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C.A.D.D: The Reason Your Advertising Isn't Working As Well As You Need It To

Guest post by: David Flannery

Article Overview: There are no doubts that direct response advertising is important to small business owners. In fact for a lot of small companies it is the only prospect/customer acquisition method they use on a regular basis. However, unless done correctly this form of advertising can be less than useless. So what determines the success of your advert and by success I mean make the phones ring and the cash registers full. To find the answer to that, you must understand the biggest problem you face in your marketplace...and it isn't your competitors!

C.A.D.D: The Reason Your Advertising Isn't Working As Well As You Need It To

There are no doubts that direct response advertising is important to small business owners. In fact for a lot of small companies it is the only prospect/customer acquisition method they use on a regular basis. However, unless done correctly this form of advertising can be less than useless. So what determines the success of your advert and by success I mean make the phones ring and the cash registers full. To find the answer to that, you must understand the biggest problem you face in your marketplace...and it isn't your competitors!

Our economy today is plagued by a problem of our own design. We ask for it, we keep it a secret; some of us even kill for it. What am I speaking about? I am speaking about ...information. Today, we can find the answer to anything we want, all we have to do is turn on the TV or Radio, a book has been written on nearly every subject known, if all else fails we can turn to the modern day version of the legendary library of Alexandria, the internet.

80% of Americans are connected to the net, and surveys show that they are more likely to search the net for health information than to go to their local doctor. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics' findings (2006-2007), 64% of Australians' are connected to the web.

Information is everywhere and at our fingertips. What has this to do with you and your advertising? Well, remember that problem I mentioned earlier, that problem is called...information overload. Information overload is when a person has too much information to make a decision about or remain informed about something.

In 1990 it was determined that the common person was receiving an average of 30,000 sales messages, though adverts, logos, brands etc., PER DAY. This was before the wide spread use of the internet and mobile technology. Just imagine how much that number has increased over the last nearly two decades. The problem is that, even though information is good and helpful, too much actually creates a stress response in a person, which in turn triggers a fight or flight response because a person just wants to escape the stress.

Due to this modern problem of information overload and the problem it causes, modern society and the, people in it have developed what I have called C.A.D.D...Customer Attention Deficit Disorder. People will not pay any attention at all to things that are not RELEVANT to them and their situation. We have become an "Attentionless Society"

C.A.D.D. has created the scarcest and therefore the most expensive item in the marketplace today... the attention of your customers.

Billions are being wasted and lost, worldwide, due to the creation and distribution of advertising and sales messages that are not relevant to the people they are targeted at. They just don't give them any attention.

The simple message is ...if you are not relevant, you are not worth it. And that is the reason most adverts are not working today. By now, assuming you agree with me, which you should! The question you should be asking me is "OK, How do I become relevant?"...Good question!

How To Be Relevant

In order to be relevant you must know your marketplace inside out, you must know their needs, their problems, their desires, their likes and dislikes, their dreams and their nightmares. You must become an expert on the people in your marketplace; this is the only way to become relevant in a marketplace. If you do not know basic information about the people in your marketplace you will never be able to communicate your relevance to them, in fact, if you don't know the basic information about your marketplace, you aren't relevant.

Build It And They Will Come

You must realise that you don't write an advert you build it. There is a structure to it. If you, and the people on your staff, don't have any copywriting skills, then hire or outsource it to someone who does. A good copywriter is worth his weight in gold, a master copywriter is worth your weight, plus his weight plus the combined weight of all your staff, in gold.

Your advert must use the proper structure in order to communicate the relevance of your sales message to your target market, of course I am assuming that your have targeted your market properly, if you haven't, nothing will get their attention.

How To Create An Advert That Overcomes C.A.D.D

In order to create a C.A.D.D busting direct response advert, the advert must contain the following items:

A headline that interrupts and commands attention

The headline for your advert must have the power to grab and hold the attention of your marketplace, and make them curious so that they are forced to read your advertising message, in other words your headline is the advert for your advert. If you haven't got a headline that grabs attention, your advert will not even be noticed, never mind read.

Write about what is troubling your customers, and how your service/ product can help them

To build a compelling direct response advert you must know your marketplace inside out, what their troubles are, what their hopes and wishes are, what their needs are. In other words: FOCUS ON THEM. You must also know where your product or service fits in, in other words you must know how people benefit from using your service or buying your product. The best way to find out this information is by randomly surveying your existing customers as to why they use your service or product and also surveying those customers who have stopped using your service/product.

Make a list of all the benefits that you can for your service/product based on your own knowledge and the feedback you get from your surveys.

Be specific

When writing the body copy of your advert, be very specific as to the benefits your marketplace will get from using your service/product. Tell me what specific problem they will solve, or specific results they will achieve. Do not be vague in any way. DO NOT use clever puns or phases or clever twists on words. Use direct, plain everyday language.

Add credibility to you advertising message

At every point possible, in the body copy of your advert, use testimonials from customers. DO NOT use a testimonial unless you can use the full name of the customer and if possible the town/city he/she resides in, using a testimonial with just initials will just undermine the credibility of your advertising argument.

Testimonials psychologically lower the risk in the minds of people thinking about using your service/product but have not yet done so.

Give a strong iron clad guarantee

An iron clad, no fuss, 100% guarantee is one the strongest weapons in you advertising arsenal. It shows your marketplace that you have full confidence in your service/ product; it also shows you marketplace how far you are willing to go for them if something goes wrong.

Make a clear call to action

You MUST give your marketplace a firm call to action, you tell them exactly what they must do and when they must do it in order to gain the benefits of your service/ product as outlined in the advert.

Include all contact details

Make sure that all your contact details are included in your advert, phone, mail address, email address and website.

Keep editing your advert until it is fine-tuned

Once you have written your first draft, leave it for an hour and come back and revise and fine-tune it. Remove all puffery, excess words and sentences. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Remember this, simplified language takes a lot of work.

Place your advert where your target market will read/ hear it

You must know what papers and magazines your marketplace read, what radio stations they listen to, what websites / forums they frequent. You can only find this information out by asking them.

Track responses

You need to make sure you can track responses from your adverts.

The Reticular Activator System

An amazing thing happens when you speak to your marketplace using information gained from the marketplace itself and also using a proper structure that interrupts, engages and educates them all at the same time...you become relevant.

And when you become relevant to a person you activate their R.A.S. Their R.A.S. or Reticular Activator System is their on board radar system that, subconsciously, sorts out all the messages that a person is bombarded by on a daily basis, and when it comes across a message that is relevant to that person, it says " Wake up, pay attention, you need to read this!"

So the message is, get relevant in today's "Attentionless Society" because if you don't...you will be soon out of business.

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Article Tags: attention, direct response advertising, small business owners



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