Many of you don’t do Yellow Page advertising anymore, but for those of you that do, here’s what I suggest.

When someone is looking in the yellow pages, they are actually ready to buy, so your ad has got to jump out at them, and then have them contact you instead of all of the other so-so ads that are listed.

I often hear many business owners grumble about the high cost of Yellow Pages advertising, but those who insist it costs them anything are simply foolish.

For 70% to 80% of all business, you have to work at Not making a profit from Yellow Pages advertising. In most of the businesses I created, Yellow Page advertising wasn’t useful. But for the others it was a Gold Mine. For most businesses, Yellow Pages Advertising will work.

The reasons many Yellow Pages ads do not pay off for their advertisers are very simple and common. All you have to do is look and you will know what I mean. They can be summed up as not having a direct response ad at all.

-They don’t have a headline to grab the reader
-There aren’t any reasons to choose you verses the other advertisers.
-No offer
-They look just like all the rest of them.

Here’s just one example

FREE Special Report Reveals What the Real Estate Industry Never Tells you About.
“How you can get top dollars When Selling Your Home in Today’s Slow Market!”

Call 1-800, 000-0000 Extension 11 for Free Special Report and Recorded Message.

It will jump out at the person looking for your specific product. If you do advertise in the Yellow Pages, change it to the above and let us know the results you get.

Technorati Tags: acquire customers, acquiring customers, acquiring leads, ad testing, ad writing, Advertising, attract clients, attract customers, attracting leads, Attracting More Clients, attracting prospects, boost sales

Probably 99.9 times out of 100 prospects, will not spend the time to read your unsolicited ad or direct mail piece.

The reason is that you are “interrupting their lives.” The simple act of having an ad or sales letter before a prospect will bring them to the proverbial “fork in the Road” and forces them to make a decision to either read on or not read your message.

Every time their eye moves from one word to the next, from one sentence to the next sentence, from one paragraph to the next, they reach yet another fork in the road. Now they have to decide whether they are going to keep reading the ad or not.

What makes your prospect make the wrong decision and drop your ad into the nearest trash bin?

Unsuitability: Your prospect already has what you are offering and quickly decides your product is of no interest to them.

Boredom: Most of the time ads are very boring so they stop reading it.

Disbelief: Your claims are too exaggerated or even dishonest and they figure that they can’t trust anything you say. So always tell the truth.

Exhaustion: Your ad is so difficult to read and impossible to follow, that they simply give up on reading any more.

Interruption: This is probably the number one reason a prospect stops reading your offer. Something just happened to take their attention away from reading. They now will deal with the immediate crisis instead of continuing to read your offer.

I’m sure you can come up with more items but this should give you a start. Let us know why you stop reading an ad or sales piece.

Technorati Tags: acquire customers, acquiring customers, acquiring leads, ad copy, ad story, ad testing, ad writing, Advertising, alex mandossian, all marketers are liars, attract clients, attract customers, attracting leads, attracting prospects, creating customers, customer acquisition, magazine ads, promoting your business

There is a lot of power in Coupons.  Notice how Groupon has become a huge phenomenon within the last year. Currently, it is planning an IPO at a valuation of $15 to $25 billion. This is a coupon issuer folks; not a high tech innovator.

It has merely taken a thing of value (coupons) and combined it with the Internet to better reach potential customers and bring them to offline (though not exclusively) retailers and businesses.

The power of coupons cannot be ignored.

Retailers and service business owners should understand the power of coupons.  Consumers clip ‘em and use ‘em.  Coupon usage in America is huge, so you might as well participate and create such a system if it fits your enterprise.

Incidentally, when you offer a coupon, it is usually best to put a big, thick coupon border around the coupon, or for that matter around the entire ad, so that there is no confusion.

I have found that a thick border beats out a thin one and the dotted coupon border beats out other borders.  I’ve had my consulting clients test this over and over and it works all the time. 

For one of my clients, I created a promotion, to expand their customers’ usage—to get regular, retail customers who were buying and using only a few items, to try additional ones and to redeem “store-brand” coupons for like products. It always created lots of sales and lasting usage expansion.

Here’s the concept and idea.  If you are a retailer or operate a service business, accept your competitors’ coupons.  This puts all their advertising to work for you. 

If it is possible and you can afford it, DOUBLE, the value of the competitors’ coupons that you redeem. They will be redeeming your competitors’ coupons that they paid a lot of money to advertise, with your company. 

You have to create that system and educate your customers/clients that it is available.

Let me know what you think about this. And if you are having difficulty, let me know and I will try to guide you in this process.

Technorati Tags: businesses and coupons, buying coupons, coupons, groupon, retailers and coupons, service providers and coupons, using coupons

For many retail and service businesses, Val-Pak and Money Mailers are what they use consistently and what I will call “basic” advertising media.  And they should be.  Their success is because they are “low cost and have a high readership since they go to so many people.

 I’ve read that over 80% of the recipients open and browse through the mailings, probably because everybody knows there will be coupons inside that they will use.  Because it gets opened is the reason it is so successful.

This media can work for odd businesses also and should be tested by a wider variety of businesses that don’t currently think about using it. 

There is also a nationwide card deck that goes “business-to-business.  I have found this works best when you have a multi-step process of follow up, which could include follow-up phone calls to the businesses.

Here comes the interesting part.  I believe that all businesses should do their own shared-cost, co-op mailings.

A dentist, chiropractor, dermatologist, optometrist, podiatrist, etc., are logical co-op candidates.  All of the stores in a shopping center, carpet cleaners, gardeners and plumbers, just to name a few more, are candidates for co-op mailings.

I’ve always believed and suggested to everyone that all merchants can have a much greater impact by working together rather than individually. 

And guess what?  When the big “Giant” comes into town, the small merchants often either prosper together or hang separately.  By banding together, they can survive the onslaught of the large companies. 

If any of you have used Val-Pak or Money Mailers, let us know your results.  Remember, most of the time the inserted piece was put together by the salesperson and isn’t responsive. When I receive them and open them, I’m in awe as to how much money is wasted. 

Can you imagine if your piece was direct-responsive, with more than 80% of them being opened, the results you would get and how many new customers/clients you would have coming through your door?

All you have to do is create a short report.  You can say, call (your number) for a free report that reveals (whatever) before you buy from anyone.

Just one example…

 If you are in the carpet cleaning business you can say the following: “Call (your number) for a free report that reveals the 3 questions you should ask before you hire a carpet cleaner.”

I’m sure you get the general idea. 

Again, If you use Val-Pak or Money Mailers, let us know your results.

Technorati Tags: b-to-b advertising, b2b advertising, business-to-business, card deck, co-op mailings, low-cost advertising, low-cost mailing, money mailers, val-pak

Most small businesses are confused about their marketing message.  Some think that a slogan will suffice, some think that an ad about how great their company is will do, or that saying how long they have been in business will work.

How about those companies that think it’s their mission statement and vision statement that is their marketing message.

It’s none of those.

Whenever I consult with a company, I ask them, “What is your marketing message,” and the above are most of the answers I receive.

However, your marketing message is what will grab your prospects’ attention.   It tells your prospects why they should trust you, why they should choose to do business with you rather than your competitors, and says how you can solve their problem.

That’s it in a nutshell.

It should “speak” to your prospect.  This is done by appealing to your prospect’s hot buttons and whatever will trigger an emotional reaction. You must research and find those hot buttons.

Here are three things you should do and explore when putting together your Marketing Message:

1. Identify the problems that your target market is having.  You must ask yourself the following question: “What problems are the members of my target market having and how do those problems make them feel?” Each target market, individually, has its own frustrations and pains. The secret to putting together a message that will make members of your market sit up and listen is to identify the problem and the pain they feel as a result of that problem. They don’t care about your company, or how great you are, or how long you’ve been in business.  Identifying their pain and suffering tells them that you understand and empathize with them.  Let them know that you care.

2. Present them with your solution to their problem.  Ask yourself the question.  “What is the solution that I have to offer my prospect?”  Present your solution as a “cure” for all of the pain and suffering they are going through as a result of this problem.  Put yourself in the situation of your customer.  Would you make a decision on purchasing something unless you feel an excruciating pain?  Now is the time to identify all the benefits of your solution.  Identify how those benefits will improve their lives and how great they will feel when you take that pain and anguish away.

3. Explain what makes you different from your competitors.  To start, ask your present customers the following question, “Why do you deal with me rather than with (your competitor’s name).

Once you know how you are different from your competitors, you need to communicate your differences.  Those differences need to have a perceived value in the mind of your prospect, so help them along in your message.  It needs to be something they care about.

Remember what I always say to myself when I do any shopping.  What’s in it for me?

Again, all of this starts with knowing the wants, problems, needs, and fears of your target market.  It ends with you putting together a message that speaks to those problems in a very compelling and believable way. 

Do the above 3 things and you will create an irresistible message that makes your prospect want to know more.

Technorati Tags: market fears, market message, market needs, market wants, marketing message, marketing messaging, target market

As I travel, I have an opportunity to read many ads in many magazines and newspapers.  What disturbs me is that 99% of them are downright dull and I often yawn when reading them.

As the saying goes, “How you say something is just as important as what you say.” An ad should be similar to a face-to-face sales pitch.

A great ad will have, not only the offer itself, but the language, the tone, and the “voice” of the offer.

The problem is that most sales messages get so engrossed in describing the company, its products, and product features that they fail to appeal to the reader.

It’s understandable.  People in business are often so tied to their businesses or products that they get tunnel vision and fail to look at their copy from their reader’s perspective.

It’s understandable, but inexcusable.

My advice is to be more experiential in your ads, as if the reader is experiencing what you are telling them.  Let them feel or imagine how it feels.  Make it “benefit-rich”.  Most importantly, appeal to the reader’s ego when describing those benefits.

People always buy for, or are influenced by, personal desires, selfish reasons and self-interested motives.  And guess what?  It’s been that way for thousands of years, and nothing’s changed.

People are people.  They always buy on emotion and they always will.

Our job as entrepreneurs is to express our offers in terms that trigger the prospects emotions, press their hot buttons, tug at their heartstrings, and push them into taking action. 

To do otherwise with your offers is the biggest mistake you can make.

Technorati Tags: ad writing, magazine ads, newspaper ads, sales offer

Most business owners know the demographic information about their customers, but this in only half of the battle.  To me, the most important item is to determine how your customer typically learns about your product or service and what motivates them to buy.

Once you have identified who your likely prospects are, you must then ask them what motivates them to buy the type of product or service that you offer.  This is really knowing what your customer expects.

Here are some things to ask about:

1. Do they ask friends for referrals?
2. Do product reviews influence their decisions?
3. Do they look for discount coupons before they purchase?
4. Do they look for a Brand Name?
5. Do they buy as a result of getting an ad in the mail?
6. Do paid ads influence their buying decision?
7. If so, where would they expect to find an ad for this type of product or service?  In a paper, weekly shopper, magazine or Yellow Pages?
8. Do they buy this product from a catalog?
9. Do they need to see a demo before buying?
10. Do they respond to telephone solicitations?
11. Do they look for a convenient location to buy the product or service?
12. Do they listen for ads about the product on radio or TV?
13. Are there specific features that they look for whenever they buy the product or service?
14. What else influence them to buy the product or service?

When you have gathered the answers to some of these questions, you can now use them to help you determine where and how you should advertise. 

Let me hear your thoughts about this idea or if you can add to this list.

Technorati Tags: Advertising