Write Print Ad Copy That Sells on Flyers, Posters and Postcards

A printed ad gets one pass. There is no second impression from a retargeting pixel, no scroll depth, no chance to swap the headline at noon because the morning version underperformed. Whatever you commit to paper is what runs until the box is empty.

That single constraint changes how the copy has to be built. On a landing page you can afford a soft opening because the reader arrived with intent and will keep scrolling. On a flyer pushed into a hand outside a station, you have the time it takes to walk five steps and decide whether to keep it or fold it into a pocket. So the order inverts: the conclusion goes first, the proof goes second, and the persuasion nobody asked for goes in the bin.

The second difference is that print is read at a fixed distance you choose in advance. A postcard is read at roughly 14 inches. A poster in a shop window is read from across the pavement. A door hanger is read while the reader is already annoyed about something on their doorknob. Each of those distances sets a maximum readable word count before you have written a word, which is why copy and layout have to be decided together rather than handed over the fence.

The third difference is that print carries a cost per unit. Every extra sentence you keep is paying rent on paper you bought. That is a useful discipline: if a line is not doing measurable work, it is costing you money to print, and cutting it makes the remaining lines physically bigger.

If you want the wider picture of how copy, layout and format decisions fit together on a campaign, our guide to advertising and marketing design for print covers the design side of the same job.

Body copy on a printed ad has exactly one job: keep the reader who was already interested moving toward the response. It is not there to persuade a sceptic, because a sceptic stopped reading at the headline.

Three sentences cover it. The first proves the headline is true. The second gives a detail only a real supplier would know, which is what separates you from the identical flyer in the same letterbox. The third removes the objection the reader is about to raise. Written for a flooring company, that is: "We have fitted 400 kitchens in Astoria since 2014. Engineered oak over a concrete slab needs a moisture barrier, and most quotes leave it out. We include it, and we clear the old floor the same day."

Notice what is missing. No "market leading". No "we pride ourselves". Neither of those sentences survives its subject being swapped for a competitor, which is the test for whether a line is doing any work.

Then the offer. An offer needs two things to function: a number and an end date. A discount is the weakest kind because it teaches people to wait for the next one, and it comes straight out of margin. A free measurement visit, a guaranteed installation window, or a bundled extra usually costs you less and reads as more concrete.

The right hand column is the standard to hold every line to. If a sentence would still be true printed by the firm across the road, cut it and give the space to the headline.

Typeface choice is a copy decision, not a decoration decision, because it sets how many words fit before the ad becomes unreadable. Choose the type after you know the reading distance and before you finish the copy.

The old sign trade rule still holds: allow roughly one inch of capital height for every ten feet of viewing distance. That single line of arithmetic decides your word count.

Work the poster row backwards and the point becomes obvious. At 2 inches of cap height on an 18 by 24 sheet, a headline of more than about six words will not fit on two lines. That is the constraint deciding the copy, so discovering it after the copy is approved means rewriting under deadline.

On typeface families: a sturdy sans with open counters and clearly different letterforms carries a headline at distance better than a display face with tight apertures. For body copy on a flyer, either a sans or a text serif works, so long as it has a real bold rather than a faux one applied by the software. Avoid condensed faces for anything the reader must scan quickly, because narrowing letterforms is exactly what makes a word shape harder to recognize at speed.

Set the hierarchy in three tiers and no more. Headline, then offer, then everything else. If four different sizes compete, the reader picks none of them. The specifics for each format sit in our guides on flyer fonts and postcard fonts, both of which name the faces that hold up in ink.

Copy that is approved still has to survive the production file. Three things trip up ad copy specifically, and all three are avoidable.

Bleed and safety. Build the file with 0.125 inch of bleed on every edge and keep all text at least 0.125 inch inside the trim line. Cutting has a tolerance, and a phone number sitting 2mm from the edge will lose a digit on part of the run. Starting from a correctly sized file removes the guesswork, and the blank template library has the trim and safety marked for every size we print.

Type outlines and resolution. Convert fonts to outlines before you send the file, or the press may substitute a face and reflow your carefully counted headline. Any logo or type placed as an image needs to be at 300dpi at final size, because a headline that looks acceptable on screen at 150dpi shows visibly soft edges in ink.

Format and quantity. Match the format to how the copy will be read. Standard flyers start at $39.54 and suit a headline plus a short body block. Standard postcards start at $16.48, which makes them the cheapest way to run two headlines against each other and count the difference. Standard posters start at $108.75 when the piece has to work across a room on six words. Standard brochures start at $57.11 and give you the panels for a longer argument, which only helps when the reader has already agreed to open it.

If you are still deciding which format the copy belongs on, our comparison of booklets, brochures and flyers lays out what each one can carry, and the flyer printing and postcard printing pages show the sizes, stocks and turnarounds available for each.

The checklist before it goes to press. Headline is five to nine words and names a benefit. The offer has a number and an end date. There is one call to action with one route. Body copy is three sentences and none of them survive a subject swap. Type sizes match the reading distance. Response details read out loud and checked. Text sits inside the safety margin. Dates match the delivery schedule. If all eight are true, print it.