Instant Advertising (Instant Success Series) - Softcover

Sugars, Bradley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0071466606 ISBN 13: 9780071466608

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education, 2006

Synopsis

From the international go-to guys in small business know-how:

Your source for the strategies, skills and confidence every business owner needs to succeed

Remember what it was like learning how to ride a bicycle? Now imagine how it would've been if you'd tried to do it blindfolded.

Pretty scary, right?

Yet, right now, all over the world, millions of men and women are trying to make a go of running small businesses without a clear picture of where they're going or how to get ahead. No wonder so many small businesses fail in their first year of operation.

Don't become another statistic. Let the Instant Success Series show you how to get up on that Schwinn and ride it to success.

Written by whiz kid entrepreneur and renowned international business coach Bradley Sugars, the Instant Success Series arms hardworking independent business owners like you with all the tools for success. Instant Success books tackle an array of business topics using strategies developed by Sugars and the crack business coaches at Action International, a global network that has helped nearly half a million business owners, worldwide, realize their dreams of success.

About this title

About the Author

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

From the Back Cover

Wage a million-dollar ad campaign on a shoestring budget.

When it comes to attracting customers, the only difference between your company and Microsoft, Ford, and Coke is great advertising. In Instant Advertising you'll find everything you need to create killer ads that won't break the bank. Learn how to:

• Design, write, and create ads for optimum "buy-appeal"
• Uncover low-cost ways to advertise on radio, TV, and the Internet
• Communicate effectively to different customer niches
• Create a buzz that'll keep consumers talking-and buying

Get real results right now when you discover all that Instant Success has to offer!

Instant Cashflow * Instant Leads * Instant Profit * Instant Promotions * Instant Referrals * Instant Repeat Business * Instant Sales * Instant Systems * Instant Team Building * The Business Coach * The Real Estate Coach * Successful Franchising * Billionaire in Training

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

INSTANT ADVERTISING

By BRADLEY J. SUGARS

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2006 Bradley J. Sugars
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-07-146660-8

Contents

Let's Get Started
PART 1—The Basics
PART 2—Business Principles
PART 3—Writing Successful Ads
PART 4—The Layout: Making It Sell
PART 5—Final Points to Remember
PART 6—Just Did It
Getting into Action
About the Author
Recommended Reading List
The 18 Most Asked Questions about Working with an ActionCOACH Business 
Coach
Action Contact Details

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Part 1The Basics

1. Strategy

Most people wrongly believe that good ads have to be funny, well written orvisually dramatic. The truth is, the very best ads work because of the strategybehind them.

Here's a good analogy. If you've prepared a delicious meal and your dinnerguests are hungry, they won't care what kind of plates you use. Put another way,if your message and offer appeal to the people you're writing to, it barelymatters how you present them.

Of course, there are things you can do to make your ad clearer, more direct, andmore interesting, but these are definitely secondary concerns. If your strategyis wrong, the best penmanship combined with the best graphic design in the worldwon't save you.

Imagine trying to encourage teenagers to invest $400 a week for theirretirement. On the surface, it sounds like a reasonable idea, but realistically,you'd be lucky to get a single interested adolescent. The strategy is completelywrong. First, you're going after the wrong people, and second, the amount you'reasking for probably exceeds their weekly incomes.

That's an extreme example, but a good one to highlight the problem with mostadvertisements: saying the wrong thing to the wrong people.

Usually ads are saying nothing much to no one in particular. That's a far moreserious issue. If you've been writing the kind of ads that just say, "Hi, there.My business name is X, and my phone number is Y," you shouldn't be surprised ifyour ads haven't been successful. These types of ads rarely do anything, exceptfund a newspaper or magazine. People will not read them unless you promise togive them something.

Behind all of this is a strategy. So let's look at what the word strategy means.It is defined as a plan: what you want people to do and how you're going to getthem to do it.

Let's take an example. A local butcher wants to place an ad. Not being thesmartest businessman around, he simply writes his name at the top and his phonenumber at the bottom. He sits back and looks over his ad. This will bring inheaps of customers, he mistakenly thinks. Of course, nobody bothers to look athis ad, as it's completely uninteresting.

He's missing a strategy. So let's work one out for him. First, we need to thinkabout what it is he's trying to achieve. Put simply, he wants to encouragepeople to come in and buy their meat from him. But we have to be more specificwhen we talk about people. Thinking about it, he's really interested in thepeople who do their weekly grocery shopping in the local area.

So, how's he going to encourage these people to come in? They're probablyalready quite satisfied shopping at the supermarket four minutes down the road.He needs a good reason for them to come in and see him. How about a specialoffer? For every $10 you spend on meat, you get a $3 credit. That's notbad—people would probably go out of their way to claim that. Throw in alarger choice of meats, cheaper prices, higher quality, and friendly service,and you've got something that looks like a strategy.

Once people have come in and taken up his special offer, they're more likely tocome back again the following week. He may not make a killing on the first ad,but he will see some customers, as opposed to none. Over time, this strategywill pay off with repeat and referral business.

So give it some thought—what is your strategy? Whom do you want to dowhat, and how are you going to encourage them to take that action now?

2. Stop Being Clever

One of the most common mistakes people make when they first start writingadvertising copy is being too clever. They try to impress people with theirability to write humorous or clever advertising copy, rather than simply gettingthe sales message across.

So why do they fall into this trap? Well, it's simply what they've learned fromwhat they've seen, heard, or read. It's what they've been exposed to inmagazines, newspapers, and on television and radio.

You see, all around the world advertising agencies spend thousands of dollarstrying to produce award-winning advertisements. These "clever" advertisementsare not designed to make sales for their clients but rather to impress judges.The judges themselves have no interest in how successful a campaign has been.They simply look for the best play on words, the biggest, the brightest, or thefunniest advertisements.

They miss the point of the whole exercise: making sales.

Advertising is about one thing and one thing only: getting people to buy yourproduct or services—getting customers coming through the door and spendingmoney with you.

The problem with clever advertising is simply that it doesn't make people buy.To prove my point, consider how many ads you read, see, or hear in the course ofan average day. If you consider the number of billboards, in-store displays,window signs, taxi-signs, and outdoor signage you go past on an average day, youprobably won't be surprised to hear that you, like most people, are exposed toover 1500 advertisements each day!

Now how many of those do you stop and take notice of? How many can you actuallyrecall seeing? Probably not too many. In many cases, people would be lucky toremember 10. That's not many out of 1500. It's hardly surprising we can recallonly a handful; after all, if we were to stop and pay attention to every ad wewere exposed to, we'd spend our entire day reading advertisements.

So the problem with clever advertisements is that people simply don't have thetime to stop and think about what the ads are trying to say. If your ad doesn'tget the sales message across quickly, it will fail to achieve its true purpose:additional sales.

To give you an idea of how this works, consider these two headlines for a fishand chips shop that is trying to advertise a two-for-one fillet of fishpromotion in a newspaper:

"If you think there's something fishy about this offer, you're right."

Compared to:

"Buy one fillet of fish, get another one FREE!"

Now the first headline uses a clever play on words. A fishy offer in relation toa fish sale is quite humorous. But people have to stop and think about what itmeans.

Chances are that rather than reading the rest of the ad, they'll simply turn thepage and keep going. Compare this to the second headline, which gets the messageacross quickly. People thinking about what they were going to have for dinnerthat night would be tempted to read on.

The second ad might not be as glamorous, but it works.

It's all about getting people to read your ad, and then take action. If peoplehave to decipher what you've written, they'll simply pass your ad over andforget about you altogether. Writing ads is not about making people laugh, orhaving them think you're a genius. It's about communicating with them in thefastest, clearest way possible.

Average people are not skilled in reading comprehension. If it's not spelled outfor them, they won't be able to understand it. You need to realize that writingads is not about you the writer, it's about making people understand. If youwant to write for your own selfish reasons, then copywriting is not for you.You'd be better off writing novels or short stories. There's no place for bigegos when it comes to writing ads.

If you want to be a copywriter, you need to forget about beautiful writingstyles and creative expression and focus instead on getting your message acrossin a fast and efficient manner. It might not win you any awards, but it will winyou a lot of satisfied clients and repeat business.

3. Promote Something Big

Tasteless, boring, unimaginative, dull advertisements never made anyone anymoney. But that doesn't stop people from running them. In fact, people seem toconsistently run common, uninspiring ads, seemingly without ever askingthemselves the question, "Would I respond to this ad?"

Let me show you what I mean.

Imagine people running an ad to sell wood-turning equipment. Now they could runthe standard product/price type of ad, but would this inspire anyone to call?Hardly! However, with a little bit of forethought and planning, they could puttogether an event that would motivate people to respond.

For example, they could package up a number of products and/or services thatwould be worth boasting about. Perhaps a jigsaw, a lathe, and some chisels foran unbeatable price, plus free woodturning lessons. Now that would be somethingbig!

Once you've got something worth promoting, then you can start to really boastwith exciting headlines. Things like "HUGE SALE" or "BEST EVER DEALS ON (X)"will get people reading and, more importantly, will get them buying.

But package deals are only one means of promoting something big. DemonstrationDays, Market Days, and Open Days will also give you something to really sell inyour ad.

A lot of people are put off doing these types of promotional days because theyfeel that it would be too expensive or too difficult to put together. But it'sreally not that much of a challenge when it comes to organizing one of theseevents.

To start with, suppliers will quite often assist with the cost of a promotion,providing they see some benefit in them by getting involved. It surprises me howmany business owners don't realize that suppliers often incorporate a marketinglevy into their prices. This levy is usually around one percent or one and ahalf percent of the purchase price of the goods they sell.

Now they won't come out and tell you this, but if you ask them to subsidize youradvertising, they will normally come to the party. Also known as cooperativeadvertising, this will normally take one of two forms.

The first is a straight payment to assist with your marketing costs. Yoursuppliers will in this instance offer to pay a percentage of any ads you run topromote the event, provided their product is mentioned or their logo appears.

The second is often the most popular and involves stock at cost price ratherthan a financial contribution. This is normally easier for them to fit intotheir budgets, and once you've sold the goods at normal retail you'll have madeback the money anyway. The reason this is often better from the retailers pointof view is that suppliers are more generous when it comes to this form ofassistance. Whereas they may have paid $100 towards an ad, they'll often bewilling to give you goods at cost, which when sold, will give you many hundredsof dollars in additional profits.

However, monetary assistance is just the beginning. Most suppliers will oftensend one or two representatives along to demonstrate their products. They willgive you extra stock on consignment for the sale and then actually set up andman their own display. This has two major benefits for you, the business owner:It makes the day more interesting for the public and it alleviates some of thestaffing problems you might otherwise have had.

Regardless of whether you put on a show to end all shows, or simply put togetheran exciting package, you must never run "just an ad" and always, always promotesomething big.

4. Sell One Thing at a Time

It always pays to keep your ads as simple as possible. Trying to get too muchinformation across will cause your ad to fail, as people will tend to either getbogged down when reading it, or they'll become confused.

Often people will have many products or services that they are looking to sell.Trying to fit them all into the one ad or letter is detrimental to the campaignas a whole. Better to just cover one key product or aspect of your services, andthen tell them about the rest when they call or come into your store.

What we're trying to achieve with most advertising is to get people to contactus. You shouldn't attempt to get people to buy straight from your ad. We stillwant to qualify those people who respond to our ads. For example, if we run aheadline that says, "Attention people looking to buy a new VCR," we should onlyget people responding who are in the market for a new VCR.

But we don't want to give them too much information, because they'll then feelthat they can make a decision about your product without needing to come in andsee you. Let me show you why we should avoid telling them too much up front.

Imagine that you are selling home entertainment units. You place anadvertisement and one of your competitors places an ad in the same publication.You list all your product's features and benefits, as well as all of theoptional extras that come with your system. Your competitor tells them verylittle and invites them to call or come in for further information.

People read your ad and feel that they know a lot about what you have to offer.Based on this, there's no need to call you. Instead, they'll call yourcompetitors to compare their system to yours. At this point you might still rateyourself a chance to make the sale.

But when they call your competitors, they are immediately caught up in a slicksales script that results in the customer making a purchase. You have now lostthe sale because you gave too much information away and you never got the chanceto talk to the prospect.

So it pays to always sell only one thing at a time. If you're selling a productor item that has many accessories, mention only the key ones in your ad. Tellthem about the rest when they come in. For instance, if you were selling paint,you would also most likely sell brushes, rollers, drop cloths, thinners, etc.But although you sell all these other items, you would not mention them in yourad. You'd cover these when prospects come into your store.

The less you put into your ad, the less confusing it is for the prospect. Theless confusing, the greater the chance of success. Let's face it, nobody wantsto deal with anything that's difficult. If something looks too complex, peoplewill shy away from it.

5. Relate to Something Local

Have you ever noticed the peculiar views of sports fans in relation to playerson opposing teams? A sports fan who supports one team will usually love theplayers on that team. As much as they love the players on their team, they'llhate players from an opposing team.

Often they will go along to watch their team play and sit there hurling abuse atthe opposing players with great vigor and passion. But if the opposing playerthey've been abusing is selected to represent their country against anothercountry, they'll quickly turn from the abusive, crazed individual they'd beenearlier, into that player's greatest fan. Why?

It's all about being a local.

People will generally support "locals." They'll favor people who live on theirstreet over someone who lives across town. They'll support someone who lives intheir town over someone from another town, a person or group from their stateover a person or group from another state, and so on.

So what does this have to do with advertising? Simple. You need to appeal topeople's sense of loyalty if you want them to buy your product or service.

To demonstrate what I mean, imagine you were advertising in a small country townfor a large client based in a big city some distance away. Now, if the productor service you're advertising is already being provided by a local company,you'll have a lot of trouble getting the locals to purchase from you. Even ifwhat you're selling is bigger, better, more reliable, and less expensive, you'llstill have difficulty overcoming the loyalty factor.

You see, the people you're advertising to feel a loyalty to their town and thosepeople and businesses operating in that town. If you want to break into thatmarket, you need to appeal to their sense of loyalty.

6. Skim the Cream

One of the most popular techniques employed by copywriters is commonly known asskimming the cream.

This is where you go after an existing market, a market where people havealready decided to buy and are now just working out whom they'll buy from. Andit's a popular market because they've already identified themselves as buyers.

For this type of advertising the emphasis is not on "Why you need to buy X,"rather it's on "Why you should buy X from us."

To give you an example of how this works, let's imagine for a moment that yousell washing machines. Using the skim-the-cream technique you'd use a headlinesuch as, "So you need a new washing machine."

A headline like this will attract only those people who are looking to buy awashing machine right now (or at least in the very near future).

You're not trying to convince people who already have a functional washingmachine to buy a new one. You're targeting only those people who have alreadydecided to buy. It's now simply a matter of getting them to buy from you ratherthan from someone else.

Your body copy will focus on why people should purchase their machine from yourather than your competition. While you'll cover the benefits of your brand ofwashing machine (or whatever it is you're selling), you'll also explain why yourcompany is the best one to deal with.

You need to cover all the advantages of dealing with your store. After-salesservice, layaway, and free delivery are all the sorts of things that you'dmention in your ad. There's less copy needed to describe the benefits of havinga new washing machine because your prospect has already decided to buy one. Youcan now devote more space to explaining why yours is better.

If you want to take this technique one step further, you can target those peoplewho are in the market only for your particular brand, or model, of product. Forexample you might have a headline that reads, "So you're looking for the bestdeal on a new Simpson LI5000 washing machine."

An ad like this will bring you very qualified inquiries. But caution needs to betaken with this approach because the more targeted your headline becomes, thefewer people it will attract.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from INSTANT ADVERTISING by BRADLEY J. SUGARS. Copyright © 2006 by Bradley J. Sugars. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0071466606
• ISBN 13: 9780071466608
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288