Introduction to Advertising

Advertising : Art or Science?

Advertising and marketing have been studied for so many years that they have been boiled down to a science. The goal is to test different variables and then adjust accordingly so that it is a continuous improvement.
One ad is created and then compared to another. The one that loses gets replaced by a more optimized version of the successful ad. What you get is a compounding effect on results.
The main point of advertising is to make sales. It is either profitable or not. It is a digital/print version of a salesman working at your company. Don’t cut it any slack and be sure that it performs to its highest potential, otherwise scrap it.

Targeting

If you were advertising lab coats, you wouldn’t be sending ads to a restaurant owner. Naturally, you’d be targeting doctor offices and laboratories. To make this process easier, think of your prospective buyer as a single person. Craft your ad around that person, not a collection of people you think are your buyers. By doing this you can rest assured that the ad will hook its intended audience.
Every single ounce of space on an ad is critical and the best ads leave no wasted space. Every single word has earned its place on that ad. The headline itself can increase or decrease an ads performance many times over. The headline should be the most important piece on an ad. It should be very clear and specific. Someone who comes across the ad should know just from the headline whether it pertains to them. Psychology plays a huge part in this because you can disqualify or qualify people from the headline

 Law of Reciprocity

The best performing ads and salesmen do something that the average ones don’t. Simply put, they offer extreme value before they ask for anything in return. For example, if someone came to your door selling seafood and pressuring you to buy on the spot, wouldn’t you be defensive? On the other hand, imagine if someone came to your door and told you “try this seafood for dinner tonight on me and I’ll come back in a week to see if you liked it”. You’d feel obliged to reciprocate because you’ve been essentially given a gift.
The law of reciprocity will take effect in this part of the ad. We will offer extreme value that will be hard to pass up. In return, we gain the business.

Structuring an Ad

The length of the ad doesn’t have much to do with its success. There are buyers who like to know absolutely every excruciating detail of the product/service. Then there are buyers who act impulsively and on less information.
The takeaway from this is that you have one chance to get your reader. No one rereads an ad. Once someone decides the product/service isn’t for them, its unlikely the same ad will change their mind even if it appears in front of them again. Knowing this, our ads are targeting new customers in the hopes that they are the ones who would find some value from them.

Using Images in Ads

Photographs and art have their place in advertising. Whether it be to grab interest or spark curiosity. The mistake is that advertisers spend a ton of money to get the right image. They learn the hard way that the same space that you’re using for the picture is the same space that you can utilize to deliver a message in text. People say a picture is worth a thousand words. In advertising, a picture can sure say a lot but then you leave it up to the reader to grasp the meaning you’re trying to portray. Words leave no room for misinterpretation and for this reason we have to carefully consider every image.
If we don’t know whether we should use an image in our ad we should stick to some sounds principles. We should not try to entertain or amuse our readers. Our goal is to get them to become buyers in the most cost effective way as possible. Cost effectiveness being the secret ingredient. Lowering our cost to acquire a customer is advertising’s number one focus.

Pain vs Reward Psychology

When it comes to ads, we want people to feel the confidence that our product/service will deliver exactly what we advertise! For example, if we are selling a new brand of skin care products, we want our ad to show the benefits. Clearer skin, less wrinkles, etc. On the other hand, if we position our ad around a specific problem like psoriasis or acne, we might deter people who are looking for clearer skin and less wrinkles. Hence, we limit ourselves by the type of ads we put out.

Tracking Campaigns

There are tons of things that can go wrong with a campaign. Buyers may be attracted to a superior item. There might be a cheaper alternative out there already. We can try to guess where trends are headed but its not guaranteed that we’ll be right all of the time.
Testing a campaign is the part where you determine exactly how much you are paying to acquire a customer. Additionally, you can see which ads are performing higher and then adjust.
When you’re just starting, its always best to start with a smaller sample size. The law of averages will hold true and we can expect similar results when we decide to increase our ad spend.

Conclusion

Billions on billions are being spent on advertising because the wise entrepreneur knows its value. They will test their ads and continue to improve them. Sure enough, their cost to get a new customer decreases and their ads continue to produce.

To learn about Push Vs Pull Marketing click the link!