Elements of Successful Advertising
The first thing to do in planning your advertising campaign is to get familiar with the basics of marketing. Next, you should determine who your existing customers are so that you can figure out your target market. You should also make sure that you understand all of your selling points—not just what your product or service offers, but your status, reputation, and self-enhancement. You should also set up a realistic advertising budget which is generally three to five percent of your annual revenues, but can vary up or down depending on your business, your competitors, and your industry. Make sure that your budget covers every type of marketing tool that your company may choose to use, including community sponsorships, newspaper, magazine, radio, and television marketing, Yellow Pages, direct mail, etc.
Think Like a Buyer
Your advertising will be most effective if you begin to think as a customer, which will help you in determining what the best form of advertising is as well as why you stand out from your competition. You also want to find the medium that would reach the greatest concentration of people from your target market.
Six Essentials of a Successful Ad Program
Do your homework. You should first compile a file with advertisements that you like and read books on advertising, including anthologies of the best ads of the year.
“Sell the sizzle, not the steak”. Traditionally, the best way to sell products is based on the benefits and excitement they provide.
Stick to your own image and personality. You want to make sure that throughout all of the advertising that your company does, customers can easily and quickly see that your image and your personality remains consistent and shrines through.
Work as a team with your ad rep or ad agency. Having a team where you can combine your expertise in your business and your advertising specialists’ expertise in advertising will make your advertising campaign more successful.
Give each advertising medium you choose a fair test. The general rule of thumb is to run your ad at least five times or at least two months in weekly publications in order to test the effectiveness of the advertising.
Do not overlook current customers. A satisfied customer is the best marketing tool that your business can gave. Make sure to continue communication with your existing customers by sending them sale notices, newsletters, catalogues, and other incentives.
What is in an Ad?
Headline. This will be the most prominent piece of copy. It has to work with the visual and attract attention. Words are not quite as important as the ideas they express and sell.
Support copy. Located below the headline and adds secondary benefits to the information set forth in the headline.
Call to action. This is an area where you should tell customers to come into your store, visit your Web site, and/or contact you.
Company name. This is traditionally located at the bottom of the ad. It should include your address and phone number.
Visual. Because they are more effective in attracting readers’ attention, they are usually more effective than copy. You should choose the visual that best draws the eye and explains what you are selling.
After you have all of the elements figured out, you should combine them into the dimensions requested by the publication, which you should do ahead of time. Your last step should be to lay your ad on a page of the publication where it will appear to make sure that it stands out from the articles and other ads on the page.
What Pitfalls Should I Avoid?
Excess. This is usually the greatest obstacle to overcome. You want your sales pitch and message to be delivered to the public and too much copy or too much design can blur that message.
Overpromising. Make sure that you do not include selling points that over promise. You should use terms like “largest,” “best,” and similar superlatives only if you have some type of evidence to back it up. Do not include any claim that could be mistaken as deceptive.
Overall tone of ad should be upbeat and appealing. You have to remember that your overall goal is to get customers to read your ad and to generate customers’ interest in your company and your product or service. Therefore, design the ad so that you can generate more sales.
Tracking Your Results
In order to see which one of the marketing methods is most effective, you should establish some type of method to track how customers found out about you. For example, you can ask every new customer how they heard about you or have a referred box on each invoice. If you know which advertising mediums are working, you can discontinue those that do not appear to work and put more money into those that are most successful.
How Do I Create an Effective Yellow Pages Ad?
The first issue to figure out with an effective Yellow Pages ad is which directory or directories you should put an ad into in order to ensure the greatest amount of exposure. You will also have to figure out what size ad you want to buy because the larger your ad, the more attention it will get. There are a few key suggestions that Jeffrey Price, author of Yellow Pages Advertising: How to Get the Greatest Return on Your Investment, says will attract attention and stimulate customer response:
o Attention-getting artwork. Artwork will be what catches your customers’ eyes. Illustrations typically have the best reproduction quality. It is also important to keep an area of blank space around your artwork so that the ad remains easy to read.
o A headline that says why you are special. This should be a short, direct headline that touts your advantage over the competition.
o Complete information buyers need to make a purchase decision. This includes reliability, your products and services, location, business hours, and various special features such as parking, payment forms, discounts, delivery policy, etc.
Finally, you should get your ad placed in the most prominent position possible under each heading.
|
