GoArticles.net - http://www.goarticles.net
Making Advertising work for you and your business
http://www.goarticles.net/articles/10412/1/Making-Advertising-work-for-you-and-your-business/Page1.html
Stefan Thomas
Real Marketing - with no red braces Effective, affordable marketing advice and services including: * Do you have a marketing strategy for your business - this will save you money and massively increase your profits - let's get together and create one * Copywriting - for both online and printed publication * Is your advertising really working for you? If you don't know, let's find out and make it work even better http://www.noredbraces.co.uk 
By Stefan Thomas
Published on 05/25/2008
 
Even though there are much more effective ways of marketing your business, advertising in print still seems to be everyone’s favourite. As it tends to be terribly expensive, let’s look at some ways to make sure it is really working for you.
Making Advertising work for you and your business
Stop any advertising that isn’t working – how obvious does this sound? Of course you wouldn’t be spending money on something that isn’t working. Are you sure? Can you be absolutely clear that you’re not simply continuing to advertise because your firm has always advertised in that newspaper or magazine? Are you really advertising there because it works, or because your competitors are advertising there (and how do you know that it’s working for them!).

2.   Test and Measure all of your advertising – make sure you know that it’s working for you. Ask new customers where they heard about your business. If you asked your last 10 customers and none of them mentioned your advertising, go back to step 1 and stop doing it! If 8 of your last 10 customers came to you because of that ad, then make it bigger, do it more often or put it in more publications – it’s working for you.

3.   Understand why you’re advertising. If you’re a small firm, please don’t be led to believe that it’s all about ‘getting your name out there’. It really isn’t. Advertising for most, if not all, small firms should be directly and distinctly written to create an immediate response. Brand advertising is for the likes of Coca Cola and MacDonalds. You want someone to read your ad and do something (preferably contact you immediately). This is what is known as direct response marketing and it is what the smart companies are doing. What Coca Cola are doing is sustaining a particular image around their brand. Your brand is most likely you. Use your advertising to gain a direct response, then, once you are in contact with the prospective client, you will build the image that you want for your firm.

Some other fundamentals of advertising:

Always think about the customer when writing the ad. Are they really interested in how long you’ve been established? Should your company name really be the first thing they read? In my opinion, the first line of any ad should be written to entice them to read further. You want them to read the ad, decide they need your services and contact you and the ad should be written in that order.

If you’re buying advertising, always ask for a right hand page as close to the front of the publication as possible. Flick through a magazine yourself, the ads on the right hand (odd numbered) pages are the most visible. If someone is trying to sell you advertising, always use this as part of your negotiations.

Don’t think that the price they offer you for a page is what you should pay. Talk about discounts with the sales person. If you’re not absolutely convinced, be prepared to walk away and tell them that you would buy the ad, but not at that price. Most publications have space to fill just before they go to print and you may well find that the salesperson comes back to you with a better offer then.

And finally, please look at other ways of marketing as well as advertising. If an ad isn’t working for you, pull it and spend the money elsewhere, in E-mail marketing, making changes to your website to make it more effective, sales training or even buying in telemarketing, targeted direct mail, business networking or any of the many forms of marketing that are out there.

I really hope this helps you, if you have any questions, please do E-mail me, Stefan Thomas of Real Marketing at stef@noredbraces.co.uk