Learn How To Write A Great Classified Ad In Three Easy Steps.

Use this classic, proven building block formula to create powerful sales letters, marketing material and even stories. It will help you sell on eBay, Gum Tree etc; help you to write great covering letters and apply for jobs; sales copy for landing pages and product launches, and much, much more.

When I was eighteen, before I went into the newspaper business as a journalist, I work as a junior copywriter for a free magazine, writing ads for local businesses. I learned the ropes from a guy called Pat, whose father had learned his trade from a guy who used to work for the famous American copywriter Victor Schwab.

Schwab, who started life as a mail-order copywriter, was a copy research pioneer, who frequently used coded coupon ads to test ads. When the coupons returned, he could easily track which ads it came from, the headlines, copy appeals, length, layouts, etc.

He went on to create Sunday comics ads for Dale Carnegie, body-builder Charles Atlas and Sherwin Cody’s English Classics Course.

In his series of five articles titled “How to Write a Good Advertisement”,which appeared in the 1941 Printers’ Ink, Schwab introduced a five-step copywriting formula:

• Get Attention
• Show People an Advantage
• Prove It
• Persuade People to Grasp This Advantage
• Ask For Action

My mentor Pat used a variation of Schwab’s five-step formula; a three-part formula:

Each part has one purpose and one purpose only.

The purpose of the headline is to sell the ad.
The purpose of the body copy is to set up the call to action.
The purpose of the call to action is to sell the click.

If you keep this in mind as you write you will see how easy it becomes to cause readers to take the action you want.

1. The Headline

The headline’s job is to sell the ad; to convince the reader that you have something to say — that they should continue reading the rest of the ad.

Because of this, your headline must grab attention.

Use one or more of the following five ingredients to create your headline:

Begin with an action word
Create curiosity
Ask a question
Make a startling statement
Ask for the reader’s opinion

Always remember that people care about exactly one thing; what’s in it for me?

2. The Body Copy

The purpose of the body copy is to set up the call to action; to get the click to the actual classified ad, or the website you are promoting. But before asking for the click it is very important to give the reader the reason why they should click.

This “reason why” usually comes in the form of benefits. This is the “what’s in it for me.” The body of the ad must tell your reader what’s in it for them. What benefit will they get by making that click?

Generally, customers don’t want to ‘learn more’ out of curiosity alone. They want to learn more in order to get to the benefits you promised them.

The first step to writing the body is to list all the features of your product or service then, next to them, list the benefits of those features. You must write at least one benefit for each feature, or don’t use that feature.

Remember, customers buy what your product or service will do for them, not only what it will do.

The Call to Action

In most cases the action you want the reader to take is clicking the link in your ad, or picking up the phone and dialling the number in the ad. That’s simple enough. But how you ask them to do that can literally mean the difference between the success and failure of your ad.

Try using an action word that includes the main benefit of the product you’re promoting.

So if I am promoting a product that helps people lose weight I might write “Lose weight today by visiting my site now!” instead of “Click here to lose weight”

Both are good, but the first one is stronger.

Why is it stronger? Because the reader wants to lose weight.

He or she does not want to “click here”. They will “click here” to get what they want, but why make them work out what they get for clicking? Better to get to the point.

One reason that this is important is that your ad will be interrupting their current process. Most successful ads are based on interruption of an existing pattern i.e. luring them away from what they are doing now in order to visit your site or phone your number.

Make your call to action simple to understand, not something that has to be interpreted.

By following these steps you will begin to create classifieds that work. Hope you found this article useful.

Find out more about the high quality copywriting services I offer today by visiting my site now.

Click here to download Victor Schwab’s two-page advertising spread of 100 headlines he handpicked as the most instructive ever written.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com on March 27, 2016.