Writing Great Ads is a 10-Step Dance
About this episode
Roy H. Williams shares ten essential steps to becoming a great ad writer, emphasizing the importance of poetry and emotional connection in advertising.
Do you want to become a great ad writer? Follow these ten steps and you will rise high and go far. 1. Read poetry every day. 2. Memorize at least two dozen poems. 3. Recite them out loud when you are alone. 4. Perform them spontaneously when you have an audience. 5. Feel the pulsating rhythm that is the heartbeat of every poem. 6. Wiggle your way through the unexpected twists and turns that are its dance. 7. Ask a few business owners to evaluate the ads that you have written for them. 8. Listen respectfully to everything they tell you. Even when they are wrong. 9. Do not try to change their mind about anything. Just write exactly what they would say if they could write as well as you do. Remember: This is their business, not yours. 10. Never write ads that rhyme. Use the heartbeat and the dance instead. The pulsing heartbeat is called poetic meter. Study it. The slide and glide of the dance is contained in its unexpected combinations of common words. Look, listen, and take note of these phrases in the poems that hit you the hardest. Common words used in uncommon ways contain powerful magic. Squeeze those phrases and drink the juice. If you do the things I told you, your ads will…
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