Why My Copy Completely Bombed and 3 Tips to Make Sure Yours Won’t

A lot of copywriters like to do breakdowns of winning sales copy, or promotions they wrote that beat the control. While we can get a lot of valuable information from studying winners, this breakdown you’re about to read showcases an advertorial that I wrote for a health supplement that completely bombed and missed the mark.

Why am I sharing this? It isn’t easy for me (and my ego) to share my failures, but after some time analyzing and processing, I’ve identified where I went wrong. In this article, I’ll be rounding up my mistakes and sharing 3 tips to make sure your copy won’t miss the mark.

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Why My Copy Completely Bombed and 3 Tips to Make Sure Yours Won’t

In this breakdown, I’ll be focusing on the headline, subhead, and the lead of this advertorial.

The Set Up

This advertorial is for a brain health supplement so we’re looking at an audience of an older demographic, ages 60 and older. Both men and women are represented here, but this advertorial does skew a little in favor of men.

This supplement is for people who are already experiencing some type of brain issues (primarily with memory), or are worried about experiencing these brain issues due to their advancing age and are looking for a preventative solution.

Disclaimer:

This advertorial did one test run in a newspaper publication and the call to action was to dial a 1–800 number to place an order. This was not an online advertorial so there was no link sending them to a website or online sales page where they can find more information. This means there are pieces of analytical data that are missing from this advertorial (i.e: how many people saw this article, how much time was spent on the page etc…).

Now let’s get right into it!

The Headline

This is a fairly weak and generic headline. The main benefits mentioned in this headline are “Thriving Health” and “Peak Brain Performance”… what does that mean?

These are very vague terms. “Thriving Health” could be mean so many different things, and so can “Peak Brain Performance” (does this mean I’m going to be more intelligent? Be in a better mood? Etc…) The headline should be more benefit specific, focusing on memory specific brain issues, even the fear of losing independence.

Which brings me to the first tip…

Copywriting Tip #1: Make your headlines more benefit specific

How can we achieve that in this particular case?

This headline could be better if it focused on brain issues such as fading memory, since this is a concern for this demographic. Another angle that could come into play is one of dependence. Losing independence is a fear for this particular audience as they wouldn’t want to rely on their children or spouse (or worse — be put in a nursing home).

The Subhead

The subhead, in my opinion, is pretty strong. It has a good amount of intrigue and curiosity with the 5 tribes of “Super Agers”. The latter half of the subhead (laughing, dancing etc…) is also very visual which is a great engagement device.

I don’t think the subhead hurt the performance of this advertorial, however, if there is one thing I would change about it, it would be experimenting with different visuals and activities.

Like I mentioned, both men and women are included in this demographic but the advertorial does skew in favor of men. Activities like dancing and drinking martinis may not appeal to a lot of men who are in this audience.

Copywriting Tip #2: Include visuals and activities that appeal to your demographic

In this particular advertorial, including activities that are more relevant to the audience (activities that may be more appealing to men who are 60+) could make a positive difference.

The Lead

Now the biggest mistake in this advertorial wasn’t in the headline or the subhead, but in the lead. Specifically, when I transitioned from the story of the 5 tribes of Super Agers into introducing the product.

I spent some time building the 5 tribes of Super Agers to make it seem like there’s going to be a big reveal, a huge shared secret behind why these 5 isolated tribes of Super Agers are able to live longer and healthier lives.

But when it came to the big reveal… it just came down to having remarkable brain health. That’s it.

Well, no shit.

It’s kind of common sense that if you’re going to live to 90 years old and beyond, if you’re going to be dancing, drinking martinis, cooking, etc… you’re going to need to have good brain health. That’s not a shocking secret that no one has seen or heard of before.

If you were reading this advertorial, you’d probably be annoyed that the big reveal was something you (and the general public) had always known all along.

How do we fix this?

Copywriting Tip #3: Make your big reveal worth your reader’s time

What would have made a much stronger connection was if the shared common trait of those 5 tribes of Super Agers, consumed higher than normal levels of one of the key ingredients found in my client’s brain formula.

This will give a direct connection to lead into intense studies that show that these 5 super agers were consuming way more tyrosine (that key ingredient) than the rest of the world’s population, and they attributed this to their remarkable memory and brain health.

This will make a stronger case for my client’s brain formula, as it just so happens that this new product has super therapeutic doses of tyrosine to rejuvenate brain health.

It makes it worth your reader’s time when the big secret and shared common trait of these 5 tribes of Super Agers was the main ingredient of the supplement.

Bonus Tip: Get REALLY specific

Even though I love the super agers story and it is very relevant to this audience, it is not really specific to brain issues and overall brain health. There could be a good amount of the audience who think “I don’t care about dancing. I just don’t want to forget who I am and lose my memory.”

We could use the Super Agers story, but be more specific and boil it down to the simple, innate desires and fears of the audience. Instead of relating it to activities, there could be more focus on brain health, memory, and cognitive performance.

The Conclusion

If you’re in the health or supplement market, don’t be afraid to ask your copywriter about some of their duds. Failure is a part of learning and growing as a copywriter. Let’s face it — the best copywriters in the world produce copy from time to time that completely misses the mark. A great copywriter will acknowledge these mistakes and grow from them. The key here is:

1. To acknowledge when a mistake is made and identify where we went wrong.
2. To be able to go back, analyze the mistake, and fix it.