How to write an effective advert or flyer
By Stevie White
What is an effective advert? Quite simple, its one that gets attention, its one that gets responses and its one that gets you clients. To succeed in today’s business environment, Small to Medium business Enterprises (SME) need to create advertisements that sell and provide your business with a steady flow of enquiries and ongoing contacts.
why create a business publication? Quite simple, your business needs customers and you need to be as persuasive as possible to attract prospective clients. Have you ever wondered why some business advertisements tend to have more success than others and why they convert easily to sales?
This article will provide you with some insight to the basic advert design principles and the key components of making your advertisement copy more effective. It will also provide your SME with some tips to ensure you achieve this.
what’s in it for you as a SME There are numerous ways that your adverts, placed through a traditional print media or online advertising in a website, can become more productive and provide many benefits to your SME. These are as follows:
• adverts placed online, provide exposure with the global community 24/7 and
indefinitely
• a well written advert or flyer will get more people noticing your business
• adverts have the capacity to stimulate and entice buyer and increase your profits
• if consistent, well designed adverts can enhance your SME brand and market
credibility
effective advert characteristics The successful advertisements are the ones that are consistent with your marketing strategy. Readers are seeking information not design and clutter, so focus on what your target market wants and needs are and provide key words and statements to attract them to your business.
The key components of an effective advert are as follows:
• simplicity: information provided is succinct and easy to digest with no jargon
• relevance: your advert needs to be relevant to the consumers needs and wants
• truthful: your advert needs to be truthful and attain no surprises
• unique: your advert needs to differentiate from the crowd and needs to sell
top tips for ‘writing an effective’ advertisement There is no doubt that the internet is having a dramatic effects on the B2B relationship and promotion and advertising its product and services. SME’s need to become smart and adapt quickly to this rapidly growing medium and move the majority of its lead generation to the internet.
The following strategies will assist your SME to attract new and ongoing customers:
1. focus attention on your prospects needs quite often we fall into the trap of telling prospects what we can offer. SME’s need to place emphasis on their specialism and tell prospects how you can fix their problems. Your readers want to simply know, “WHATS IN IT FOR ME?” then why not tell them “HOW TO SAVE 50% ON YOUR ANNUAL ADVERTISING COSTS”
2. provide a headline explaining a benefit invest some time in ensuring your headline has a benefit you can offer to your readers and potential prospects. Successful advertisements have a headline explaining what you can do for the reader…eg., “HOW TO HALF YOUR ADVERTISING COSTS BY BUILDING A WEBSITE “. The benefit is half the cost and how you can solve their advert cost problems.
3. provoke a direct response with a question follow the principle of asking the reader a provocative question that promotes an emotional and direct response in their mind. For example, “ARE YOU TIRED OF SPENDING HUGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, WEEK BY WEEK ON TRADITIONAL NEWSPRINT ADVERTS”?
4. be specific and direct with your offer most SME’s need to generate sales leads and a steady flow of clientele. Using headlines that relate to your product or services can be extremely effective. For example, “WEBSITE DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT FROM $1500”
5. provide useful information ensure that you deliver your advertisement with a quality of information. Business owners crave new information so why not give it them. Place it in your headline and increase your readership. For example, “5 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR B2B EXPOSURE “ a successful and proven way to expose your business 24/7
6. offer you readers something ‘free’ as a SME you will continually need to increase your potential responses. To achieve this, you can offer something of tangible value such as a free booklet, or free trial if it’s a product. Provide details in your advert of how your readers can receive their free gift. For example, “GET A 30 DAY FREE TRIAL WITH THE ‘EDITOR’ WEBSITE DESIGN & DEVLOPMENT
SOFTWARE TOOL”
7. provide coupons to qualified prospects getting people to stop and read your advert can be enhanced by utilizing a direct response approach by adding things of value within your advert. Coupons are a good strategy to hook a reader to respond and if you offer things of value and select a proportion of your add to this area it is a good investment. For example, “FREE, HOSTING FOR ONE YEAR” for the first 10 prospects who complete the coupon below and send to IQnet Pty Ltd.
8. include multiple eye catching sub-headings in order to make your headline more effective, entice the reader with two to three sub-headings placed within the advert. Utilise different font sizes or italics to differentiate from normal text. For example, “Attention SMALL BUSINESS owners” may reside in the top corner of the advert then follow up with, “WOULD YOU LIKE AN AFFORDABLE WEBSITE? Grab attention by revealing specifics…“Special FREE TRIAL Offer” fill in coupon below.
9. provide white space and don’t clutter human nature often dictates when we are spending money and adverts are not an exception. It is not uncommon to see badly designed adverts that are full of clutter and a waste of time and your money. Ensure your text is well balanced with lots of white space and check for spelling errors. Consider the ‘LESS IS MORE’ philosophy, it works.
10. call your readers to action it is quite common for a reader to get lost in the information provided and miss out vital instructions or contact information. You need to tell them what you want the reader to do when they finish reading your advert. It is wise to call them to action by prompting them to call you direct, send an email, or visit a website.
11. ensure clarity and be succinct an essential element of any business communication is to provide clarity of information and to be succinct and to the point. It is so easy to waffle on and yet completely miss out vital information for the readers. Keep sentences’ short and choose action verbs to maintain interest and motivate the reader to take action.
Think the prospect …not yourself…
Getting better responses to your advertisement copy or business flyers can be achieved by following the key principles of targeting your copy towards solving the reader’s needs. By considering key words that make up powerful headlines, and providing benefits and special offers or free information will encourage prospects to engage in your services.
Our team at IQnet, hope this information will assist your SME to think more about simple selling techniques and provide you with valuable marketing information that can make your business grow. Don’t be afraid to ask people for feedback it is important to listen and consider their views.
How to write an effective advert .
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Copyright@ Stevie White Director 2010
http://www.iqnet.com.au 