The Advertorial Expert!

The goal in advertorials is to inform, educate, and sell. To accomplish this, it’s vital your prospects glide through your copy. But many writers add something to their advertorial that never needs to be there. In fact, it’s so easy to include these that even the best writers have to go back and make changes.

What are these notorious glide-stoppers?

They are simply extra words.

I know, I know. It’s not very exciting. But I compare many writers to speakers who like to hear themselves talk. These writers are obsessed with their verbosity. But advertorials aren’t designed to impress the reader with your English skills.

Remember, you have to keep your copy as simple and down-to-earth as possible. And extra words just don’t accomplish that goal.

So instead of saying, “a great number of buyers…” say, “many buyers.” And instead of saying, “Everyone on the committee decided that safety should be the first of our concerns…” say, “safety is the committee’s top concern.”

Keeping your words to a minimum will keep your prospects focused on your product, not on your writing. And that’s right where you want them.

By now, you know that the goal for your advertorial copy is to speed your prospect through the copy as fast as possible. The quicker they move through the copy, the more interested they are and the more likely they are to buy your product. So you want your copy to be like a greased chute from top to bottom.

Unfortunately, it=s very easy to put speed bumps in your copy that really slow the reader down. These speed bumps could be the difference between making the sale and losing the prospect forever. You want to make the sale. So it=s vital you avoid one of the most common speed bumps in advertorial writing.

There’s one writing tool you should use constantly to smooth out those speed bumps. It’s the transition. Most people think of using transitions to move from idea to idea. Or from paragraph to paragraph. But the advertorial writer has to be much more precise. In advertorials, you need transitions from sentence to sentence.

The flow from one sentence to another has to be smooth and effortless. You can’t have any jolting thoughts that confuse the reader, make him pause, or cause him to ponder an idea.

That means you have to arrange your sentences so they make logical sense. Many writers don’t organize their copy. So they end up with an article that’s jumps haphazardly from one thought to another. And unnecessary tangents are common. The copy is so jolting, the reader feels like he’s riding a rollercoaster. I’ll show you an easy way to correct this in a future post.

Once you put your sentences into logical order, then you need to focus on how one sentence flows into the next. An easy way to do this is to make sure each sentence picks up right where the last one left off. It helps if you pick up a key word or two from the previous sentence.

To understand how to do this, take a look the following two versions of the same statement:

Version 1: “John found out that he’s at high risk for heart disease during his last doctor’s visit. He eats lots of fried food and sugar.”

Version 2: “John found out that he’s at high risk for heart disease during his last doctor’s visit. His doctor told him this is because he eats too many fried and sugar-laden foods.”

Notice the disconnect in Version 1? The first sentence ends talking about his last doctor’s visit. And the second sentence starts by talking about his diet. There’s no connection. Unless you know that fried foods and sugar cause heart disease, you wouldn’t understand how these sentences go together.

But in Version 2, there’s a clear connection. The second sentence picks up right where the first sentence left off – with the doctor’s visit. And the second sentence further elaborates on what happened at that last doctor’s visit.

So pay attention to transitions. They can smooth out speed bumps and keep your prospect gliding through your copy.

Just before the American Revolution began, John Adams was trying to rally support for the war. But his eloquent speeches and well-reasoned arguments just couldn’t get the common man motivated to fight.

Then, along came Thomas Payne, who wrote the little booklet Common Sense. With this simple booklet, Payne aroused the common man and gave him the will to fight for self-government.

The difference between the two messages is a vital lesson for advertorial writers.

Both men had the same goals. They wanted to reach as many people as possible. They wanted to educate their readers. They wanted to motivate them. And, most importantly, they wanted them to take action. But only one of them succeeded.

Did you notice that all of these goals are the goals of an advertorial writer? So why did Payne succeed where Adams failed?

The reason is simple. Payne wrote his ideas in a way that the common man could understand. Adams aimed his arguments toward the highly educated and politically active. He was a genius among this group. But the common man couldn’t understand what he was saying.

Payne wrote with simple words. He wasn’t eloquent or scholarly. But he was able to convey scholarly ideas in an easy-to-understand way.

The advertorial writer has to do the same thing. And there’s an easy tool you can use to make sure you’re doing it. In Microsoft Word, there’s a tool called Readability Statistics. This tool will tell you how easy your copy is to read. It grades your copy based on the length of the words, sentences, and paragraphs. The shorter these are, the lower your grade level.

And this is one instance where a low grade is a good thing. Remember, you want to reach as many people as possible. So a scores of 12 on Word’s Readability Statistics means you’re writing at a twelfth grade level. While that doesn’t sound too impressive, it’s way too high. What? Writing for a senior in high school is too scholarly? Absolutely.

In fact, writing for any high school level is too high. You want to keep the grade level of your advertorials to eighth grade or lower. This offends many writers. They think it’s dumbing down their writing. But consider this, I just taught you an invaluable lesson about the American Revolution. And the grade level of this article is 6.1.

You can do the same with your advertorials. Doing so will help you reach more people, educate them about your products, motivate them to take action. And the best part – it will greatly increase your sales.

[One final note: You have to turn on the readability statistics feature in Word before you can use it. It’s very easy to do. When you start the Spelling & Grammar check, look for the “Options” button. Click on this button. Then look for a check-box with the words “show readability statistics” beside it. Click on that check-box. Once you’ve done that, the readability statistics will automatically appear every time you spell check a document. To discover your grade level, look to the bottom of the readability statistics box. There you will see the Flesch-Kincaid grade level score.]

When it comes to writing advertorials, scholars need not apply. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t take some real skill and know-how to make your advertorials zing. But you certainly don’t want your copy to read like a textbook.

Instead, you want your writing to jump off the page. You want it to grab your reader and pull him in. And you don’t want him to come up for air until he’s paid in full. The way to do that is to keep your copy simple.

Simple copy has three main components: short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs.

It really is that simple. But don’t think that simple means easy. Mark Twain once said, “I’d write you a shorter letter if I had more time.” Twain knew how hard it is to convey every necessary thought in a short concise way. It takes time and hard work. But you can do it. Here’s how:

Start with the words you use. Keep them as small as possible. I like to have an average word length of 5 letters or less. Anything longer, especially if there are a bunch of long words, will stop your reader cold. And you’ll miss the sale.

Obviously, you can’t write everything with short words. But the shorter your words, the better. Instead of saying, “intelligent,” use the word, “smart.” Instead of “automobile,” say “car.”

In addition to short words, keep your sentences short. Each sentence should convey one thought. And only one thought. Putting two or more thoughts in a sentence confuses the reader. It also stops him from gliding through your copy. And it leaves him gasping for breath. An out-of-breath reader is a tired reader.

You want your reader energized and ready to buy. Short sentences leave him with plenty of energy. So what is a short sentence? Anything with 16 or fewer words. It’s difficult to make that happen through your entire advertorial. So go for averages. Keep the average length under 16 words per sentence.

Much like long sentences, long paragraphs can really slow down your prospect. A long paragraph, even with short sentences, is seven sentences or more. Most writers get hung-up here. Their training says a paragraph can end only after an idea is fully developed. Not in advertorials.

Remember, your copy has to glide like a greased chute. If your paragraphs are too long, your reader hits a speed bump. So how to you keep your paragraphs short? It’s easy. Pick a place and hit the “Enter” key. Yep. That’s all there is to it. Of course, it helps if there’s a little break in the flow. But don’t let memories of your high school English teacher hold you back. You aren’t writing a novel. You’re selling products. So hit the “Enter” key and keep your paragraphs short.

Oh, and just in case you’re wondering, this article has 4.3 letters per word, 9 words per sentence, and 5.6 sentences per paragraph. I’ll show you how to figure that out in a matter of seconds in my next post.