Everyone knows that the internet is now a major force when it comes to promoting your business on a local level. However, that doesn't mean that local newspaper advertising is dead, and when used in the right way it can be a very effective lead generator for your business.
The first thing you need to realize about local advertising is that the people who sell it, the ad salespeople, are not your friends. They want to get you to spend as much money as possible, and the success of your business is a low priority. Once you realize this, you can stop thinking that their advice is good advice, and start to think more about what's best for your business.
The first piece of advice you want to ignore is that the people who produce the ads for the newspaper actually know what they're doing. They don't. Many of them have no skills in writing copy, or designing ads in a way that gets a response. So forget the large ads with beautiful photographs, and instead think about making your ad look like a piece of editorial. That means more text, fewer pictures, and printed in black and white. (A splash of color is fine. Just don't overdo it)
Next you want to write the ad like a piece of editorial, and make it look like a piece of editorial. Why? It's a fact that people read editorial, but generally speaking they don't read ads. So by making your ad look like a news story, you immediately stand out from all the other ads.
Somewhere in your "news story" you want to offer the readers something for free. A good idea is a free report that tells people how to choose the right product or service provider in your industry. You need to offer useful information, and people will be glad to read it.
In order to get the free report, the reader has to call you, or send in the coupon you placed in "ad".
You also want to give the reader the opportunity of downloading the report from your website. In order to do this, get your web designer to set up a dedicated page with an email capture form. Once the prospect gives you the email address (and ask for physical addresses and phone numbers too), they can download the free report automatically. Any web designer worth his salt will know how to do this, and if yours doesn't, find one who does.
Put all these techniques together, and your advert immediately becomes more effective because the advertisement is no longer trying to sell directly from the page, but is being used as a lead generation tool. Once you have people's details, you can then market to them at will, by email, by post (direct mail and postcards) and even by telephone.
Using advertising in this way also has the added benefit that it can cut your advertising costs, because your advertisement can be much smaller once you cut out the pictures and huge headlines and concentrate on a simple message that enables you to collect leads.
The newspaper might not like you doing this, and might want you to place the words "Advertisement" or Advertisement Feature" above the ad. But many newspapers are stretched for cash at the moment, and they're unlikely to turn down revenue. The ad salesman certainly won't like it, especially when he sees his commission has been chopped down in size. But you're in business to make money, not subsidize the newspapers. Use the techniques mentioned above, and local advertising (or any kind of advertising, regional or national), can be made to pay, and pay very well.
Steve Prescott is a direct response copywriter and marketing strategist who specialises in creating results-based marketing systems by integrating direct response copy with internet marketing techniques.
His report Small Business Power Marketing is a blueprint for creating a lead-generation system using a mixture of traditional advertising and internet technology. Visit http://www.mrsteveprescott.com/powermarketing to claim your copy now.
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