Response

Let's face it. Advertising, especially these days, has to work. Branding and name awareness are nice but advertisers I work with are putting their money where they see an immediate return on investment. And you can't blame them. The economy is putting pressure on the bottom line and advertising that doesn't make the phone ring or generate traffic is put on the back burner. Many of my clients are jumping from newspaper to TV to radio to direct mail to just about anything that brings the promise of results. Every media sales rep on the block says their product is the best way to reach the market. At the end of the day the one that wins is the one that delivers measurable, track able click throughs, phones calls and leads.

So here's the problem with that. Often the advertiser blames the medium for not getting the job done when a close look at the ad message reveals that the offer was weak, the price value wasn't competitive or the advertiser's reputation was flawed.

So the radio station or the newspaper did its job-- it reached thousands of people in the area, some who heard or read the message. And the metrics that report poor results miss the point. There just weren't many people who were interested in what the advertiser had to offer. In that case you don't blame the media, you have to take a hard look at your message and ask yourself: "If I was in the market for this product or service, why would I buy from you rather than somewhere else?"

Bob McGinnis, advertising consultant, owns a company that specializes in Response Oriented Advertising (you can contact Bob at: mailto:mcinnis@ads-on-line.com). I was trained in his principles a few years ago. I got to tell you Bob has this stuff figured out. His model helps you understand why some ads work and others don't. In no time at all you understand that effective ads signal the reader to stop and look, they offer benefits that cause the shopper to consider buying from you rather than somewhere else and (the real difference maker) he show you how to prove it. Ad pros like me are trained to guide the advertiser through a series of questions that stem from...

Why should someone buy from you rather than somewhere else.
Why do people buy from one company rather than another.

Master that and you end up with ads that get results every time they run. My clients will tell you that its a lot more fun.

I use Bob's wisdom every day on the job. The next time I post I'll include some examples.