Advertising should not be designed
to be clever. Readers don't read advertising for fun. Advertising
is often fun to make. But when it comes out funny, it is usually
disastrous. Advertising, after all, is not a form of entertainment.
It is serious business.
The "What" in advertising
is important; not necessarily the "How". The confidence
of the advertiser in what he has to sell and the
real value of his proposition, to the right prospect, usually make
the difference between success and failure. It also keeps
him honest. Figure out what you want to say and get straight to
the point. It's a matter of being as direct and simple as you can.
For an ad to be useful it must be clear. Ads should have honest
promises explained sensibly. You can't tell a reader
what you meant to say. He either gets it in a second or you have
failed. In an advertisement you only have
one chance - the first. If you fail, you fail entirely.
Plan your advertising to convince the skeptical.
You should try to write
ads as you would talk. The closer you come to "conversation",
the better you do. Advertising should be thoughtful and honest with
no exceptions. It is not enough that a product is a good product.
It is also necessary that it be a good product for the particular
reason and for the purpose that it is promoted. Many ads are poor
because of things they contain rather than things they leave out.
Most products have more than one appeal. The key is to figure out
which appeal is the most important to the consumer.
Words have work to do. It
is not the words themselves; it is the message that the words convey
that matters. Make your proposition complete and
understandable. The right proposition can be more valuable than
any other aspect of the selling process. REMEMBER: Advertising is
Salesmanship! Some words are more powerful than others. Saying,
your ad must "spark your readers interest," is more powerful
than saying, your ad must "get the readers attention."
Why? because by using "spark," you can see something igniting
within the reader, flaming their interest, and sense they are feeling
some excitement. Yes, getting them to have feelings about your words
is what you want to accomplish. It is the feelings that are attached
to the words that give them power. If you have trouble finding power
words to use in your ad, it is probably because you are concentrating
to hard on what words you want to use instead of what sorts of
feelings you want the reader to feel. Decide on the feelings first
and then experiment with the words that best convey them.
Three (3)
Questions You Need To Answer Before Writing an Advertisement:
1. What is it you are trying
to say?
2. What is it you are trying
to sell?
3. What is your "proposition"?
Six Rules
Of Advertising:
1 You must immediately make CLEAR
what the basic proposition
is.
2. What is CLEAR must also be IMPORTANT
and express a well defined VALUE.
3. You must express the VALUE of
the offering in PERSONAL terms. It should be beamed directly at
the most logical prospects for the proposition. No one else matters.
4. Good advertising will always
express the personality of the advertiser. A promise is only as
good as it's maker.
5. A good advertisement will always
demand action. It will 'ask for the order'.
6. Discontinuing a successful advertisement
is foolish.
Good Advertising
Qualities:
1. Advertising should command attention
but never be offensive.
2. Advertising should be reasonable
but never dull.
3. Advertising should be original
but never self-conscience.
4. Advertising should be imaginative
but never misleading.
Advertisers
Big Mistakes:
1. They
rely on a passive promotion strategy to get the word out about
their product or service.
Most people think that opening
a retail establishment, an office, or publishing a website means
that hundreds of visitors are going to flock to their site with
cash in hand practically begging to buy your products or services.
Sorry, a passive marketing strategy
will bring you in either a trickle of sales or absolutely no
sales at all. While a person who relies on active marketing
does not wait for visitors to come to them, they do everything
in their power to bring targeted visitors to their site. For
example, active marketers utilize tools such as trade publication
advertising and submitting articles to targeted trade publications
in order to draw traffic to their site. They will also use publicity
such as press releases in order to really get the word out about
their product or service to an audience that cares.
2. Ineffective
Advertisers do not have a method of capturing prospect's names
and contact information when they visit their establishment or
website.
Get this set up immediately and
start building your mailing list of interested prospects. You
see people are stopping by your business or website and looking
around, but this doesn't mean they are going to buy at that
moment. People may not buy immediately so you need give them
a reason to return to your location or site in the near future.
3. Ineffective
Advertisers don't follow up when people ask you for more information.
HUGE mistake. That person has
raised their hand and said, "I am interested in what you
have to sell."
