How To Create Killer Ads

An Easy way to create ads that pull in business fast!

Let's face it. You want to get more customers, make more sales, convert more leads. The typical business puts money into advertising and expects the phone to ring off the hook. Sadly, it doesn't happen that way.

I had a client one time up in Racine, Wisconsin who was opening a computer store who had a headline that said, "Grand Opening Sale." Another client had a sales letter that had a title, "The Business Plan."

Ho Hum.

Think for a minute about any ads you've seen on television or in print that really grabbed you. If there was a particularly funny message or slogan, try to remember it. It gets hard, doesn't it?

The problem is that we are bombarded daily by thousands of messages, thousands of offers, thousands of "sound bites" begging to be heard. We finally get to the place where we don't hear or see much of anything for very long. We effectively filter out excess "noise."

For example: Let's say that you just bought a new Ford Taurus. As you're tooling around running errands, you notice that there are a few more Fords out on the road. Surprisingly, there are a lot of Fords the same make and model as your car.

Was the dealer having a special sale so that most everyone bought a Ford Taurus? Did a Ford plant open down the street? Everyone wanted a Ford, right? Actually, what was happening was that since you just bought a Ford, in your mind, Fords became important and therefore noticed. Before you bought your car there were just as many Fords running about. You just didn't notice them.

Fords just became important to you. Until you bought a Ford, they weren't important to you. Consequently, you didn't notice them. The same thing happens with advertising.

If you're like most businesses, you have to advertise. And if you are like most businesses, your advertising states the features of the business, items for sale, discounts, etc. And if you're like most businesses, your ad was placed in the local paper by a rep or ad agency or you made the ad yourself and placed it.

Can you tell me whether or not your ad pulled in any business? Over ninety-five percent of the businesses in America cannot tell whether or not the ad worked because they are doing what is called institutional or "image" advertising.

We all know Coca-cola, Marlboro, GM, Campbell Soups, IBM, etc., because over the years these mega-giants have told us over and over again about their products. These companies have the money and the market share to advertise and throw money into a big hole without thinking much about it.

As a small businessman or woman, we don't have the luxury of throwing money around to see if something works or not. We must leverage every marketing dollar so that it does the work of four, five, six, or even ten dollars.

The only way to do that is to target your market and to have some sort of response device to determine whether or not the market is interested in what you have to sell.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is that they think that everyone who reads the paper or listens to the radio or watches TV is a prospect. That is one of the reasons it is sometimes very expensive to run a decent size ad in a local paper or other mass market, because the ad agencies would have you believe that because you are reaching a large number of people, you should pay for it.

The truth has always been that when you use mass media, only a small percentage are really interested in what you have to offer. And if you're not careful, you'll miss them.

One thing that has always helped me to get my ads going is a simple formula called AIDA.

• Attention.
• Interest.
• Desire.
• Action.

The best way to get attention for your ad is to have a headline geared to the target market you're shooting for. You want any possible prospects to "stop in their tracks" to read your offer.

Remember the headlines earlier I mentioned? They didn't grab the reader's interest or cause them to read further. What those headlines did was to feed the ego of the owner or corporate president. I know that I am killing some sacred cows here, but the fact of the matter is that any advertisement is geared to do one of two things: 1) Get leads that can be converted to sales, and 2) Sell directly from the ad.

Listen. All other ads are just fluff. They do nothing to improve the bottom line. Case in point: When the new Infiniti ads came out, they won all kinds of creative awards, but there was no increase in sales due to them. If you want to make ads that win awards, more power to you. But you won't improve sales.

When I was in the entertainment industry, I created a brochure for myself that was four-color, had a spinner inside, and was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. It cost $10,000 for 1,000 copies. When the mailing went out, I sat back expecting the phone to ring off the hook.

I didn't get one phone call. To say that I was disappointed would be a gross understatement. I was devestated. But I learned a valuable lesson.

You see, I had followed only one of the points of the AIDA formula. The brochure was very much of an attention-getter. All show and no go. In other words, according to some of the recipients, "It was beautiful, I'm going to keep it."

Everyone liked the brochure, yet, it gave no compelling reasons to buy or call to action. Make sure that any ads you produce are like a salesperson making a case for your product.

Getting back to our formula, AIDA, the first point is attention. You get that attention with a benefit-laden headline. The headline is an ad for the ad. Don't make the mistake of using the name of the company or name of a product.

The second point is interest. When talking about the benefits of your product, it is vital to talk in terms of the benefits to the consumer, not the interests of the president of the company. As you are creating an ad, make a list of the important features of the product. Once you have done this, then transform the features into benefits. For example, if you're selling stainless steel cookware that is made with 18-8 stainless steel, emphasize the fact that this construction means more even heat distribution for easier cooking in less time with power savings to boot.

Next, you must create desire by targeting emotional hot buttons through the description of more benefits. Face it. Most people buy based on emotional reasons then justify what they have bought through logical means. So make sure to create interest and desire on an basis coupled with a few factual tie-downs to close the sale.

Remember, advertising is just salesmanship in print.

Finally, you must call your prospect to action. It may be a phone call. It might be bringing in a coupon. Whatever the action is to be, it must be simple for the customer to do and be measureable. In other words, you want the consumer to do something to let you know they are interested, yet, it must be simple enough so that they don't have to go out of their way to do it.

These simple steps will help you to increase your responses in the advertising you do.

About Millard Grubb

As owner of a Chicago-based consulting firm and author of The Ripple Effect and numerous articles on marketing that works, Millard Grubb knows how to create documents that pull in dollars for business. Grubb is now giving seminars across the country to help business market on a shoestring.

You can contact him at: 847-594-1004
windycitymwg@aol.com.