Ads are ads. Selling is selling. Madison Avenue has been doing this for years.
Here's "Ad-Writing 101"...
1. Select the right audience. Often, an ad is the first meeting place of two parties looking for each other. The headline should attract the interest of those you want to attract – not the interest of readers generally. The ad should say immediately to the target reader, “Hey, this is for you.” So there should be something in the ad that at the first glance enables the reader to identify it as relating to their interests. This is done with either a picture or a headline – preferably both.
2. Use high visual magnetism. On average, only a small number of ads in an issue of a magazine (or a hooker board) will capture the attention of any one reader. Most ads fail the very first test of stopping the reader scanning the page. Ads fail because they either just lie there, or they’re cluttered, noisy and hard to read. An ad should be constructed so a single component dominates the area – a picture, the headline or the text. The more arresting the headline, the more pertinent the picture, the more informative the copy, the better.
3. Promise a reward. An ad will survive the first scan only if readers expect they will learn something of value. The reward can be explicit or implicit. The promise should be specific. A brag-and-boast headline, a generalization, or an “over the top” statement will turn readers off before they get to the message.
4. Back up the promise. To make the promise believable, the ad must provide hard evidence that the claim is valid. Why should I believe what you promise? Best of all are testimonials. “They-say” advertising carries more weight than “We-say” advertising.
5. Include a “call to action”. The right reader has read your ad, and bought your promise. Why should they do something…right now? If you’re not doing generalized brand advertising, you want the reader to pick up the phone and take action.
6. Talk person-to-person. Copy is more persuasive when it speaks as if it were one friend telling another friend about a good thing. The writing style should be simple: short words, short sentences, short paragraphs, active rather than passive voice, no clichés, frequent use of the personal pronoun “you.”
7. Reflect your personality. What makes the service provider liked, respected, admired? Messy ads tend to indicate a messy provider. Brag-and-boast ads suggest the advertiser is self-centered, not customer-oriented.
8. Be easy to read. Don’t make the reader struggle to read your ad – crazy colors, varying fonts, complex arrangements make reading more trouble than it’s worth.
...and remember, successful advertisers write ads that make the phone ring -- not that people talk about at the water cooler on Monday morning.