In this blog series about copywriting formulas, we have examined so far the PAS and the 4 Cs in depth.

Now it’s time to delve into the “4 Us”: useful, urgent, unique, and ultra specific. This formula is ideal for giving the audience a bit of a push to buy a product, click a link, or whatever action you have in mind as a conversion. Here’s how it works:

Useful

The 4 Us get straight to the point when it comes to the main objective of any marketing message: “What’s in it for me?” It’s not enough to be interesting with a funny bit of copy, for example, because a busy reader might smile but still not have time to read to the end of your message.

Instead, be immediate about how your product will help them (and, if possible, describe how they can’t live without it). The ad should lead in with some kind of valuable advice, such as a tip that teaches your audience about something specific to their job. Give them the feeling that you understand their challenges and are a trustworthy source of advice; as we have read for other copywriting formulas, building trust is essential for making any sale.

Urgent

Imparting an urgent message without being pushy is a challenge, but busy audiences tend not to act unless your ad implies that some kind of passing opportunity is available.

The common tools to generate urgency are time-limited offers and discounts. Some potential buyers will also be attracted by an invitation to be early adopters or get first access to new features if they convert now.

It’s also possible to imply a time limit, for example, by asking people to attend a webinar as a way to get a discount. Alternately, a sense of urgency can be denoted through language; for example, “change your life today” – but that tends to be less effective than the FOMO method.

Unique

In our blog post about the 4Cs, we discussed how a good ad reflects detailed product knowledge. This factor is again important when it comes to adding the “unique” aspect of ad copy.

Deep familiarity with the product means understanding its competitive advantages and disadvantages. A talented copywriter should be able to translate a product’s unique strengths into a short, concise statement that is then adapted to the ad.

Ultra Specific

Ultra specific can mean that your ad targets a very specific audience, or that you are offering something that performs a very specific function. For example: “The 4 Cs or the 4 Us – which to choose? Find out in our 10-minute copywriting webinar this Wednesday!” 

This ad does both – it is obviously directed at copywriters, and it deals with a very limited aspect of copywriting, namely two specific copywriting formulas. In contrast, the ad could have been: “Watch our copywriting webinar this Wednesday and become a better writer!” But copywriting is such a broad topic that the audience could be put off just by the thought of either having to watch a really long webinar, or of being given information that is so elementary as to be useless.

Another Tip 4 U

Sorry for the textspeak – but at least it got your attention!

As a busy marketing professional, you’re probably looking for a way to cut some corners without losing the quality of your copy, which is the whole reason to learn about time savers like the 4 Us. But there’s an even better method to generate great ads and yet still save your energy for more urgent or demanding tasks.

Anyword is an AI copywriting tool that creates effective advertising copy in a variety of shapes and sizes like headlines, primary texts, product descriptions, and captions. And that’s not only for ad copy, because Anyword can also build blog posts, emails, landing pages, and more. All you need to do is input some really basic product and industry information, and then pick an asset, while Anyword does the rest by producing multiple versions of the text you need.

It also saves time with A/B testing. Every version comes with a predicted performance score that is based on Anyword’s massive collection of data about ads and their conversion rates. Simply choose the version with the highest score, post it to your website or app, and watch it convert.  

As a 4U ad, all of this translates to: “Starting today, find out how AI helps you to work smarter with performance-graded ad copy. Try Anyword’s 7-day free trial!” 

See what we mean?