The 12 “B’s” of Effective Advertising
“When asked about the power of advertising in research surveys, most people agree it works, just not on them.”
- Eric Clark
Advertisers continually ask “how do I create a successful ad campaign”? These principles will make your program effective and dollar-efficient.
• Be different. The very first thing you should do is take a look at what your competition is doing, and start doing something else. Place your ads on different mediums, create a unique and different message, employ a different style of message delivery, and create a different image.
If you want to stand out from the crowd, you have to be different. Huge gains can be felt quickly when you look, act and talk in a manner that is different from your competitors.
• Be familiar. People buy what they know and are familiar with. They also buy from the places they know and trust. You can become familiar and trustworthy by implementing a campaign that makes you familiar.
• Be emotional. All decisions are emotional. It’s either need or greed. Talk to the heart of the consumer. Make them want you. Speak in their terms. Step inside your prospects shoes and find out what moves them.
• Be the leader. Look and act like a leader. When you present your company as the leader, prospects will think that you are. Always be proactive and don’t react to tactics used by your competitors.
• Be consistent. Next to creating the most compelling message possible, consistency is the strongest force in advertising.
• Be decisive. Decide in advance what you’re aiming for. You’ll never reach your goal if you don’t know what the target is. Are you expecting your ads to bring customers in tomorrow, or generate calls, or capture names, create goodwill, build an image…? What do you want tomorrow, next month or next year?
• Be focused. You’ll never sell everyone and you can’t (nor do you need to) reach everybody. Focus your efforts on in-market prospects. Spend some time researching and defining who they really are and target them. Imagine yourself in a room filled with 100 people. 10 have the desire and means to buy what you’re selling. The other 90 don’t. Who do you talk to? Don’t waste your time and money.
• Be memorable. The goal of advertising is to draw attention to you, the advertiser, not the advertising. Are your ads advertising or entertainment? Will consumers remember you? If you can’t name the advertiser, what good is the ad?
• Be informative. Package your ads as useful, relevant and meaningful information the consumer can actually use and relate to. The most effective advertising doesn’t look like an ad at all. The non-ad contains useful information your prospects are interested in. Tell them what they want to know, not what you want to say.
• Be positive. Why waste time bashing the other guy when you could be convincing potential customers that you are the better choice? Ads that focus on the negative traits of competitors rarely generate the desired response. In fact, when you tell consumers that your competitors are guilty of some poor practice, deep down they’re thinking you might be guilty too. When even plant that seed?
Remember the old line that says “people love to buy but don’t like to be sold.” Make your company the place people love to buy from.
• Be Simple. Resist the temptation to load your ads with multiple messages and offers. Complex thoughts, a laundry list of details, lots of product offerings and price points will have the audience tuning out in less time than it took for you to read this line.
• Be ready. Many advertisers sweat and fight over the details of the ad campaign behind closed doors. They’ll then give the OK and those charged with implementing it go to work. The ads hit the airwaves and consumers respond. Only the front line employees don’t have a clue what’s going on. Make sure you keep everyone on your team informed.
