Advertising does work – but it needs to be done right. Remember that every technique has a successor……… What was fantastic this year will be replaced today.

What is an Advertisement Exactly?

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary suggests that an advertisement ‘is a notice or display that advertises something’. It’s about presenting or describing (a product, service or event) in a public medium so as to promote sales.

If we are to promote anything in return for money, then it has to be better than previous products and services, or people will not go with our product – this stands to reason. Let’s suppose we have this great product, we now have to sell it via an advert. The advert must therefore catch our attention – be of a certain standard:

The Ad must have Stopping Power, it must grab attention – in fact, no, it must stop people from what they are doing and make them look! Then it must guide or lead them to what’s being sold. Then the conversion can take place, or begin.

Here are my principles that apply to a good advert:

1.The ad must attract people ‘outside’ of the target audience – but not move away from the main targets. This will depend on the size of the niche area – for it to work. Doing this will increase clients and hopefully profit.

2.The ad needs to stimulate an action. This could be an instant purchase, or only a clickthrough to a website.

3.The ad needs to force an emotional response. Force is not an ugly word, we don’t wish to hold power over people – more like show them how good our product is.

4.Be helpful in your service/product and advert.

5.An advert should surprise the audience. The headline, a visual image an unusual opening in the sales presentation. These could have the power to stop people, and make them take notice.

(I’m not going to tell you all my secrets – come on you have to put some effort in)

I’m now going to show you the power of certain words (and why your idea has to be right in the first place).

SEX This is one powerful word. Because it’s connected to a free, enjoyable pastime – that can’t fail to appeal to anyone. Why do you think that chocolate adverts and car adverts use stunningly attractive models???

That’s because they work, to sell the product by appealing to the senses and powerful motivations of both sexes. But there is a failure with this method. Some think that this particular method is not the best way of branding products. There are so many ‘sex’ type adverts about, so how can you expect anyone to recall a certain brand??

But it works for some products very well – just not the majority. Good communication is swapped for Raw stopping power in this case.

So the following should be done:

Brand advertising – use communication

ROI - you need to use mostly Raw stopping power

Use Chocolate in adverts to sell Chocolate…

More to come...........

About the Author:
Christopher is a Sales Promotion Expert and owner of Busigen.com - an Office directory portal that holds company information to do with an Office environment

advertising marketing