My Copywriting Process for Writing a Social Ad
Every step I took to arrive at the final product.
Hi, I’m Ben Watkins 👋 Thanks for joining another edition of La Vie Ben Rose. Every week, I unravel copywriting examples from the most recognized brands.
Last week, I challenged myself to create a social ad for a health tech company, ZocDoc.
Here’s the final product.
While it was fun, I thought I’d share my entire creative copywriting process with you.
Onward and forward!
The design
I’m no design savant, but I’ve practiced for the last few years on Figma and, most recently, on Adobe. And I love learning how design complements copy.
I found this image on Unsplash by looking for things related to Zocdoc and patient care.
These were the words associated with both:
Convenience
Time
Patient
Healthcare
Care
I kept looking around for images until I found this clock with a lovely yellow background. It matched Zocdoc’s brand color (yellow).
And I like that I could work with it around time and care.
Workshopping the image in Adobe
The next step was workshopping the image in Adobe. So, I typed in Generative AI next to the clock hands.
This is what it offered me. I liked the visual of a heart and a bandage because it emphasized time and patient care.
Finding the right message
Finding the right message is always a challenge. You want to emphasize the value of Zocdoc - patient convenience and care. And I didn’t want it to sound cliche and boring.
Prior Zocdoc ads looked like this. It didn’t stand out. It didn’t hook my attention.
My focus was first recognizing the value proposition, which I found on Zocdoc’s About Page.
We help millions of people find and book healthcare providers who are right for them. With Zocdoc, they can choose in-network providers, highly rated ones, highly specialized ones, ones nearby, ones who can see them soon, ones who can see them virtually, or all of the above.
That’s the zinger that I needed on this social ad.
But I also needed a captivating and fun headline that would stand out. I needed something perfect for Zocdoc.
The next step was brainstorming phrases, rhymes, and anything related to what Zocdoc offered patients.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away
Prevention is better than cure
On the mend
Fit as a fiddle
Just what the doctor ordered
Under the weather
At death's door
Take your medicine
In good hands
A bitter pill to swallow
The picture of health
A clean bill of health
In the pink of health
Cough up
Have a heart-to-heart
Heart of gold
Go under the knife
Healing hands
Back on one’s feet
Take care of number one
Healthy and wise, better to rise
Cough and sneeze, and spread disease
Careful care can clear the air
No pain, no gain
Keep pushing the creativity
I really liked Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away. But couldn’t think of a natural way to workshop it as a headline. Here’s what I came up with:
Stop eating apples. Start booking instant appointments with Zocdoc
Apples won’t book your appointments
Apples keep the doctor away. Zocdoc keeps doctors close
It always felt forced. Until I had a zing of inspiration around the phrase: “Patience Is a Virtue” Instead, it could be “Patient Is a Virtue”
It meant treating patients well is a key virtue for healthcare providers. So, it worked perfectly.
Then I took this section from the About Page and workshopped it:
We help millions of people find and book healthcare providers who are right for them
I workshopped it to be shorter.
Helping patients find and book appointments in minutes.
Final product
Creating captions is about finding the value in Zocdoc. It was about having social proof. This is what I found in my research when I was looking at Zocdoc’s website:
Thousands of in-network providers that patients can book in minutes
Millions of patients use Zocdoc
Quickest and easiest way to book appointments.
I put it all together and bam! That was my entire process for creating this social ad for Zocdoc.
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Waiting on the phone to schedule a doctor appointment is like watching paint dry💁🏻🤣 Brilliant FB ad!