As you know there are Endless ways to advertise Offline and Online (internet). Both have their pro’s and con’s when using them to market your business. But you need to understand that having a marketing tactic is just the start! There are key things you need to gain from your marketing efforts to truly create [...]]]>

As you know there are Endless ways to advertise Offline and Online (internet). Both have their pro’s and con’s when using them to market your business. But you need to understand that having a marketing tactic is just the start! There are key things you need to gain from your marketing efforts to truly create the most effective advertising system possible.

These are the requirements you need to have to create effective advertisements…

I. Tracking progress is the first step to effective advertisements and is more important than most people think

1. You need to know how many times people actually look at, read or watch the marketed material (your advertisement).
2. How many of those people actually inquired about your product or service?
3. How many of those people turned in to actual buyers?
4. Which advertisement created one of these actions by potential customers?

II. Update the ad content / verbiage (split test)

- Based off of your ad tracking you will know how effective each ad that you have placed is. This will allow you to see if you just need to make a minor change to the ad or if you will create an entirely new ad. There is no perfect way to state anything and the age, gender and location of your potential customers will influence the way that your ad is perceived and evaluated.

This is why you do what’s called a “split test” which is done by duplicating an existing ad and changing one detail. This detail can be as simple as punctuation, capital vs. lower case, removing or adding a word or a different headline. You will be amazed at how one simple change from a period to an exclamation point can change the effectiveness of your ad. The overall idea is to keep split testing and changing your ad’s to keep improving their effectiveness.

III. Target Your Audience (age groups, gender, location, etc)

- This is a very important piece of information because you don’t need to be selling ice to an Eskimo. You need to hit the ideal demographic for your product or service, and if you don’t know what that is you can find out. Because when you are advertising to the wrong people you are literally throwing away money. For example, if you want to strictly advertise to a local audience you have to make sure that your ads aren’t seen on a national scale. Targeting by standing out to certain people and targeting by hiding your ads from certain people is very important in order to stay cost sensitive.

IV. Be Seen & Stand out

- No matter what you do, you have to make sure you are putting yourself in a place that will allow you to be seen. Not just once and a while but often because advertising only works when people can actually see it. Meaning you have to not only use the most effective advertising methods to get your ad’s out, but you have to “Stand Out”. If you are using banner ads you would want to have eye catching colors or an ad that has flashing/moving elements. Or if you are using a text ad you’d want to make sure to show that you have the best prices, quickest service, great customer feedback or how your service solves a specific problem. If you don’t tell people why they should click on your ad why would they? Why do you think so many people buy the latest “Cosmopolitan” or “Men’s Health” magazine? It’s because their headlines grab your attention.

V. Be Cost sensitive

- This may be obvious but many people forget that you need to monitor and update your advertisements in all of your marketing efforts. If you are not paying attention to this you might be putting money into ad’s that aren’t effective. The idea is to fine-tune your ad’s until you are making more than you are spending.

Here’s an example…

You have a cold and you just purchased and used two different cold medicines.

Now tell me, which one actually worked? You can’t!

There is no way of knowing which of the two medicines you had taken actually did what you needed to feel better. So now next time you get a cold you will most likely buy both of the medicines again. What this has accomplished is now instead of buying the one medicine that worked for you; you are buying both and just throwing money away.

VI. Become Automated

- Having your advertising automated means making sure that all your inquiries coming from your ads are being answered. Whether you answer them by phone or email is up to you. And I know what you’re saying “you can’t hire someone around the clock to answer the phones for you”. But you actually can and I’ll touch on that another day.

Your time is important and valuable so we want to be cost sensitive and apply marketing that can be updated quickly and does the work while you sleep.

You must be able to:

-Track effectiveness of the ad
-Update the ad’s content / verbiage (split test)
-Target Your Audience (age groups, gender, location, etc)
-Be Seen!
-Be Cost sensitive
-Time sensitive (your time, and how long till the ad is shown)
-Automated

Take it easy, and I’ll see you soon!