What are the ingredients of an effective ad?

There really is no question that print media absolutely MUST take its place in your marketing plans.  To overlook print media as one of your marketing mediums would be like trying to operate as a “we accept cash only” business in today’s world of plastic and credit.  It’s simply not realistic if you want to grow your business. 

If your market reach happens to be the south end of Calgary and the rural communities south of Calgary down to Claresholm, then you are fortunate to have access to one of the upcoming leaders in the New Print Multi-Media era – the Gateway Gazette Grande.  If this does not happen to be your target area, then you’ll have some homework to do and you may have to become a little bit persuasive with the print media providers in your area. 

Some of the things that you’ll want to consider when choosing your print media are:

• Nature of content (you want positive things, if the print media available to you doesn’t include much in the positive arena, see if they will accept submissions)
• Circulation versus price (the price per unit of space is not nearly as important as the price per thousand distributed on your size of choice)
• Online presence (do they offer free access to an e-Edition that displays in original print format which includes your ad…. Better yet, does their online e-Edition instantly link your ad to your website with a single click?)

Once you have chosen your print media, you need an ad to place.  This is probably one of the biggest questions I get asked – What should my ad say?  Or, How do I make my ad work?  At the end of the day, most people don’t mind paying for advertising, but it sure is a hard bill to swallow if you’re not seeing any results from the ads.  For the sake of space and time, I am simply going to outline some key points here, however, if this is an area that interests you please note that I have linked a fair number of articles under the Business Resource section of our website that will go into much more detail on this topic for you:  http://resources.gatewaygazette.ca.

So without further adieu:

With printed advertisements, people will normally read the headline and look at the graphics first. If they are interested, they will read the subheads, captions, and any pricing information, and only then will they go back and read your sales copy.

Remember, people read for information.  They expect you to educate them and to help solve a problem.

The number one most important element of your ad is your Headline.  Period.  Bad headline = no customers.  It really is that simple.  Your headline should do one of the following or a combination of the following:

1. Appeal to the readers self-interest
2. Announce something as a news headline
3. Offer to give people information

Some other thoughts to consider:

• Don’t make people “guess” at the meaning in your headline
• Target your headlines at your best prospects – don’t try to appeal to everyone all at once
• Be specific – it makes your ad believable
• Suggest that your product or service makes life easier
• Clearly capture your entire message in your headline – a longer headline that clearly defines your message will sell better than a short message that doesn’t get the point across
• Your headline is the most important part of your ad!

Your headline is what will get your customers attention, draw them in and keep them reading.  Only when you have achieved this can you think about where you want to lead them to next.  And only then will you be able to move on to your objective of getting people to respond.

At the end of the day “how” you say something isn’t nearly as important as “what” you say.  So take the time to figure out what the absolute best, most appealing offer to your customers is and use that.  It will make all the difference in the world on the effectiveness of your advertising.

How do you know “what” to say? You want to tap into the emotions of your prospects through the benefits to them – not the features of your product or service.  The stronger the emotional reaction, the stronger the response.  It’s a science and the formula is to use facts to prove the benefits that will trigger an emotional reaction.  But you don’t have much time, so start with the climax and then build on it – this is not a fictional piece of work that you need to set the stage for.  The idea is to build trust with your facts, but create warmth with your ideas. Let them picture themselves enjoying a perfect life and don’t let go.

If this is completely out of your realm, you may want to seriously consider outsourcing the creation of your ads to the professionals that are equipped to handle this - but recognize the expertise, training and talent that is required to do this for you and accept that it is a service you will have to pay for if you truly want a good job done with effective ads being the result.  Even getting a professional copywriter to review your ad copy is an investment worth making.  Thirty minutes worth of editing could double the effectiveness of your ad.  Nothing is more important than the words you use.

Copywriting: Successful Writing for Design, Advertising and Marketing