The greatest crime an advertisement or sales letter can commit is to remain unnoticed. But getting noticed isn’t about making the ad look ‘artistic’ or ‘pretty’ – it’s about attracting the attention of people so you can sell them goods or services.
Legendary copywriter John Caples said, "You should use layouts and illustrations in which salesmanship comes first and art second. Do manufacturers want to pay $40,000 for a colour page in a magazine just to soothe the artistic senses of the readers? No. They want to jar the readers and stop them on the spot – to rouse them and stir them into action."
A few simple design concepts can make a dramatic difference in the impact of your headline and sales message and the way it converts prospects.
How To Grab Attention
Design an advertisement headline that visually leaps off the page, advises leading direct marketer Ted Nichols. "Make your headline big and bold so it’s obvious to everyone. Create a jarring contrast. Present your headline as a few dominant words that are optically interruptive… like a visual speed-bump that’s impossible to miss."
Enhance headlines with photographs or cartoons that add visual spice while complimenting and supporting the text. Combine your headline with a dramatic image to make your declaration of a benefit easier for prospects to visualise and understand in an instant.
Use enough white space to effectively frame your headline so it stands out among the various elements on the page and subtly conveys its importance. Consider using other framing devices like quotation marks and text boxes that suggest certain significance to the key words contained within. But most importantly, allow plenty of surrounding space so your headline isn’t crammed in.
Caples said the headline should be bold enough and large enough so that even the most careless glancer could not help but catch the message.
Place your headline between quotation marks, suggests Nichols. "Testing has indicated that a headline that appears as a direct quotation out-pulls an identical headline that’s employed without the quotation marks. It would seem that many people place greater credence in words that appear to be from someone else, rather than marketers themselves. In the case of marketing headlines, the implication is that those words have come from a satisfied customer. It’s certainly worth a test to determine if this simple idea improves your results."
Other Presentation Enhancements
Frames or text boxes – known in the direct marketing field as ‘Johnson Boxes’ – are simple enclosures that surround the headline or other copy, effectively framing it. This technique is most often used in direct mail sales letters, but it could be used with equal effectiveness on web pages, postcards, and full-page display ads, among others. If you decide to use photographs in your advertisement, Caples said any picture you use should be relevant to the product. "It’s wise to remember that the high attention value of a picture does not necessarily mean high sales value. In order to have sales value, the picture should be related to the product. Avoid weird, outlandish or far-fetched pictures that have nothing to do with the product or service you are selling. Use pictures that attract buyers, not curiosity seekers. Here are some safe bets: pictures of the product; pictures of the product in use; pictures of people who use the product; or pictures showing the reward of using the product."
About the author
Strategies like that can explode your small business quickly, that’s why I’d suggest you go right now to http://www.freemarketingbook.org and request a copy of Jonathan Jay’s new book "Marketing Secrets of a Multi-Millionaire Entrepreneur"
Copyright SuccessTrack 2009
