ILLUSTRATION * Use your logo; a silhouette of something relevant to your business; a photo or drawing of your store, your truck. logo of a professional association to which you belong; even Visa/Master Card logos, if you take bankcards. Something to catch reader's eye quickly.

LOCATION * Your address! If your location is hard to find and you depend on walk-in business, give readers a clue. "One block south of City Hall," or "Just north of Quincy Street off US-131."

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The extras that will help your ad pull even better...

There are two things that will help your hard-working ad work even harder. The first is using a second color in your ad. I know it costs you more, but adding a color improves readership by a factor of THREE TIMES.

The second thing is something that won’t cost you extra. Do something with your ad border. Don't just have Yellow Pages ad production people run a thin line around ad. If you’re selling boats, use a drawing of a rope. A film company? Make it look like film perforations. You can even incorporate your artwork into it design. The trick is to make ad as eye-catching as possible. Ask your yellow pages sales rep for help in design, and even in writing --as long as you remember sure-selling phrases that we've already discussed.

Don’t Over-Commit – Many small businesses jump at chance to buy ads at a volume discount, cutting their cost per ad buy purchasing 6 months to a year’s worth of advertising up front. On surface this may seem like a good way to maximize on your advertising dollars. However, if you’ve done a good job of targeting your potential customers, you may be purchasing too much advertising. It is said that it takes 7 messages from a company to get average customer to act and actually purchase their product. As you define your target market more effectively (from pet websites to dogs to dog food), that number decreases, as you don’t need to do as much “convincing” to motivate a potential customer to purchase your product. Your advertising dollars, therefore, would be better spent in 3 month advertising programs. After 3 months, move to another website or magazine, and continue to rotate your ads to maximize reach of your message.

Measure Your Results – Without tracking your ad responses and measuring your results, you’ll never know how well your ads are performing. It is critical to track your response rates, primarily though use of tracking URLs. (www.mydomain.com?ad1). This URL will still direct surfers to your site but it will also capture site from which they came, giving you some valuable feedback on performance of your ad.

Many people measure ad placements, but this is only beginning. You must also evaluate ad copy, timing, and layout. Ads may have seasonal fluctuations in responses rates and your potential customers may respond differently to a change in your ad copy. So keep a detailed tracking spreadsheet to record your ad response in all of these areas. This will give you information you need to make informed decision about your small businesses advertising budget.