Event Marketing and Event Promotions

Simple Long Copy Advice

The other day I was speaking with my friend Ray Justice regarding long copy. For those that don’t know, copy is any words and text used in written material. When it comes to copy there always seems to be a raging debate about the length of copy. In my conversation with Ray we debated the pluses and minuses of long copy.

David Ogilvy's "Secret Weapon" for Advertising Success

In a continuation of this week’s Ogilvy feature I’ve dug up the following video.  Instead of pontificating on Ogilvy’s best advice, I thought it best to let the man speak for himself. The video above is at least 30+ years old,  yet Ogilvy’s advice is timeless.  He built his ultra successful agency, Ogilvy & Mather, on direct response marketing.  He considered direct response marketing his “first love and secret weapon.”

$1.48 Billion of Marketing and Advertising Advice ...

One of my marketing mentors, Eben Pagan, talks about delivering massive value when engaging your prospect.  Eben is also a very big fan of David Ogilvy. Way back when, Ogilvy created an ad that was full of some of his best insight on advertising. Ogilvy gave away FREE advertising secrets that cost his firm $4.9 million dollars to learn.

What follows below, (if implemented) can take you business/event to a completely new level ...

Promotional Headlines for Your Event Marketing

Over the years I’ve seen numerous advertisements, posters, and billboards promoting various events.  They've run the gamut from very simple, just a headline and a call to action, to overly detail oriented, trying to fit in every possible piece of information into a small space.

The first place people usually start reading advertisements is from the top down.  A strong relevant headline is one of the oldest advertising techniques to capture a reader’s attention. If you do manage to come up with a really great headline, you can use it across multiple forms of advertising.

What Your Headline Needs to Do
Knowing your target market will greatly assist you in writing powerful headlines. If you’re going to write a headline to promote your event, make sure it really resonates with your target market. It needs to be in a language that your target market understands and in a way that evokes an emotional response.

Recently, I found some information that can assist you in writing better headlines for your event.  In a copywriting course presented by Bob Bly, he outlines what he calls the 4 “U’s.” You ask yourself a series of four simple questions that pertain to your headline. Then rate each question on a 1 – 4 scale.  One being the worst, Four being the best. You want to strive to get 4s across the board. 

Does Your Headline Grab Their Undivided Attention?

What’s one of the most powerful marketing elements in print?  I humbly present to you the “Headline.” Over the year’s I’ve done a decent amount of research on the importance of headline writing and the impact it can have on your marketing. Headlines might be more powerful than the visual elements for a piece of print or online advertising.

The Power of Headlines
It's been shown that 70-75% of the reason that a person chooses to read a magazine article or newspaper article is based solely on the headline. Many magazines are sold by virtue of headlines on the front cover. Next time you’re in front of a magazine rake pickup your favorite magazine and look at the cover. In almost every case the cover of the magazine is inundated with article headlines from that issue.

How does this apply to your event advertising?

Get Your Audience Involved Through Their Emotions

Last week I had the opportunity to do some brain storming with a new client. They were looking to create a promotion for their fitness center.  In my client's case the operative ad concepts were "pizza" and "fitness." My client was starting a new promotion with a local pizza company.  The headline of the ad was "Worried Your Pizza with End Up Here?" with several arrows pointing to a female cartoon figure's derriere. 

Words with Pizzazz and Razzle Dazzle . . .

During a recent visit to a local shopping mall I ran across this intriguing advertisement:
”Flavor-Infused All Beef Delicacy Complemented by a Hand-Crafted Golden Brown Crust.” That is one heck of a way to describe a plan old corn dog.  A few moments later I thought to myself “I wonder if the advertisement would actually entice anyone.” 50 feet later I had my answer, there was a gentleman consuming a “Flavor-Infused All Beef Delicacy.”

Words make a world of difference in how consumers interpret your product or service online.  Aside from the actual copy itself, which is tremendously important, two places everyone should pay close attention to are headlines and link titles. Headlines and link titles represent your first salvo of user enticement.

Are you hooking your reader's interest?

The Most Powerful Form of Online Advertising (Part II)

The Most Powerful Form of Online Advertising ... continued ...

Creating Traffic
Compelling high quality content drives traffic to web sites and can encourage users to return on a regular basis. Two facets of traffic generation are high quality content and search engine optimization.

High quality content can come in the written form of articles, e-zines, ebooks, and white papers.  Dr. Joe Vitale brings up the following as it pertains to online articles, "write articles that answer problems and distribute them online. This builds credibility and if they're truly useful people will make them viral.” Successful people online produce high quality content on a regular basis. Publishing content three to five times a week is one of the simplest ways to get better rankings in the search engines.

The Most Powerful Form of Online Advertising (Part I)

What is the most powerful form of online advertising? The previous question challenges almost every business owner or event organizer with a web site. 

Most Internet marketers would respond with any or all of the following suggestions: SEO, PPC, Email Marketing, Banner Ads, Video, and plenty more. A compelling argument could be made for any of the items previously listed as being the best form of online advertising. 

Yet there is one fundamental which is the root of almost every form of online advertising, the ability to write compelling copy or copywriting. Copywriting is the distinct discipline of being able to compel people to action through the use of the written word. Copywriting should not be confused with Copyrighting, or protecting one's intellectually property. Whenever you advertise, carefully consider the words you're using. 

Finer Typography Points

As a follow up to last week’s post Watch Your Typography, I came across an article getting into research around the use of typefaces and readability. The article points to research conducted by the Wichita State University Software Usability Research Laboratory.  The research provided given some scientific insight into user interaction with type.

Check this out ...