Do Your Adverts Get You Sales?
Do Your Adverts Get You Sales?
"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."
If you’re spending $10,000 a month on advertising $5,000 is going straight down the tubes. That wastes $60,000 of your hard earned cash every year. Money you could spend on better, more focused
marketing.
Imagine if you could work out which half works and spend only on that half. The good news is you can. All will become clear in a little while. In the meantime let me explain how advertising works.
Broadly there are two types of advertising. One is Branding and Positioning (BAP) and the other is Direct Response (DR) advertising.
... Is Branding and Positioning Important For You? ...
Branding and Positioning concentrates on getting the company’s name, or service or product continually at the forefront of its customer’s minds. In ad speak this is called TOMA or "Top of Mind Awareness." As you can imagine this needs continual advertising activity and can cost megabucks. Companies doing this type of advertising include Coca-Cola, British Airways, Nike and
MacDonald’s.
These are all major companies and everyone already knows their name and what they stand for.
Why do they do it?
The simple answer is that they’re in a highly competitive market. They want to retain their large market share by ensuring that the most recent ad a prospect remembers is for their service or
product. So when they’re thirsty it’s a Coke. If they’re hungry it’s a Big Mac if they want to fly they choose the World’s favourite airline.
Picture the mountains of money that go towards that aim. But picture too the accountants horror they don’t know which campaign makes a profit.
Profit is the one thing that tells you if your campaign is working. If you know your ad makes more revenue than it costs to create, run and service you’d keep running it wouldn’t you?
Unfortunately Branding and Positioning (BAP) advertising can’t be evaluated. You just don’t know whether it’s worth doing or not unless you're a massive company.
How do you know which advert finally persuaded your prospect to do business with you?
Interestingly Bill Bernbach one of the founders of modern advertising said that,
"Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it."
... Why Bother With BAP? ...
So why bother doing BAP advertising?
Probably because advertising agencies are happy to use BAP advertising for almost any company. Any slowdown in sales can’t be attributed to their adverts. Any increase is claimed to prove
the advert is working.
In reality you don’t have a clue.
Former Canadian policeman turned fabulously paid copywriter John E. Kennedy coined the phrase, “advertising is salesmanship in print.” Would you tell a salesman to go see a prospect and to strip customer oriented benefits from their presentation? Also would you tell them not to ask for the order? You’d be laughed at and if you insisted you’d probably go out of business and certainly lose your salesmen.
BAP advertising does exactly that to your customer.
... Is Direct Response Advertising Any Better? ...
In contrast Direct Response (DR) advertising is able to directly relate a specific advert to an increase in sales. Or alternatively highlight a problem ad that needs fixing.
This type of advertising seeks to inform the prospect as to how your product or service improves their life, rights a wrong or smoothes a problem. Additionally, DR advertising almost always
asks for a response. Either to call in to buy immediately (unusual), to get a free sample, free report, free voucher, free experience or other intermediary step before buying the target product.
Imagine the calls, letters and emails you can get from advertising that encourage your prospects to take action to contact your company immediately. You get to see whether the campaign is working. That means you can step in and tweak it if it’s not.
And it also allows you to test different aspects of your advert to try and increase response further. So for instance you could run two adverts with the headline changed on one, or a different
offer on one or a free-phone number against a geographic number.
You can see how every single word and picture in your advert performs. Doesn’t that just feel better? You’ve control over your spend and the customers who are bought for your advertising
dollar.
There are many people who would agree that DR advertising is the right way to advertise. But they still don’t do it.
Why?
Usually the reason is simply one of ego. Direct Response adverts don’t tend to be pretty or to win the Cannes Advertising Lions awards. If you’re the head of the company or you’re the director
of sales imagine how tempting it is top run ads that might win awards.
You already have sales coming in. Running a BAP advert will still get sales coming in. And you might win that Lion at the Cannes awards for best advertising.
You’re fooling yourself if you think it’s for any other reason. Because almost without exception Direct Response adverts will pull more sales than BAP adverts.
Yet many advertisers don’t realise it. They’re convinced that an advert has to look "professional" to sell. WRONG!
... Do You Want More Sales? ...
If you do, and I’m sure you do use the following 7 steps:
Step 1: Learn how your products relate to your users. Which emotions, feelings and beliefs does it generate or speak to?
Step 2: Assess the best way to convey that to your ultimate user.
Step 3: Do the newspapers/magazines/radio/tv channels you’ve chosen to advertise in get read by your preferred prospects?
Step 4: Check and test each ad with a single entry in your chosen media. (Do not run ad series until you’ve tested the pulling power)
Step 5: Buy the smallest display ad possible. Then each time it makes money buy the next size up until it starts to lose money. Then go back to the last one that made money - the optimum
size.
Step 6: Continually run split tests to find the best pulling direct response for your product
Step 7: Use some of your advertising saved to buy other means of marketing
Do Your Adverts Get You Sales - To learn more about this author, visit Jim Symcox's Website.
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Philadelphia retailer and US Postmaster General, John Wanamaker, once said,
"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."
If you’re spending $10,000 a month on advertising $5,000 is going straight down the tubes. That wastes $60,000 of your hard earned cash every year. Money you could spend on better, more focused
marketing.
Imagine if you could work out which half works and spend only on that half. The good news is you can. All will become clear in a little while. In the meantime let me explain how advertising works.
Broadly there are two types of advertising. One is Branding and Positioning (BAP) and the other is Direct Response (DR) advertising.
... Is Branding and Positioning Important For You? ...
Branding and Positioning concentrates on getting the company’s name, or service or product continually at the forefront of its customer’s minds. In ad speak this is called TOMA or "Top of Mind Awareness." As you can imagine this needs continual advertising activity and can cost megabucks. Companies doing this type of advertising include Coca-Cola, British Airways, Nike and
MacDonald’s.
These are all major companies and everyone already knows their name and what they stand for.
Why do they do it?
The simple answer is that they’re in a highly competitive market. They want to retain their large market share by ensuring that the most recent ad a prospect remembers is for their service or
product. So when they’re thirsty it’s a Coke. If they’re hungry it’s a Big Mac if they want to fly they choose the World’s favourite airline.
Picture the mountains of money that go towards that aim. But picture too the accountants horror they don’t know which campaign makes a profit.
Profit is the one thing that tells you if your campaign is working. If you know your ad makes more revenue than it costs to create, run and service you’d keep running it wouldn’t you?
Unfortunately Branding and Positioning (BAP) advertising can’t be evaluated. You just don’t know whether it’s worth doing or not unless you're a massive company.
How do you know which advert finally persuaded your prospect to do business with you?
Interestingly Bill Bernbach one of the founders of modern advertising said that,
"Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it."
... Why Bother With BAP? ...
So why bother doing BAP advertising?
Probably because advertising agencies are happy to use BAP advertising for almost any company. Any slowdown in sales can’t be attributed to their adverts. Any increase is claimed to prove
the advert is working.
In reality you don’t have a clue.
Former Canadian policeman turned fabulously paid copywriter John E. Kennedy coined the phrase, “advertising is salesmanship in print.” Would you tell a salesman to go see a prospect and to strip customer oriented benefits from their presentation? Also would you tell them not to ask for the order? You’d be laughed at and if you insisted you’d probably go out of business and certainly lose your salesmen.
BAP advertising does exactly that to your customer.
... Is Direct Response Advertising Any Better? ...
In contrast Direct Response (DR) advertising is able to directly relate a specific advert to an increase in sales. Or alternatively highlight a problem ad that needs fixing.
This type of advertising seeks to inform the prospect as to how your product or service improves their life, rights a wrong or smoothes a problem. Additionally, DR advertising almost always
asks for a response. Either to call in to buy immediately (unusual), to get a free sample, free report, free voucher, free experience or other intermediary step before buying the target product.
Imagine the calls, letters and emails you can get from advertising that encourage your prospects to take action to contact your company immediately. You get to see whether the campaign is working. That means you can step in and tweak it if it’s not.
And it also allows you to test different aspects of your advert to try and increase response further. So for instance you could run two adverts with the headline changed on one, or a different
offer on one or a free-phone number against a geographic number.
You can see how every single word and picture in your advert performs. Doesn’t that just feel better? You’ve control over your spend and the customers who are bought for your advertising
dollar.
There are many people who would agree that DR advertising is the right way to advertise. But they still don’t do it.
Why?
Usually the reason is simply one of ego. Direct Response adverts don’t tend to be pretty or to win the Cannes Advertising Lions awards. If you’re the head of the company or you’re the director
of sales imagine how tempting it is top run ads that might win awards.
You already have sales coming in. Running a BAP advert will still get sales coming in. And you might win that Lion at the Cannes awards for best advertising.
You’re fooling yourself if you think it’s for any other reason. Because almost without exception Direct Response adverts will pull more sales than BAP adverts.
Yet many advertisers don’t realise it. They’re convinced that an advert has to look "professional" to sell. WRONG!
... Do You Want More Sales? ...
If you do, and I’m sure you do use the following 7 steps:
Step 1: Learn how your products relate to your users. Which emotions, feelings and beliefs does it generate or speak to?
Step 2: Assess the best way to convey that to your ultimate user.
Step 3: Do the newspapers/magazines/radio/tv channels you’ve chosen to advertise in get read by your preferred prospects?
Step 4: Check and test each ad with a single entry in your chosen media. (Do not run ad series until you’ve tested the pulling power)
Step 5: Buy the smallest display ad possible. Then each time it makes money buy the next size up until it starts to lose money. Then go back to the last one that made money - the optimum
size.
Step 6: Continually run split tests to find the best pulling direct response for your product
Step 7: Use some of your advertising saved to buy other means of marketing
Do Your Adverts Get You Sales - To learn more about this author, visit Jim Symcox's Website.
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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