Over the last while, I’ve been preparing my week’s advertisements over the weekend (part of my excuse for missing two night’s blogs entries).
Writing your own ad copy can be quite illuminating – of course, for small businesses, it might also be mandatory. I recommend it for reasons besides cost, however.
Firstly, in a small company, being comfortable with words is a necessity – not just for ads, but for correspondence, proposals – all writing that needs to be done quite likely comes across your desk, and the more polished it ends up, the better your impression to others.
But also, I think ad writing is a great way to get more confident about your product. For instance, ask yourself right now – can I express my company’s business in five words or less?
If you can’t, there could be a focus issue – trying to be too many things to too many people. Writing ads, and focusing on your target market, can help that.
If you can, take the time to write a paragraph about your company. don’t worry about style, grammar, or spelling. Then revise it. Try to pare it down to exactly what you want to say about your business – the shorter the better.
Eventually, I’d expect you can get down to a sentence that describes your company. But even if you don’t, the exercise will get you thinking about your business – and might even make you think more about your target markets.
And of course, if you need more practice, start a blog…
