This article describes writing techniques and strategies that can help you better promote your business in your advertising campaign at a low cost. It covers in some detail the concerns of the print media ‘space advertising’ structure and provides key guidance in improving ad response.
The term ‘Ad space‘ is a marketing term for advertising placed on the media page sold by any publisher. This category includes everything from newspaper classifieds to multi-page spreads in national magazines.
Table of Contents
Table Of Content:
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How much do you relate to the ‘Sad Ad story’?
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Won the Advertising Game
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The selling point secret is the effective Ad copy
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Comparative example
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Which statement would you respond to?
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What’s in a true statement?
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Finding gold with strategic advertising
I am in constant conversation with my local business community about space advertising experiences. Random data shows that the response to ads is very variable. Some business owners have reported good results and excellent results. Others say their statement is constantly frustrating. Bad results often follow the same basic mistakes.
Do you think yellow page ads are a basic requirement for doing business these days? What about newspapers and magazines? Even if you do not buy this media right now, read on anyway - you will learn tips that can pay cheap advertising for everything from codes to the internet.
If you are wasting money on advertising, you can change it and make space advertising harder for you.
If your advertising cost is already justified by the results, you can use the marketing tricks described below to increase response.
How much do you relate to the ‘Sad Ad story’?
For example, suppose you decide to buy an ad for yellow pages. You can choose from optional sizes and features. You may be tempted to buy a ****** or fancier ad or premium placement. You expect at least the average response reported by the directory company, but the past performance makes you skeptical. Learn about Ad inventory.
Most companies list in different versions of the yellow pages that cover their markets. If your competitors have advertised in directories, you should not miss it. Small newspapers or magazine advertisements provide relatively low-cost publicity, but they usually do not replace ‘ever advertisements’, risky annual directory commitments. It will make you restless.
You expect the media you buy to give results. But after delivering the directory, you will not get any more phone calls. You may be afraid that your competitors are getting all the setbacks. You may feel frustrated, or sad, or angry that you wasted your advertising budget. Most people I surveyed feel the same way.
However, when representatives of the yellow pages contact you next year, you should go ahead and order again as your options for basic, low-cost advertising are limited. Or you may be left frustrated and go with your business phone line with the minimum list available for free. If your target market uses yellow pages, that opportunity is lost.
It gets worse. You can get the same frustration from newspaper or magazine ads. You may ask, “Is there a way to win in an advertising game? Does space advertising ever work for anyone? How can I get a good return on my investment?”
Annually, newspapers, magazines, and yellow pages continue to publish millions of advertisements. Despite the continued dominance of the Internet, fine print advertising continues to do very well. You will soon see that disappointing results are not inevitable and that publishers are not really wrong. Most media, however, allow you to run ads for free that generate poor responses. They make the same amount of money whether your ad is shown or not.
Won the Advertising Game
When you’re willing to take full responsibility for the results and are creative enough to go beyond the publisher’s free layout options, space ad performance can improve dramatically. You can also avoid extra costs or pay less for ads that get more responses than you are running. Smaller ads may lead to better performance than the ads you normally purchase. But I was ahead of myself.
First, a little background about the space advertising business. It will help you understand how this industry works and explain why you should go some extra distance in your Advertising Program Management and Structure - if you are seriously thinking about getting good feedback that justifies the cost. Catches.
Space Advertising is a volume operation. Publishers have a certain amount of page area to sell. To maximize profits, they sell and fill the space as efficiently as possible using limited standard layouts and some optional features. They lead internal sales and creative production teams. This is good business. Learn about conversion tracking
Many publishers offer free advertising structures to make their deals more attractive. Free options are based solely on the visual display such as size, color, page position, view location, trim, website addresses or logos, etc. As a rule, your space ad contains little or no creative effort on what your market words say, this is called ‘copying’.
Free space ad structures are the fast food of the advertising industry.
“Do you like it with a red border?”
Everyone who buys in the directory has access to a similar menu of pre-cooked, minute-ready, visual options. You need to create the effect. You need more.
The selling point secret is the effective Ad copy
You really need to separate your ad to make your message more powerful. The way your ad is written can make a big difference. Great copy makes plain advertising more appealing and effective than others in your category, without the need for an inferior copy or any copy to remove wheels. This allows people to ring on your phone via your sales message or visit your store instead of calling or meeting your competitors. Views are definitely important, but they do not usually convey a convincing sales message. Have a powerful copy and take a look at the ad that is still selling. To power, your ads, make sure the copy sells effectively.
The big, expensive, highly-produced ads from the big fancy agencies come from creative teams, including an author who specializes in turning sales messages into powerful copies. Free ad layouts are not a good deal if the convincing copy is missing.
Take a close look at any ads you run or plan to make. Critically scan yellow pages, magazines, and newspapers. For each ad, ask key questions:
* What is a sales message and how is it called?
* If you are a customer, does this ad prompt you to call or visit?
* Do you see a nonsensical clich, slogan, or blank claim, but no actual sales?
* Is the message based on hype or exaggeration?
* Does the ad try to be ridiculous, ******, and messy?
* No sales copy, just a huge list or extra space?
* “So what?” Ask that. For every statement in the ad. Is it copy-related?
You will soon see bad advertising patterns for yourself. Often an ad dominates the company name and logo, in fact, an ad reader may not care. They have a problem. They are looking for solutions. They don’t care about you. Unless you run a brand awareness campaign, advertising should sell the product, not the market brand. An ad can only do one thing and can do it well.
If your opportunity is looking in the directory, they have already decided to buy the solution or at least check. Ads that say what they really want provide a response. This is not for you or your company. In their mind where your fight for position took place, it was about them. So if you want to win you have to put your ego aside and put your worries first. What is the Gross rating point?
Comparative example
1. The full-page ‘Advertising’ divides the car dealer by their name and the car brand they are selling at the top. Then you will see pictures of new cars and trucks in the middle. Contact information, location, and working hours appear below. The phone number is in large print. That’s all. Do not copy.
I actually saw this ad in my local yellow pages. Then I remembered - these dealer cars had been sitting on his pile for months. All lots will be wholesale from time to time as inventory is currently non-existent. When car dealers have a hard time, fake ads do not help.
2. A very small car ad has an interesting title:
What do you want most from a car dealer?
You may be surprised at what they are talking about. So you read more. This statement outlines some of the most desirable benefits:
* Invoice-plus firm bids on any car we sell
* Drive any inventory car for 30 minutes or less
* All factory options are available by special order
* Delivery is available in Continental US
* No car salesman trick. Guarantee.
Then some car photos, brands, logos, etc., and contact information and working hours will appear.
Then Free Offer -
Every buyer enters to win one year of free regular maintenance!
Which statement would you respond to?
I know someone who bought the Audi A8 through a similar email ad on the internet. At the time of the appointment, he was happy with the experience he had purchased and the car he had provided. He kept his word by all means. He says he owns it for the rest of his life and buys a new trendy car every two years. Learn about rich media advertising.
Enter the selling message in your ads - step by step
In the 1920s, the basics of all current advertising were discovered experimentally, and Claude Hopkins, the ‘father of modern advertising, described it in his classic book, Scientific Advertising. Hopkins is for commercials just like Edison electric lights. He followed the classic scientific method to find out what works. You can still see his book in print as it is still widely used.
Even small space advertising can get impressive sales when designed in the style of Hopkins. His principles have yielded consistent results. They were confirmed in practice decades after the announcements. Unfortunately, mass marketing with a free structure usually leaves no scope for classically effective advertising because the sales message becomes risky.
Selling is a step-by-step process. There is a distracting field of dense information around your ad and your reader, so first, your ad should catch the reader’s attention. Then he should increase their interest in reading more. Once it gets their attention and interest, you need to create your advertising desire - they need to create the ones you are selling. It prompts him to take certain actions, such as writing a check, taking a credit card, calling you on the phone for more information, or visiting your location.
This process illustrates the stages known to everyone who sells, although many business people have forgotten to emphasize the need to successfully drive sales progress through their space advertising.
You can only say a few things in the ad that are relevant to the buyer’s interests. Most of the following, if not all, must-haves. The command shown works well. Tell your readers-
* You offer no special value
* What do you do?
* When, where, how, and/or why?
* Who are you?
* Why you are the best resource?
Everything else is stupid if the sale does not help. Less is more. Keep it short to focus on your sales message and the reader response you want.
What’s in a true statement
Here are six structural elements for advertising that will ring your phone and guide people to your store by making a purchase decision through an organized sales process.
1. Encourage readers to read the title and the rest of the ad that catches their attention. Give a profit here, not just the name, brand, or logo.
2. Selling points that clearly demonstrate value. These emphasize the benefits and can back them up with the features of your product or service. Whether your target is a tech audience, hobbyist, or amateur, features will dominate. These people already know the benefits. They want all the little details.
3. Discrimination explains why potential people buy from you rather than your competition where ads appear near you.
4. Call for action. You need to ask for the desired action of the ad so that the readers understand what to do to get the benefits you offer. Do not close without a call to action. And probably no sales.
5. Attractive visuals, aesthetically designed to engage the eye and emotions and strengthen the copy message of the sale and your unique visual brand.
6. Other information then - your company name, contact information, store hours, location, etc.
Compare the sales message outline in the above 6 episodes with tons of boring ads suffering from one or more classic vulnerabilities:
* Logo or business name dominates (displaces adorable title)
* Listed product line or services (but not for profit)
* Listed working hours (but not separated from competitors)
* Stock slogan or unsupported claim filed (but no call to action)
* More reliance on visuals (if there is a copy it will not sell)
* Crowded takeout (10 shocking pounds in a 5-pound bag)
More readers will call or visit you after the ad effect with a powerful sales offer. You have to prove and prove it yourself, as Claude Hopkins did. Get creative. Examine and evaluate each ad you publish. Compare the response. Do what works best. Look at the ads scientifically and you will get good results. Learn about conversion rate.
Finding gold with strategic advertising
You can publish ads for major newspapers to test your sales proposals. When you find creations and copywriters, place them in your directory ads. It slowly eliminates the effects of annual cycles, giving you ads that do not work. When yellow page delegates call each year, provide them with tested ads from the previous year’s newspaper or direct mail campaigns. Then you will be more confident that you are buying solid value for your long-term advertising dollars.
Keep it consistent and you can get ads with pure gold. Some advertisers eventually develop static messages that will never change, because they say exactly what the target market wants to hear. Their products are sold like lifeboats when the Titanic sinks.
Throughout this article, I assume that the media you buy will reach your target audience with good coverage and ***********. Ensuring that this is the starting point for any advertising campaign.
You may object that you are not a trained copywriter, so you do not have the confidence to use language to sell. In such a situation, do not try to do all this at home because you can injure yourself.
The best strategy for developing effective advertising is to find an expert, a professional who knows how to sell in writing. Links your product range to the needs and desires of your target market, triggering opportunities to contact you and make purchases from you. And then run your organized search campaign using compelling messages from your copywriters to find your golden ads.
You may object that you cannot afford the copywriting fees of a fancy advertising agency. No sweat. Get an offer from a commercial freelance author who can demonstrate that they do what you want. Freelance copywriter fees are irrelevant compared to the amount of new business you have captured using what you have just learned in this article.
You can qualify your potential copywriter by taking a quiz on what you have learned here. But please do not tell them you got an inner scoop from me. Or I would never hear its conclusion from my peers.
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4 Comments
Legend Promoter
Really interesting and informational topic!!!
inamdurrani60
Thanks, Legend
Eddie
Really amazing piece of content very useful
inamdurrani60
Thanks Eddie