September 19th 2008
I began my advertising career in the mailroom of Ogilvy & Mather, Los Angeles. While it was a great introduction to how an agency runs, after six months I was still clueless when it came to creating ads. So I enrolled in an advertising concept course at Art Center College of Design, even though it was geared for want-to-be art directors and I was a want-to-be copywriter. Continue Reading »
August 1st 2008
To increase the effectiveness of your presentation, allow your audience to get involved: to question, clarify, or to redirect what you are saying. You can allow questions before, during, or after your presentation; each time has certain advantages.
This assumes your audience knows a good deal about your subject and has questions before you begin. By getting these questions out ahead of time, you get an idea of what people want to know and can reassure them that their questions will be answered during your presentation. It allows you to tailor your material to the needs of a particular group. Continue Reading »
August 1st 2008
Here’s what to keep in mind when preparing the visual part of your presentation:
May 27th 2008
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.
March 15th 2008
Web site display advertising: You can place an interactive display ad on one of the popular Web sites. For example, you can place an advertisement on the Yahoo search engine. When people access Yahoo, they see your ad. If they want to see your site, they simply click on the ad. The cost of running a Web ad can range from a few hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands. It all depends on the amount of traffic generated by the host site. As I’ve contended a few times, I believe this kind of online advertising should be billed based solely on results. In this case, you should only pay for the number of visits you receive from the host site. If you don’t get any visits, you pay nothing; if you get thousands of visits, you pay more. If you can, negotiate this kind of results-only program.
Web site links and pointers: To generate traffic on your Web site, you want people to discover your existence on other sites. For example, if you have a site about fishing supplies, you want to be listed on all major sites frequented by anglers. Continue Reading »
