Advertising Effectrively - How to get
people to want what you're selling

I am often asked the question--What is Advertising? I often reply with the following: Advertising is a necessity of any business owner who wants to tell the world that their business exists in order to sell their products or services. Advertising is both an Art and Science. Advertising, when properly designed and executed, will make the difference between your business' failure or success. It will make your business grow, create a positive company image, tell the world you exist, or simply sell.

The difference between a good and a bad ad is its effectiveness. Above all else, you should always strive to design advertising that sells. To ignore this is as to say that you have nothing better to do with your money--but to throw it away.

Good advertising will save your business, while bad advertising may drive you bankrupt. Even with all the many ways to promote your business in today's world, it is still very important to advertise. A properly executed marketing plan will always include the promotion of business through the medium of advertising.

While it is good business to employ advertising agencies to develop the right type of advertising custom designed to your business, this information will help you understand the psychology of a properly designed ad.

Within the next few pages, you will learn how to get the maximum rate of return on your advertising investment. You will learn what colors mean in order to attract your specific market. You'll also learn the power of words and how to utilize them to sell your product or service faster and easier. You'll learn the right and wrong way to structure an ad and how important it is to place it in the right media.

Above all, you'll learn:

· Who should advertise
· Why you should advertise
· How to create powerful ads
· Where you should advertise
· When to advertise
· How often you should advertise

The information within these pages is very powerful when properly utilized. Read through it all, then go back and read through it all over again. Employ what you've learned when advertising and you'll grow your business in a way never imagined.

Why Advertise?

The age old question-Why advertise? When you're in business, at some point of your entrepreneurial career, you will ask yourself this question.

It is important for you to know why you should grow your business through advertising.

Did you know that companies spend billions of dollars per year on advertising alone? As an example, did you know that there is one day in the year that a few privileged companies spend 2 - 3 million dollars on a 30-60 second commercial? And that's just for airing the commercial. Throw in another million or so for producing it in some instances.

The day is in late January. Have you guessed when? It's the Super Bowl! Each and every year, over 100 million dollars is spent on advertising within a 3 hour span.

But why? Why do they spend millions? Well, they invest these millions because of one or all of the following reasons:

They advertise, in order to:

1. Get more customers
2. Create "brand equity"
3. Improve company image
4. Get existing customers to purchase more often
5. Target specific audiences
6. Create awareness
7. Sell something

These are the very same reasons that you should advertise as well. I'll explain each reason in more detail for better clarity.

1. Get More Customers:

One of the top reasons for advertising is to gain more customers. Unfortunately, many business owners miss the boat on this one. Many think that the main reason for advertising is to get the word out that their company exists. This is fine for companies with deep pockets.

However, if you want to get your advertising dollar's worth, you should really advertise in order to get more customers.

Simply put, if you are just starting out, or need to get more business in order expand and an ad does not have the potential to pay for itself at least twice over, you should not consider advertising.

When advertising to grow your business, you must keep this in mind-never run institutional type advertising.

Institutional type advertising is everywhere. This is when you see an ad with a big graphic with little wording. The ad does not invite the reader to take action of any type. It merely tells the reader that the company exists.

Direct response advertising is what you should invest in when advertising. What is direct response advertising? It is when your ad gets the reader to take some type of action. You get them to call for more information, write, or order your product or service.

How do you do this? I'm glad you asked. There are various ways, including the following:

· Offer something in return for the reader's response. (Free report, more information, a discount, coupon, etc.)
· Ask them to follow up by completing and returning a form.
· Ask the reader to call your toll free number.
· Entice the reader to get more information by visiting your web site. Once there, entice them to give you their information by offering them something in return.

If you do these, the chances of the reader becoming a customer will increase 100 fold.

2. Create brand equity:

The only time you do not get the reader to respond is when you advertise with the sole intention of creating Brand Equity. What is Brand equity? Have you heard of Microsoft, Nike, Coca Cola or AOL? These companies have spent millions (If not billions) of dollars creating brand equity for themselves. Brand equity is just like having a household product name. The reason you want this is because you want your prospect to think of your company next time they're in the market for your product or service.

Creating Brand Equity is great if you have the budget, but it's an expensive proposition.

3. Improve company image:

You can do both, create Brand Equity and get a direct response from your reader. All the while improve your company's image. Think about it. You can advertise and offer something of value to get the reader to respond. This will do both and improve your company's image.

Naturally, you can advertise with the sole purpose of improving your company's image. You can run public service announcements sponsored by your company. You can also sponsor special events. There are a number of other things you can do to improve your company's image through advertising. You're limited only by your imagination.

4. Get existing customers to purchase more often:

A very powerful advertising strategy not many business owners employ, deals with targeting current clients or customers. Think about it for a minute. Your past and current customers already know that you provide a good product or service. Why spend so much on finding new clients when all you have to do is make an offer to the people who already know you.

One way to do this is to write your past and current clients a letter inviting them to a special occasion or event. It could be something like: "This special offer is for our clients only--Visit our store on Saturday, August 19th, and get an additional 20% off our entire inventory. This offer is not intended for the public!"

You can also say something like: "Customer appreciation sale-Visit us on Saturday, August 19th and get a free suit for every two suits you purchase. Bring a guest and they'll save too." Customize your offer to meet your need. The concept here is that you understand that approaching your existing clients is key to business success.

5. Target specific audiences:

Where are you currently advertising? Is it reaching your prime prospect? Or, are you wasting your money and energy in non-targeted advertising? Unfortunately, many business owners spend their advertising budget on various media, but never research to see which ad works best. Did you know that half your advertising dollars fund advertising media that produce no results? The question is, which half?

When you don't target specific audiences, you lose. In order to target market, you must first know who your ideal market is and what they like to do, read, watch, attend and listen to. For instance, if you are a financial planner and are advertising in your local coupons saver newspaper, you're throwing your money away. You may get a few responses, but you'll have better luck in a more upscale publication dealing with finances and money issues.

When you know what your prime prospect likes to do, read, watch, attend and listen to, you'll know where to invest your advertising dollars. How do you know what they like? You can learn this information by implementing a little marketing research.

a) If you currently have a database of clients, analyze it. Learn where they reside; what they bought; how much they spent; etc.
b) You can also survey your existing clients. Ask them questions like; which radio station they listen to; which TV or cable channels they watch; which web sites they frequent; what made them patronize you in the first place; and any other information pertinent to your business. Once you have this information, you'll know more about your current and prospective clients.
c) If you don't have a database of clients, your research will have to be a little more extensive. You can learn how to target your prospects by getting the information from the media you seek to advertise in. For instance, if you plan on advertising on radio, you can get all sorts of demographic information from the radio station. They can tell you their listeners' age group; place of residence; gender breakdown; number of individuals per family; etc. It's important to know this because different radio stations cater to different demographics. If your product or service caters to individuals in the 20 to 35 age group, and the radio station's listeners are between the age of 45 and 65, you will target the wrong audience.
d) You can also conduct marketing research by collecting data from prospective clients. You can either hire a telemarketer to phone individuals and survey them, or you can set up a survey on your web site. If you offer an incentive for individuals to complete the survey, they'll be more inclined to do so and you'll get a higher quantity and quality response. When creating the survey, ask questions that will help you target your audience as discussed in our previous pages.

Once you have this data compiled, you can make a much more educated decision as to where your advertising dollars will be spent.

6. Create awareness:

Some companies simply want to let people know they exist. When doing so, they simply advertise their logo, perhaps a graphic, their "tag" line, web site address and contact information. This is fine if you have deep pockets and don't care how your advertising budget is spent. You can create company awareness and have people contact you as well. You can simply ask them to visit your web site so they can get more acquainted with you, or call you to get a free report, or request more information from you by calling your toll-free number.

Do this in order to gather information about your prospect, or to simply grow a list of prospects who may be interested in your product or service. Later on, I'll show you what you must do with the names you gather. I'll show you how to approach them and how to get them to patronize you.

7. Sell something:

The main reason you should advertise, if you had not guessed yet, is to sell your product or service. Whether you want to get more customers, create brand equity, improve your company's image, get existing customers to purchase more, target specific audiences, or create awareness, the bottom line is that you want to sell more of your products or services.

How do you get your prospect to buy from you? Read on and you'll learn how.