Your business thrives on leads, but you won’t get any if you don’t use effective advertising. If you’re using print media to drive sales, here’s how to give your revenues a lift.
The Right Ad At The Right Place
Target your ad to the right audience. If you know that your audience is golfers, for example, don’t advertise in USA Today or the Wall Street Journal. If you know your ideal customer follows the stock market, an ad in a Woman’s magazine won’t do well.
Targeting your market is not so much guesswork as it is thinking about where your idea prospects hang out. Sometimes, it’s not obvious, either. So, for example, businesspeople like to read business publications, but they also like reading, in general. They tend to be a more sophisticated audience, and so they may be reading luxury-type magazines, high-end car magazines, and travel magazines.
All of these would be great places to advertise.
The Right First Impression
Your ad is sort of like a handshake. You want to put your best foot forward. You only have one chance to make that first impression too. So, make sure you make it a good one. Start with a strong headline.
Rope the reader in with it, and then start with the best benefits you can think of. Next, go on to tell your company’s story – why should the prospect care and why do they need your product?
Use Images
If you’re using images, it’s going to cost you a lot more in ink than if you were using straight text-only ads. But, images can ad a lot to your advertisement, especially when the image is reflective of what’s in the text.
Companies, like https://www.stinkyinkshop.co.uk/ can help you save money on your ink supplies if you’re printing your own flyers or newsletter to sell to an existing list of customers. But, either way, you’ll want to make sure that the images you use add to the ad, not take away from it.
A lot of businesses make the mistake of using just any old image. But, using the wrong image can be worse than not having an image. Keep that in mind.
The image should reflect what’s in the article, be placed above the title or headline, and include a caption.
Talk About Benefits, Not Features
Prospects don’t really care about features. They care about benefits. Speak to them, their problems, what you can do to solve their problems, and how much it costs for this solution. This becomes especially important as the complexity of your product or service increases.
So, for example, you wouldn’t want to sell a highly technical gadget to your target audience based on the technical specs of the product (unless you know for a fact they expect this). You want to show them how your gadget makes their life easier and better. That’s what they’re going to be buying.
Use a Strong Call To Action
It’s amazing how many businesses neglect to include the phrase “buy now,” “order now,” “Call this number,” or something similar. A simple phrase like this can boost your ROI by 300 percent or more.