8 Components of an Effective Advertisement

Advertising is a necessary marketing tactic every business must use to draw attention to their brand, offerings and solutions. Defined by Wikipedia, Advertising is a form of communication used to help sell products and services. Typically it communicates a message including the name of the product or service and how that product or service could potentially benefit the consumer. However, advertising does typically attempt to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. Understanding how to put together an effective piece of advertising is one of the most critical elements to successful persuasion. Whether you are putting together a direct mail piece or an on-line sales letter, each of these components must be included for your ad to draw in customers.

Headlines: The most important part of the ad is the headline. You have 3 seconds to grab the attention of your reader before they decide to toss out your piece. Make it compelling.

Testimonials: What other people have to say about you, your business or your product is ten times more effective than what you have to say about yourself. People trust others first so include testimonials as proof that there is not risk in doing business with you.

Copy: Is defined as salesmanship in print. Your goal is to sell something so write copy that sells. If you cannot write great copy, hire someone who can. This is the meat and the body of your ad and you need to appeal to your readers so make it about them and not about you.

Deadlines: People naturally do not want to lose out on anything so give deadlines. As a rule of thumb, never give more than 2 weeks 4 days is great if you want people to act now.

Pictures: Help you build a story. People think and remember in images in their mind, not in text so any place you can use a picture to reinforce your message with increase your chances that your ad will be read.

Offer: With every ad, there should be an offer of some sort that you are making in your copy to compel your reader to do business with you. Are you a retailer? Can you include coupons? % off discount?

Premiums/Bonuses: Think free gift with purchase. People love free stuff. Look for ways to include free bonuses with purchase and sweeten the pot.

Your Info: Where can they buy your products from? Don’t forget to include your contact info, website, address, phone number, directions whatever you need to do to get them to your business. One of my businesses, I used the name of shopping center since that is what the locals knew and includedNext to Outback.

Last, is sequence. You need to send your ad out more than once. Follow up at least 3 times in order to double your response rate. People have a tendency to forget or to procrastinate so remind them.