Blogging Tips from The Father of Advertising
Who is David Ogilvy and what did he do?
David Ogilvy is known world-wide as one of the best minds in the advertising business, usually called the “Father of Advertising.” He co-founded the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather and has also written several books. He created many successful advertising campaigns for companies such as Dove, Shell, Rolls Royce and Schwepps.
The following are quotes on advertising from David Ogilvy, that can teach bloggers a thing or two about how to be successful:
“You cannot bore people into buying your product, you can only interest them in buying it.”
Many blogs suffer from this problem. They are too boring. The author drones on and on about something people usually don’t care about. They need to be unique and interesting. People like reading real things, stories, history, and factual information that they have never seen before yet it is intriguing. Imagine someone sitting by their roommate. Is what you have to say interesting enough that he is going to interrupt his roommate doing his homework to say, “hey, check this out.” Make sure you keeps your posts interesting, that itself will keep more and more people coming back to your blog.
“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
We all do it. We skim through magazines and articles only to look and the titles and see if they are worth a few minutes of our precious time. You may have written one of the best pieces of literature but if the title isn’t good it is going to be difficult to attract attention. On Twitter and Facebook when someone links to your blog what shows up? The title, and maybe a small snippet of your article. It may come instantly, or you might have to spend an hour writing our several versions. Sleep on it, ask your spouse, whatever is needed to get the perfect title for your perfect article.
“What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.”
This maybe be a little difficult to understand, but quite simply you don’t need to write with big words and 18th century grammar, unless that’s your style. People prefer short, powerful statements. Make sure you outline your articles and plan everything, that will make it much each to focus on what you say and not how you say it. Ogilvy made advertising that was like a conversation, presenting interesting facts to the person and entertaining them at the same time. Try to focus on keeping your articles conversational and not dull.
“Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.”
Don’t lie about, make up or steal material, it’s usually obvious and just makes you look bad. It’s amazing how creative people really are when they invest the proper time and research into their work. Also make sure to avoid copyright infringement. Make sure you have rights to use the pictures, names, logos and slogans you use.
About the Author
Parker Boyack is a writer for MyCollegesandCareers.com. My Colleges and Careers helps people determine if an online education is right for them and helps them search for online degrees that can help them reach their goals.
