What is advertising? Why do we advertise? A man named Albert Lasker, one of the pioneers of direct mail industry, was disturbed with these same questions and in 1904, he got the answers. Advertising is salesmanship in print.

That then means that your ads should do the same things you’d expect a salesman to accomplish. For example, the performance of very salesman is measured. You don’t send out a salesman to build the brand image of your company without a system of measuring his or her effectiveness. Neither should you do that with you TV, Radio, newspapers or any other form of advertising.

Every advertiser must first determine the sole purpose of an ad before it is even created and put on ‘air’.

And that’s not all… Every advertiser must ask himself these four crucial questions.

Will it make people crave for the product or service being advertised? — You don’t advertise to entertain. You build desire in the product. You make people feel this is a must-have product. You create desire using words, pictures, and memories that make people open their wallets.

Does it explain why this brand is different from the others and why it is the only logical choice? You’ve seen all those ads that say something like ‘the better option’ or ‘the no 1 bank in the world’, or ‘the world’ tastiest burger’. Essentially these forms of ads do not separate their products from the clutter. For an ad to make money, tell the prospects why you are the only reasonable choice. Though decisions will be made emotionally, the client will need logical reasons to allow justification of that decision.

Does it show urgency to make a decision? If there is no urgency then there is no need for a decision right now. That kills sales. Infuse urgency in you offers by way of a time limit or limited quantity available. But this must be genuine. For example reduce price by 25% for certain items for just 30 days or for the first 1000 buyers.

Does it give all the information required to make a decision? If you can’t give all the information in an ad, then just don’t do it. Simply create an ad asking people to visit your website, go to your store or read a newspaper on a specific place at a specified time — and don’t forget the reason why they must do this thing.

I have often seen TV ads that finish by saying ‘terms and conditions apply’ or ‘see press and posters for details’ this doesn’t make sense. This simply means you are asking prospects to delay their decision and therefore murdering your sales.

Speak to you soon,

Stuart

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