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Always Stress Benefits A feature is what something is. A benefit is what it does. Advertise benefits of your product or service, not features. People don't buy something to get a feature, instead they always buy to get benefit produced by feature.
The jury is still out on effectiveness of color vs cost of color. Look at big boys, most don’t use color in display ads (only car dealers, for some inexplicable reason).
There are Already Enough Egos Look through any paper and count mug shots of owner, pics of kids or staff. Not to mention photos of business building or award. Ego is easy to sell to advertisers, but it doesn't sell customer. The paper uses ego all time to sell you more ads. The billboard people are especially notorious for this practice. Focus on benefits and forget your smiling head and shoulders shot.
Put it on shelf After you put an ad together, put it on shelf, in a drwaer or file it in your computer for a day. Don't look at it or think about it. Wait at least 24 hours to take a fresh look. Can you remove at kleast 5 words? It will sell harder with less words. You don't read jumbled ads, they don't either. Does it have to be that big? Cut it by a third and you can buy more for same money.
Sell benefits with class and your advertising can be very effective.
For more about advertising, get my article "Your Billboard is Showing" MailTo:Billboards@BigIdeasGroup.com
©2005 BIG Mike McDaniel, All Rights Reserved MailTo:Mike@BIGIdeasGroup.com BIG Mike is a Business Consultant and Professional Speaker. His BIG Ideas Group helps small business grow with mastermind groups, seminars and training. http://BIGIdeasGroup.com
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