Below is an e-mail I sent in response to a request for a critique on a fax advertisement. I thought that others may find it of use:
Thanks for sending through your fax image to me. I like it especially when you include your clients.
Some things that I would look at changing:
- Because selling is an emotional thing, benefits work better than features. An example of this is people don’t buy a new Mercedes because the lights turn on by themselves or they have a high safety rating. They are bought because the person wants to be one up on his friends or he wants to keep his family safe. The thing to do is find the main benefit that you offer and convert it to a heading. You may need to do a few and then pick the best or the main one. Unfortunately I don’t know enough about your product to do this for you.
- This is not critical but I have found it good to get the person to call up to find out more. If you have someone there to take the call and they have enough knowledge to sell the product, it may be better to have this in place. They just have to be briefed that the first calls that come in are often people not wanting to get faxes before the real prospects call so it is important that they don’t become despondent with the ask-off calls to start off with.
- I try to include the following in every fax:
8 points of an Ad:
What is it?
How valuable is it?
What does it do?
How easy is it to do it?
How costly is it?
How do you acquire it?
Where do you get it from?
Why should I get it now?
Tags: Copywriting, Direct Marketing
[...] within the first glance. There are other things that should be included but this is the first step. Read this earlier article for what should be included in your [...]