101 Ways to Market Your Business 101 Survival Tips for Your Business 101 Ways to Really Satisfy Your Customers. It is produced without assuming responsibility and is sold with the understanding that the publisher and the author are not engaged in providing professional advice to the reader.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
It will enable you to make informed decisions about where to advertise, how much to spend on advertising and how to make your advertisements produce better results.
What’s in this book
One of the biggest stumbling blocks for many people planning advertising is what words and phrases to use. At the end of the book I have also included a list of books that I consider well worth reading, especially if you want to increase the effectiveness of your advertising and marketing as a whole.
Getting a handle on advertising
I was busily explaining what we would do, how it would work and how wonderful it would be when he stopped me and asked, ‘How do you make a television commercial?’ I immediately launched into the usual ‘You don’t have to worry about that as we do it all’ response. Making an advertise- ment is second nature for people in the advertising industry but for the average business owner it is like learning a foreign language.
Does advertising really work?
Don’t be afraid to ask questions like my client did—who, by the way, became actively involved in the making of his television commercial, which has gone on to produce major success for the business. From my own experience I see a lot of businesses that simply dabble in the field of advertising.
The five most important things you need to know about successful advertising
- Establishing the exact message you are trying to put forward
- Being clear about your target audience
- Making your advertisement stand out from millions of others
- Ensuring people see your advertising often
- Giving your advertising time to work
The clearer you are about your targeted customers the more effectively you can plan your advertising. If you read the paper in the morning you are also going to be exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of advertising messages.
Where does advertising go wrong?
Hence, I often hear business owners say that when they stopped advertising there was no impact on the number of new customers for the business. A few months later, however, they often come back saying that new customers have dried up and they need to start advertising again (and quickly).
How do you know if your advertising works?
The information can be reviewed, say once a week or month, and it gives a good indication of what advertisements are being seen. There is a blank form at the back of this book (see page 235) that can be used to form your own advertising results checklist.
How much should you spend on advertising?
The form can be a flick-and- tick format, where the staff member ticks the appropriate box. Alternatively, most modern-day cash registers can be programmed to collect this information and reports can be prepared accord- ingly.
The constantly changing face of advertising
Sadly a lot of businesses only advertise when they are desperate for new customers and that puts them under a lot of pressure to get results. If you want independent advice use a marketing or advertising consultant as they are able to offer impartial advice on where to spend your advertising dollar so it works the best.
Advertising in newspapers
1 Decide what message you are trying to send
- Exactly what do you want to achieve from the advertisement?
- Why should customers buy the product or service you are advertising?
- When should customers buy the product or service you are advertising?
- How can they buy the product or service you are advertising?
Decide when you want cus- tomers to buy your product or service and tell them in the advertisement. Let customers know exactly how they can buy the product or service you are advertising.
2 Keep your advertisement simple, uncluttered and easy to read
Lots of fonts makes an advertisement hard to read and it gives the appearance of being amateurish. Script fonts (fonts designed to be like handwriting) are also often hard to read and as a result they can be overlooked.
3 Make your advertisement stand out
4 Placement is critical
5 Black and white, colour or spot colour?
Advertisers are therefore often disappointed with their full-colour newspaper advertisements because they had unrealistic expectations of the quality. Full-colour advertisements can be used very well in newspapers but the advertisement needs to be well designed and the fact that the printing process is not as sharp as laser printers or glossy magazines needs to be taken into consideration.
6 Different people read different parts of the newspaper
7 Size does count
Next time you are reading a newspaper flag each advertise- ment that catches your attention with some note paper. See if you can find some good advertisements that were simply lost because they were too small or in the wrong place within the newspaper.
8 You pay for more readers
At the end of the day, a general rule of thumb is that the more your advertisement costs, the more people who may see it.
9 Newspaper inserts—big results but pick your time
Of course when doing part runs it is harder to determine where they will end up. When doing an insert it is worth advertising in other areas (such as television and radio) to tell people to look for the insert in the forthcoming newspaper.
10 Establish credibility by using newspaper advertising
11 Don’t underestimate the power of the classifieds
Notes
Advertising action list
Making television
12 What are you trying to sell?
13 The steps to making a good television commercial
When working with television commercial companies be very certain up front of what you will get for your money and when you will get it. Have all the terms about what you will get and when you will get it written in black and white before commencing and you should have no problems at all.
14 Keep a notepad by the television
15 Sell the benefits to the consumer
16 Make your television commercial stand out from the crowd
17 What are demographics and how can you use them?
18 The importance of frequency—being seen
19 How often should you run television campaigns?
20 Persistence—working your campaigns
21 Understanding how you pay for television advertising
I much prefer picking the shows and the time slots and any television station should be able to give you a breakdown of the type of people who watch each particular show. To recap, you really need to set a budget first and to do this you need to know exactly how long you want the campaign to run for and exactly what type of people you want to see your commercial.
22 Buying television airtime
Review the results, make amendments if you feel they are necessary, and start planning the next campaign. If you are going to do this exercise for one station it is worth doing it for a couple of stations.
Have some fun on radio
23 How you can use radio to your benefit
24 Where most radio advertising goes wrong
25 Keep your message simple
If you are thinking about eating out, think about a magnificent meal at Dirty Harry’s Chinese Restaurant. When you visit Dirty Harry’s Chinese Restaurant you and your family will get to taste a sizzling array of traditional dishes that are famous in Hong Kong.
26 Get people smiling
Listeners had to ring up with their best hotel story (no matter how weird or wacky). We suggested they invite two of the most well-known local radio celebrities to do a class and then spend the next week talking about it.
27 Make your commercial appropriate to the listening audience
28 The power of talkback radio—the credibility machine
29 When do people listen to the radio?
30 Buying smart radio time
31 Use the radio to get the phone ringing right now
32 Increase the success of other advertising by using the radio
33 It’s all in the voice
34 The outside broadcast
Telephone directories—
35 Choosing the right directory
I also believe that today good directory-based businesses will have strong Internet-based extensions to their business. So if the directory can back up your printed advertisement with an online advertisement it will have more appeal as an advertising medium.
36 Stand out or throw out
Whatever option you go for, do whatever you can to make your advertisement stand out.
37 Put some thought into your advertisement—most people don’t
38 Big, bold questions need answers
39 Don’t get caught up with what your competitors are doing
40 Look at your advertisement from a customer’s point of view
If you want to be generic in your advertising it will be difficult to make a hard hitting advertisement. Someone who will come around really, really fast and kill everything that is a perceived threat.
41 Don’t forget the White Pages
42 Use pictures to sell your business
43 Have a strong, stand out border
44 Cut out your artwork and place it on the page
45 Dedicate a number to monitor response
High-impact outdoor signage
46 There are lots of options when it comes to outdoor signage
If you are a new business, a roadside billboard will tell lots of people in the area that your business has opened up. If you have been in business for quite some time and you are finding your customers are starting to slip away, perhaps a roadside billboard will help remind them about your business.
47 Decide what you want to achieve from your outdoor signs
Turn left 300 metres FRESH, HOT APPLE PIES
48 Location determines the message
49 Bring the sign to life
50 Make the message simple to understand
51 Use strong visual images
52 Change your outdoor signage regularly
Likewise, all your outdoor advertising signs need to be changed regularly to ensure they don’t start to blend in with the surroundings and start to become inefficient. If you are wondering if you can get another year out of the sign, change it anyway.
53 Outdoor advertising that moves
54 Shopping centres—outdoor and indoor
For them advertising in the shopping centre is an ideal medium as there are plenty of people either looking for work or looking for a change of employer. If your business is relevant to the lower socio-economic end of town, then it may well be worth advertising in a shopping centre that attracts this particular market.
55 Look for new highly visible sites
When they first put the signs up they had no problems with council regulations because the locations of the signs were miles from everywhere. Ten years later, all of the business’s signs are in prime locations where there are no more permits being given for billboard signage.
56 Don’t forget the front of your business
If you sell certain brands of products does your signage tell customers you stock these products. Take the time to make your signage answer all of the questions your customers may ask.
57 DIY moving billboards
Reckless driving is a sure way to give your business a bad name, as are littering, road rage and breaking the law.
Direct mail advertising
58 The benefits of direct mail advertising
59 Understanding why most direct mail advertising goes wrong
If you get a higher response rate you will be pleasantly surprised, but it would have to be a shocker of a direct mail to get less than that. With direct mail advertising you need to do your homework and be prepared to keep trying.
60 The importance of a good database
61 How to increase the chances of your direct mail working
- Use a plain envelope
- If possible handwrite the address
- Make certain the personal details are correct
- Make a statement to catch the reader’s attention quickly You only have a few seconds to get the reader’s attention
- Give the reader all of the benefits in buying the product A lot of direct mail has page after page of what the product
- Use testimonials from happy customers
- Tell the customer how to buy the product
- Offer an incentive or bonus to purchase
- Put a deadline on when the customer has to respond The concept of a deadline for a response is to encourage the
- Accept all types of payment to make it easy for the customer
Give the reader all of the benefits in buying the product A lot of direct mail has page after page of what the product A lot of direct mail has page after page of what the product offers, why it is the best, the technology involved in devel- oping it and so on. Explain in very simple, clear terms how the customer can purchase the product or service.
62 The first few seconds are crucial
63 Choose your timing wisely
64 Test your direct mail before committing
65 Make it easy for the customer to act on your message immediately
66 Be prepared to keep trying; if it works, keep using it
67 Buying databases to get qualified leads
Advertising in magazines
68 Magazines allow you to target specific audiences
69 Most magazines are full colour—use this wisely
70 Use your magazine advertising to collect a database
71 Competitions work well in magazines
72 Commit to longer term advertising and save
73 Always look for editorial opportunities
74 Buy magazine advertising space on standby
75 Don’t scrimp on the graphic design of your advertisement
76 Cut out coupons
77 Position, position, position
Advertising with other businesses
78 Form strategic alliances with other businesses
79 Share the cost of advertising
80 Form a precinct
81 Joint mail outs
82 Share television commercials
83 Take over a page in the newspaper
84 Be completely ethical and honest in your advertising
After this event a lot of people came up to me to say they had never trusted him in the first place. It is up to you to make sure the people you are forming strategic partnerships with are honest and ethical.
85 Swap databases for direct mail
86 Ask your partners for direct recommendations
87 Increase your buying power by group purchasing media
Writing your
88 How to write copy if you aren’t a good writer
- Be very clear about what you are trying to achieve from your copy
- Make a list of the important information
- Write a big, bold heading
- Write down all other information that needs to be included
- Answer the question in the heading
- The what, when, why and how
- Decide on a writing style
- Keep sentences short and sharp and words simple Advertising copy really does need to be kept to a minimum
- Put it all together
- Close with a call to action
You also need to decide if you want the copy to be funny, serious, conversational or educational. Use descrip- tions, but don’t try to be too flowery or else people start to get bored and lose interest.
89 Copywriting tools
90 Using testimonials for credibility
91 Every advertisement or commercial needs a call to action
92 If in doubt use a professional or do a course
93 Testing your copy to make sure it works
Using the Internet to advertise your
94 The importance of advertising your website in other areas
The more places you advertise your website address the more people will be encouraged to visit it. The company that hosts your website will be able to give you this information and, in fact, many do automatically.
95 Give people a reason to come back to your site
96 The importance of your domain name or web address
97 Directional advertising and the Internet
98 Linking is advertising—work with others
99 Banner advertising—does it work?
Use banner advertisements to either direct traffic to your site or to direct traffic within your site.
100 Search engine advertising—what does it mean?
101 Constantly review your website and your Internet strategy
Bonus Section—
20 more advertising tips
102 Set up a shopping centre display
103 Make some smart promotional giveaways
While they are not normally free they are very cheap, once again reducing the risk for the consumer to try the new product. If they are happy they can come back as paying customers; if not, the risk to them is minimal because they have walked away with a free consultation and some ideas, and it has cost them nothing.
104 Message on hold—the captive audience
