Just last week I was having a conversation with a colleague of one of my clients about the use of adverts in his marketing… He was convinced that adverts didn’t work for his business.

He told me he was trying to sell IT Support services to local businesses, but it didn’t matter what he tried, he wasn’t even getting one call.

When I delved a bit deeper, it did appear that he was targeting publications which got him in front of the right sort of business he was looking for, but he was not managing to attract any attention.

When I looked at some examples of his ads, it was clear that the problem was that he was using the wrong TYPE of ad.

You see, there are actually four ‘purposes’ of an advert – each one needs to be approached in a slightly different way – and it all depends on what you are trying to achieve.

According to direct response copywriting expert Bob Bly, the four “missions” of an ad are:

  1. To sell products directly (mail order advertising)
  2. To generate sales leads (ads that invite you to send in for a free brochure or pamphlet)
  3. To build awareness of a product or service (ads for package goods and low cost consumer items)
  4. To build the company’s image (corporate advertising)

Each of these types of advert have very clear differences.

Ads which are designed to sell products or services directly MUST do the complete job of selling. With this type of ad, you don’t have all of the other sales backup material [such as a salesperson, showroom, or brochure] you might otherwise rely on. Your ad must give the prospect ALL of the information and answer ALL of their questions and objections. It must convince them to buy a product they have never seen or a service they have never experienced.

To achieve this, these adverts generally need to be long adverts with lots of copy. This is required to give the prospect enough information to make that buying decision.

Typical examples of these are Readers’ Digest, Royal-Doulton-Collectible-Plate adverts you see in the Sunday Times Magazine, or book of the month club type adverts.

Ads which are designed to generate sales leads, can also have a lot of copy, but never give the whole story. They always leave it so your prospect has to contact you for the brochure or leaflet which will give them the rest of the information they are looking for. The main advantage of this type of advert is that you know anyone who responds are either a hot (or at least warm) prospect.

These ads are only PART of your sales process, so you need to think about how they fit in, and what each part plays.

Ads selling consumer products, or low-cost-high-volume items are typically the things you buy in your local supermarket, or department stores, or at fast food restaurants.

The advertisers of a fast-food restaurant are under no illusion that you are suddenly going to go out and buy their burger the moment you see their advert – but the expectation is there that when you DO fancy a burger, theirs will be the one you think of first.

This method has been adopted by traditional marketing methodology.

Then there is corporate advertising, where it is the company or organisation which is promoted, rather than their product or service. These adverts are used to create a certain image of the company – sometimes to overcome an image issue when the company has had a problem in the eyes of the buying public.

So before you even start to think about creating an advert, you need to be very clear what purpose the advert ultimately has.

Once you have decided on this, you can focus on you message, your offer, call-to-action and benefits to make the advert work for you.

In my experience, the two most effective types (and best for ROI) which should be used are the first two – direct selling and encouraging the request for more information.

Let me ask you a question…

If you have used advertising as part of your marketing mix, what type of ad have you been using?

If your not sure which approach to take, think about your sales process, and then answer the following questions:

  1. Can you give your prospects enough information in an advert to make a decision to buy?
  2. Do you need to go into far more detail or maybe even demonstrate it to them to get the sale?

Once you are clear what you are trying to achieve, you can gear up your advertising to be far more effective.

Now, onwards…

… To your success!

Jez

P.S. I’ve had a number of clients talk about pulling their advertising (even though it’s working for them!!!) because of the current economic situation. Be very clear about one thing – there are great opportunities to be had at the moment while your competitors are cutting their advertising budgets.

If you follow my previous tips on making your adverts pay for themselves, then there is no reason at all to drop this part of your marketing strategy.

Be prepared to negotiate and shop around a bit, there are bargains to be had. Negotiate on price with the publications, and NEVER accept the first price they give you from the rate card.