Most advertising by small businesses is ineffective and simply a waste of money.
However, advertising is essential if you’re going to succeed. So here are a few points to consider for making your advertising effort effective.
- Be clear about what you’re trying to achieve.
- Advertise to the right people, at the right time, in the right place.
- Understand what advertising can and can’t do.
- Hire someone who is skillful to write your ad and someone equally skilled to design it.
- Make sure your advert tries to do just one thing. More messages simply confuse and dilute your main point.
- Don’t try to sell everything to everyone, segment your audience and sell one thing to each.
- Put enough money to run your ad enough times, in enough places, with enough frequency, over a long enough period for people to notice it, and notice it again.
- know it’s not enough to shout at people to grab attention, such you have to stand out in some way, but you need to go further to hold their attention long enough to deliver your sales message.
- Understand that it’s not enough to tell people just the facts.
- Understand that advertising doesn’t work by simply making rational argument, you need to engage your audience emotionally, if you’re going to get them to take action.