13 Elements of Effective Advertising

Nobody can guarantee a winning ad. The only way to know for sure is to test it. But there are several elements that you can incorporate into your ad or sales letter to give it a better chance of being a winner. Use these elements as your Cheap Oakley Sunglasses own personal "winning ad checklist" and develop effective advertising campaigns:

Element 1 Smart Ad Placement

The first step in positioning your ad for success is increasing its chance of being seen by your target market. Running the world's best radio ad for your retirement planning services on a local hip hop station wouldn't be a good idea. newspaper, magazine, radio). Until you know this information, you cannot make smart choices about ad placement and you'll likely end up wasting a lot of your hard earned dollars on an ad that didn't even get seen by your target market.

Element 2 Focus on Your Objective

You'll never get what you want if you don't know what you want. This is true in your personal goals and also your advertising efforts. You must have a specific objective for your ad if you want people to act. Is it to call your office, come to your store, or go to your website?

Whatever your objective is, gear all the elements of your ad to persuade consumers to fulfill your objective. Suppose you want readers to call your toll free telephone number, then your call to action should be, "call our toll free number now!"

If you include a testimonial, have your endorser say something like, "when I made a call to your toll free number" or you might include copy that says, "one toll free phone call can change your life forever."

Multiple objectives will confuse your prospect and when people get confused, they usually do nothing.

Element 3 Irresistible Offer

If you have ever seen the ginsu knife infomercial you have witnessed the anatomy of an irresistible offer. Not only do you get the set of ginsu knives, but also you get the Cheap Oakleys "magic shredder", the "never dull chopper", and the "easy egg slicer."

BUT that's not all you also get the "2 in 1 blade sharpener" and if you order in the next 10 minutes you'll also receive Cheap Oakley Sunglasses a second set of ginsu knives! Now that's an irresistible offer. Who could resist all these bonuses for the price of one set of ginsu knives?

The secret to constructing an irresistible offer is to add valuable bonuses and extend risk free, easy to pay terms. Continue heaping valuable bonuses on your customer until they throw up their hands and say, "Okay, I give!"

One last thought about Oakleys On Sale your irresistible Cheap Oakley Sunglasses offer. Sometimes you can make your offer so irresistible that it appears to good to be true. Always tell the reason why you can make such a great offer. This will add credibility to an incredulous ad.

For example, you might be having a sale that advertises 70% off retail price. When people see "70% off" many will think that all you have done is boost your price 50% just so that you can advertise a 70% off price.

But if you tell them you can offer 70% off because the recent hailstorm caused some very slight damage to your product and you need to liquidate. People can now reconcile you great offer in their minds so that it makes sense and is believable.

Element 4 Unique Competitive Advantage

Why should your prospect do business with you over any of your competitors. Even those that have lower prices! Do you have a "wider selection than anybody in the tri county area" or do you "deliver within eight hours after the purchase"?

Often your unique competitive advantage is the biggest benefit you can offer your prospects so consider including it in your headline, bulleted copy, or your guarantee.

If by chance, you don't have a unique competitive advantage(s) then you better get onefast. Not having a unique competitive advantage with which to show value, results in competing solely on price and that's a losing proposition (unless you have a significant cost advantage).

Element 5 Advertorial Style

Studies have shown that consumers read new articles seven times more than they do advertisements. It is said that the average consumer is presented with over 3,500 ad impressions per day. We have become jaded to promotions and commercials.

Cloaking your ad in a news style editorial format will not only pull more attention, but also instill credibility, which is one of the major roadblocks to consumer response. "Advertorial" (advertisement editorial) type ads include compelling headlines, lots of informative, interesting text, quotes, and a judicious use of graphics.

Element 6 Compelling Headline

Your headline is the most important part of all the technical aspects of your ad. 80% of the success of the headline can be attributed to its headline. A powerful headline is either, (1) benefit driven, (2) news oriented, (3) curiosity driven, or (4) how to oriented.