Print Advertising

If you’ve tried advertising in a newspaper, magazine, or trade publication and you’ve had poor results, the chances are you’ve concluded that print advertising doesn’t work. For many this is the harsh reality. But it needn’t be.

People waste millions of dollars each year on ineffective advertising. It’s not their fault. Their ads are almost doomed to failure before the campaign even starts.

Why would I say this?

Quite simply the whole mainstream advertising industry including all the publications is set up to ensure your ads fail. It’s one big *CONSPIRACY* against the business owner and her hard earned money.

I know this sounds almost ridiculous. I can see the emails hitting my PC almost instantly, but it’s true. There are 3 reasons for this, let me explain…

Direct Response Advertising is Easier to Analyze

Almost all the ad agencies use ‘brand’ advertising, or ‘Institutionalized Advertising‘, rather than what we call ‘Direct Response Advertising‘. The difference between the two is the difference between success and failure.

Brand or institutionalized advertising is created to make people aware of the product or service in the hope that when a person needs that type of product or service they remember the ad and then seek out the advertiser.

Results cannot be gaged accurately, if at all. This is how 99% of ads are created. They look pleasing to the eye, but they don’t ask for a response, and the ad agencies producing them - don’t want them to, because that makes them accountable!

On the other hand, direct response advertising is created to get an immediate response. Ads tend to look ‘ugly’ but they are accurately measured by using coupons, and other measurable response devices.

To those of us who use this method it is the ONLY way.

Sure this type of advertising leaves you wide open for criticism, because you know in a few short days or weeks how much income the ad generated.

But what would you prefer - an ad that instantly gives you leads and sales, or an ad that looks good, and may or may not influence people to buy your service some time in the future?

Printing Press

Brand Advertising is Harder to Analyze

Because everyone uses brand advertising - the agencies are never accountable for the ads they produce, and the business owner accepts this situation.

When using brand advertising there is no way of gaging the results…

“We’re building the brand Mr Jones.”

“The ads are getting your name recognized in the minds of
the consumer.”

“You’re making a great impression on the trade.”

These are common things said by people producing brand advertising.

And because the business owner is happy to think that people are becoming more aware of his or her service ‘brand’ they keep paying for the ads, and so on. It’s a vicious circle.

Saving Money By Forcing a Split Test

The publishers are in on this ‘game’ because they don’t want you to have accountable results, and they want to ensure you book a series of ads rather than one at a time.

Let’s get one thing straight before I continue on. If I was advising a publication on their advertising strategy I would tell them to sell a series of ad insertions, rather than one offs.

This automatically increases the average order value, and gets a longer term commitment. So this strategy is sensible for the publication.

However for the advertiser this can be catastrophic. Here’s why:

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, “”Mr Smith if you book a series of 6 ads, you’ll get a discount of 10 - 15%. Also you need to advertise for at least four or five times before people become aware of you”" - blah, blah, blah!

Here’s a reality check…

If your ad doesn’t work (i.e. generate high quality leads and/or sales) the first time, it won’t work after the second… third… fourth etc. It’s vital you appreciate this fact. For this reason, advertising copy must be split tested to determine which ads convert best.

However, if your ad works the first time you can be 99% certain it will work the second and so on. The key is to negotiate for one insertion. If it works great. Book another. If it doesn’t, you need to either change the ad, or decide the publication just isn’t right.

Remember this. If you book a series of ads you must be prepared to lose the money you’ve paid for the ads - and how many businesses can afford to do that?

Be Smart and Save Thousands

Hopefully you can now understand why the odds are stacked against you - unless of course you take on board my advice.

Not knowing these myths has probably already cost you hundreds even thousands of dollars. Now you know you’ve been taken for a ride it’s time to STOP! Smart people will kill their current ad campaigns and make the changes. Fools won’t. Which one are you?

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 26th, 2008 at 5:36 pm and is filed under Advertising, Frequently Asked Questions, Mailing Lists, Marketing Articles. 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.