Advertising can work, but you need to have a decent budget and plan to run more than one ad.

We have got these $40 ads in our local newspaper. A whole page is full of business card size ads. Whenever a massage practitioner was not to be deterred from using them, the results were disappointing. There was hardly any response.

However, it was possible to receive an editorial with it if you booked a certain number of ads. That worked and kept bringing clients in for weeks after it ran. More about editorials later, today something about ads.

• Include an active call to action
• Entice readers by offering something valuable
• Create urgency by putting a time limit on your offer
• Go for the biggest ads you can afford
• Make the ad look like similar to editorial
• Repeat the ads regularly (at least 7 times)
• Measure your results
• Negotiate an editorial while you place your advertising

Call to Action

Most ads just want to create brand awareness. That can be useful if you swamp your market (think Coca Cola). But you need to get an immediate return on your advertising Dollars.

Valuable Offer

The more value you offer to your clients, the more will take up your offer. Think of things you can bundle together to create more value. It is much better to create genuine high value than discounting.

Urgency

It is a sad fact that we are all more or less lazy. A great offer with no deadline usually leads to people thinking: “I’ll do that one day.” and forgetting it. Urgency makes them act straight away.

Big is better

People are not searching for ads, in fact we have been trained to look with blinders on, so as not to get overwhelmed by constant marketing messages.

Size is one thing that stands out. Size of the ad overall, but also the size of the heading, or the picture. See Debra’s post where she outlines the important elements of an ad.

Mirror Editorial Style

People read newspapers and magazines for their editorial content. The closer your ads resembles that, the greater the chance that they scan your headline, picture or caption.

Repeat Your Ads

Repetition makes people act. It gives them certainty about you and your offer. You become someone familiar. It is often suggested that it takes up to 7 times before people act.

Measure Your Results

Every advertising is an investment. You want to be sure that you get a return on that investment. It is therefore essential to see how you massage marketing works. If you run two campaigns in different publications, you can even test which one performs better.

Remember that a client’s value is more than just their first purchase. The lifetime value of clients is important.

Negotiate Editorial

Most newspapers will be more than happy to include editorial with an advertising campaign. Ask for it before you commit. And also negotiate the price down, in my experience they are always open to that.

Alexander

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Tags: ads, advertising, editorial, massage marketing

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 7:59 am and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.