Do Business Well

I wish I could offer you five principles of advertising that would be as likely to produce results as the sales principles I’ve offered.

 

Unfortunately, the “science” of advertising is of much more recent origin, and is constantly evolving.

 

What I can list for you are the fundamental aspects of advertising—those factors that should always be considered before placing an ad:

 

1. Purpose. In advance of any advertisement, promotion, or trade show involvement you should always determine what you want to accomplish with this resource.

• To increase sales? By how much? In what territory or other target subgroup of your customer base? Over what period of time?
•  To increase awareness? Of your company? Your product? To what end? How will you measure results?
• To communicate a philosophy or approach? To whom? How will you measure results?

2. Audience. The more you know about your audience, the more likely you’ll be able to reach it through advertising. You must know who the typical customer for your product is and what forms of media he gravitates to.

3. Visibility. Your advertisement will be competing with thousands of messages for the attention of your audience. There are two well respected ways to break through all this sensory noise and get your message heard.

• Make the ad so unusual that people can’t help taking notice. Use a professional to do the art and/or copy writing unless you have specific talent in these areas.
• This kind of ad can be fairly expensive. You need to spend the time and money to develop a unique idea. No matter how creative the ad is, you may lose the impact if it’s not professionally prepared.
• Create a simple ad with a very straightforward message. Run it in the same medium in every issue for years. The idea here is to repeat the message so many times that the audience makes it a part of their subconscious.

This approach is relatively inexpensive. It will usually take advantage of the smallest ad space the medium will allow. The ad will be inexpensive to produce. Since you’ll be running it continuously for a long period, you’ll earn the lowest rates.

4. Frequency. Never run any print advertisement less than three times in the same medium. For the “A” type of ad above, you’ll have substantial diminishing returns after the fourth placement.

The first time a reader sees an ad, he will generally give it the once-over-quickly routine. That assumes it’s seen at all. The reader will often assume that the claims are fabricated or stretched, and that there is no reason to switch from the product he’s currently using.

The second time the reader sees the same ad, the credibility increases. This is probably due in part to our tendency to believe what we read. Our brains seldom register that this is not a new recommendation for this product, just a repeat of the same ad we saw before.

When your target sees your ad for the third time, he begins to figure you have some staying power. There’s also an inference drawn that you would not still be running the ad if some folks weren’t buying the product.

5. Measuring effectiveness. Try to incorporate a measuring device into your ads to determine how well they’re doing. If you’re looking for a mail response, change the address slightly in each placement. You can do this by using a department number: “Please send your check or MO to Bob’s Neat Stuff, 1522 Lincoln Ave, Department 22, Wayne, IN 12345.” In the next ad or for a different medium, use department 23.

If you use a phone number only, train your people to ask callers how they heard about your company, product, or offer. Have each employee keep a log of these callers.

Many trade publications offer a “bingo card” response service. Your ad will contain a line at the bottom stating “For more information circle reader #123 on the reader response card.” Somewhere in the magazine there will be a “bingo card” for the reader to tear out and mail to the publisher. The publisher sends you the leads as they are received.

Coupons, special offers, contests, and giveaways are other methods of gauging your response. While not all types of advertising are geared to this type of analysis, you’ll want to make every effort to find a way to measure your ad’s impact.

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