:

1. The More You Tell, The More You Sell
2. The Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
3. Incorporating Proof and Believability
4. So What?!
5. Emphasize Benefits, Not Features…

Tagged as: advertising, affiliate marketing, internet marketing