5 Elements of a Great Advertising Piece

Classic ad copyHow many times have you purchased a newspaper ad or direct mailer and saw little, if any results?

If you're like many small business owner, the answer is “too many times”.  So what's going on here, is traditional advertising dead?  Do you need to dump offline advertising and concentrate on your Facebook Fan page?  Before you give up completely on traditional advertising, let's look at a couple of things.

Why did my advertising campaign fail?

There are many reasons why an advertising campaign fails, but many times it just comes down to the fact that the ad itself wasn't very good.  Small business owners aren't copywriters and usually don't have a clue when it comes to making an offer jump off a page.  That's what good copy does.

For business owners, making the decision to buy the advert is the big decision, when in reality it's the least important in the whole process.  If the ad itself isn't designed to create action from the reader, you just wasted your money.   Pick up a paper and look at the ads, most of them give no reason whatsoever to take action, yet these businesses are wondering why nobody is calling them.

The creative copy that goes into your advertising piece is vital when it comes to getting the most out of your ad purchase.  Leaving it up to the in-house designer at the newspaper is a poor decision at best, they usually don't have the expertise or knowledge of your business to create anything worthwhile.

If you're going to make the investment in advertising, you need to take the time to work out an advert that appeals to your customers and urges them to take action.  Whether you're going to try your hand at it yourself, or hire someone with real experience creating compelling ad copy, here are a few things that are vital to an advertising piece that works.

Headline

If you get the headline wrong, you can write whatever you like after because nobody is going to read the rest of your advert.  People don't read, they scan.  They are looking for something to jump out at them and if your headline doesn't do that then they skip right over you.  A good headline should make the reader stop what they are doing and want to find out more.  The ad below is from Harley Davidson and strikes a cord with its message of brotherhood.  You should be spending the majority of your creative time thinking of a headline that will grab your readers attention.

Harley Davidson brohterhood advert

The Offer

After reading past the headline, readers want to know the magic question, “What's in it for me?”  Tell them.  The mistake most people make is thinking that the reader wants to learn more about how awesome their business is and how many awards you have won.  They couldn't care less.  They want to know how they will benefit from what you have to offer.

Offer them something good.  If you think a free t-shirt or 5% discount will make people jump, maybe you should stop now and call in a copywriter.  And it doesn't need to be a discount or free giveaway, it needs to be something that makes people want to get up and call you because the thought of not having what you have to offer is suddenly depressing.  If you want to see how a “I can't resist it” offer is constructed, stay up late and watch a few late night infomercials.  Ron Popeil was the master at it.

Clear offer for advert. Capital ONe

Call to Action

Are you prompting your readers to take a clear next step?  Whether it's a phone call, walk in offer, or website visit, people need to be told what to do next.  Only big brands like Coke have the deep pockets to spend millions on branding campaigns with no action oriented message.  As a small business owner, you need action, and lots of it!  Make it very clear what you want the person to do next. Don't be afraid to be blunt, clarity trumps creativity when it comes to adverts that drive sales.  The advert below clearly tells the reader what they have to do next.

Safeway clear call to action example in print advert

Time Sensitive

The only way to create urgency is to have a deadline for the person to act if they want to benefit from the offer.  Not having a time limit on the offer is like giving kids homework without a deadline for handing it in.  Good luck to the teacher expecting students to redeem that offer in the near future.  Let the reader know that if they don't act now, they not only will miss the great offer, but the product may not be available at all if they don't take action now.  Watch 15 minutes of the Home Shopping Network to get a clear idea how this works.

 Time sensitive offer in advert

Track Results

It's amazing how much you can track on your website through services like Google Analytics.  While you don't have the same features available to you offline, there are plenty of things you can do.  Remember, you can't improve what you can't measure.

  • Create a trackable phone number.  Services like Call Fire offer trackable phone numbers at a reasonable price to track the effectiveness of you ad campaign.
  • Create a dedicated landing page on your website.  Create a page specifically for this offer and track the visitor activity through your web analytics program..  Since you won't be sharing the page anywhere else, you'll know the visitors coming are from the advert you have in place.
  • Create a special offer.  Create a promo code specific for the advert you created so you know the redemption are coming from that specific ad.

With all of this tracking in place you will be able to monitor the effectiveness of your advert as well as the platform you are using.  If after a several different ad copy variations and tests, you may find that a platform like the newspaper just isn't effective for your type of business.  Tracking the advert yourself also gives you leverage when it comes to negotiating ad rates, you now have some hard numbers to use when it comes to what you're willing to pay next time.

Add tracking phone number and landing page url to print advert

Ready to create a great advert for your business?

So now that you understand the key elements that make up a great advert, the next step is for you to make one for you business.  Long term success in advertising and marketing in general, comes from a continued effort of testing and improving.  Don't beat yourself up if your first advert doesn't open a flood gate of new customers, just be committed to making your next advertising campaign a little better than your last one.  You'll be amazed at the results.

 

 

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Gary

CEO at 3Bug Media
Gary Shouldis is the founder of 3Bug Media, a web marketing company that helps businesses create 360 Marketing Strategies to dominate their market. His blog is read by over 20 thousand small business owners a month and has been featured in the N.Y. Times Small Business, Business Insider and Yahoo Small Business.
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