How To Make Your Ad Work 5 Times Harder
Effective advertising is "a believable promise made to the right audience."—Caples
When you get little or no response from your ad, it may be that you’re saying exactly the same thing as your competitors. What you really need is a strategy to stand out from the crowd. Here is one case study and what was done.
A few days ago a client who runs a paralegal business called to tell me he was thinking of not advertising in the Yellow Pages next year. He was worried about the increasing costs of his advertisements and how they produced some sales, but never in the volumes he hoped for. He didn't know if it was worth continuing to advertise or not.
This triggered two questions:
1. Do people still require his services?
2. If they do, why are they buying his competitors services instead of his?
He felt there was a greater need than ever for his services, but did not know why prospects were favouring his competition over him. He told me when people called him as a result of his advertisement, most of them ended up signing on with him. The current volume was just too small to justify the expense, unless he could find a way to get more people to contact him.
We decided to do some comparisons between the various competitors' advertisements. He discovered something that is true of most competitive markets, but which few of the competitors recognize.
Essentially all the competitors were saying the same things. There was virtually no difference. All offered to deal with all traffic related offences, all offered free initial consultations, and all offered to work for free if they didn't win.
Formula ads
These ads are what Chris Newton calls; Name, Rank and Serial Number ads, because they all follow a similar formula. "They generally start with a big name at the top, a big phone number at the bottom and the painfully obvious stated in between in as few words as possible."
So with no real reasons to buy included in the copy, how do people make up their minds about who to call?
Quite frankly, it is a bit of a crap shoot. If your advertisement is visually appealing, some people will call you. However, what is more likely is that prospects will pick two or three ads to call. They will then shop around looking for the best price, because they have no other criteria on which to decide.
His Yellow Pages rep had suggested a bigger ad and to go to three colours instead of the current two. In my experience, if the ad is not working, making it bigger or prettier won't make it work better. Typically they simply fatten the reps commission cheque.
Part of the problem is that many advertisers have Yellow Pages design their ads for them. They may look great from a graphic design perspective, but they don't do a great job from a demand generation perspective.
The interesting thing with Yellow Pages advertising is that you don't create desire through the Yellow Pages, the desire is already there. The people looking in the Yellow Pages have pretty much decided to buy; their biggest question is from whom to buy. The job of the Yellow Pages advertisement is to have prospects call you instead of the next guy.
An advertisement that simply gives you a presence is not going to work for you. It costs the same to run an advertisement that generates five leads a month as it does one that generates 50.
So the key is careful planning and an innovative approach to your advertising. This way you can be sure your advertising will bring in the extra dollars you want and need.
Believable promise
Most advertisers focus on the promise, without worrying about the belief. Interestingly when everyone is saying the same thing in their advertising, belief is undermined because it looks like so much rhetoric.
So how could we make a believable promise to this audience that would differentiate him from his competitors?
Based on the assumption that most of these advertisers were stating the obvious, we needed to build some real benefits into the advertising.
The simplest way to do this, when everyone is claiming the same benefits, is to teach the market how to become better buyers of your services. You offer to provide them with the information they need to make better decisions.
What we decided to do is place an ad that would scoop undecided buyers from the competition. We began with the headline; "6 Questions to Ask before You Decide to Hire a Paralegal."
This was followed by some copy on the dangers of hiring the wrong paralegal and then an offer of free information and a telephone number to call. We also decided to build on the personality of the firm by positioning this as a public service, so we added an offer of a free "Traffic Ticket Kit" which provides all the resources needed to deal with a traffic ticket and finding help with the courts.
The key is that anyone wanting to hire a paralegal, but unsure of who to choose, would likely call this number first if they see the ad. Once on the phone the information can be provided and rapport established, almost guaranteeing an increased number of sales.
I'm sure that other paralegals give this type of advice when asked, but if they don't tell anyone, who is going to know? The result of this strategy is not known as the new Yellow pages have not yet come out, but based on previous experience with this kind of advertising, my client's phone is going to ring a lot more than it used to.
This is the power of using information as a direct response marketing tool. I will let you know what happens.
Michael Hepworth is president of the Results Exchange Inc., a business that specializes in helping organizations maximize every dollar they spend on direct and relationship marketing. He can be contacted at Michael.Hepworth@results-exchange.com. Readers can sign up for his bi-weekly e-zine, the Street$mart Marketer, containing marketing tips and techniques by visiting www.Results-Exchange.com
My paralegal friend told me increased spending on advertising was out of the question. I didn't think he needed to spend more. What he needed was a new strategy.
In a study some years ago, I read that between 58 and 77 percent of people indicated that Yellow Pages was their primary source of buying information. I'm sure, if it has changed, it won't be by much. So the question is: What do you need to do to be successful in the Yellow Pages?
We have to develop effective advertising that gives your prospects a reason to call you before they call your competition. So for our paralegal, what is effective advertising? John Caples said it is nothing more than, "A believable promise made to the right audience."
Scoop undecided buyers
