From a technical point of view, advertising is a means of communication with the purpose of delivering a worthwhile message to a specific audience of one. It is important to recognize, regardless of the medium, that your message is always targeted to one person. You must direct what you have to say to someone who has every reason to listen. If your message is clear to the individual, then anyone who has a legitimate reason to be interested will want to get involved to learn more. If you try to write the ad for everyone, you risk reaching no one. You may even try to write the ad as one would talk. The closer you can come to everyday language the better.

     Good ads do not just circulate information they penetrate people's minds with desires and beliefs. You must pinpoint and approach benefits emotionally and rationalize them logically. It has been a long-standing rule that most advertising is rejected consciously and accepted subliminally. For instance, an individual may see an ad that reads:

     Earn $10,000 per month as an internet service provider.

     It is human nature for people's initial response to be: "Who are they trying to kid, no way!" But the message and the image has already been set in their minds. The "knee jerk" reaction is to challenge the ad. However, once the "shock" or "disbelief" syndrome has subsided, most individuals would have a genuine interest in learning more about the possibility of making $10,000 a month. Who wouldn't?

     In the chapters to follow, we have listed a few solid qualities and sound principles characteristic of good advertising. Not all will apply to every medium, but the impact is the same.

    CHAPTER 1

WHAT MAKES FOR GOOD ADVERTISING?

     From a technical point of view, advertising is a means of communication with the purpose of delivering a worthwhile message to a specific audience of one. It is important to recognize, regardless of the medium, that your message is always targeted to one person. You must direct what you have to say to someone who has every reason to listen. If your message is clear to the individual, then anyone who has a legitimate reason to be interested will want to get involved to learn more. If you try to write the ad for everyone, you risk reaching no one. You may even try to write the ad as one would talk. The closer you can come to everyday language the better.

     Good ads do not just circulate information they penetrate people's minds with desires and beliefs. You must pinpoint and approach benefits emotionally and rationalize them logically. It has been a long-standing rule that most advertising is rejected consciously and accepted subliminally. For instance, an individual may see an ad that reads:

     Earn $10,000 per month as an Internet service provider

     It is human nature for people's initial response to be: "Who are they trying to kid, no way!" But the message and the image has already been set in their minds. The "knee jerk" reaction is to challenge the ad. However, once the "shock" or "disbelief' syndrome has subsided, most individuals would have a genuine interest in learning more about the possibility of making $10,000 a month. Who wouldn't?

     In the pages to follow, we have listed a few solid qualities and sound principles characteristic of good advertising. Not all will apply to every medium, but the impact is the same.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE WRITING AN AD

• What are you trying to say?
• What is it you are trying to sell?
• What is your proposition?
• What will you put in the ad?
• Where will you put the ad?
• How do you extend the ads results to the point of sale?

PRINCIPLES OF GOOD ADVERTISING

• Command attention, but never offensively.
• Be imaginative, but never misleading.
• Tell the truth.
• Be altruistic by selling service.
• Keep it simple.
• Offer the privilege of buying.
• Never seek favor or profit for yourself.
• Never advertise negatively or put a competitor down.

QUALITIES OF GOOD ADVERTISING

• Instead of telling a customer how good your product or service is, tell them how good your product or service will make them.
• Graphics must support the main idea without cluttering.
• Be sure headlines and subheads are brief and to the point.
• You can overestimate the public's knowledge, but never their intelligence.
• If an ad is profitable, don't change it by trying to make it better.
• Sell the results of a product, rather than the product itself.

DIRECT RESPONSE ADVERTISING

     Direct response advertising, as opposed to institutional methods of advertising, makes an attempt to force a prospective customer to respond to your call to action. With institutional advertising, there is no call to action, just visibility. For our purposes, we will focus on direct response advertising only.

    Since accountability exists for direct response advertising, ad rates will always be less than institutional rates. A direct response advertiser knows that an ad has to yield a certain result for it to be profitable.

TESTING YOUR AD FOR PROFITABILITY

    A direct response ad gives you the ability to make the ad accountable. You can track and monitor an ad's effectiveness. It would only serve to drain your cash flow to continue running ads that were not cost effective.

EXAMPLE:
Let's say you budgeted $500 for a print ad for one week to sell a home exercise product. Your $500 ad yielded 100 responses which resulted in 20 sales. That means that it cost you:

$500 for 20 sales = $25
It cost you $25 per sale.

You sell each unit @ $250.00
Your wholesale cost @ $150.00
Profit $100.00

Under this scenario, you have a built-in profit margin of $100 before advertising.

Profit $100.00
less advertising
cost per unit - $25.00
Final profit per unit $ 75.00

In order to assess whether or not this ad was successful, ask yourself if you are happy making $75.00 per unit sold as profit?

If you are, the ad was a success!

You could have also taken a reverse approach and decided, "How much were you willing to spend per sale on the ad?"

    If you were only willing to spend $10.00 per sale on the advertising, then the ad failed.

    That is how you measure the success of your ad.

     You will also want to know how many calls or responses a certain station, newspaper or magazine generated. With direct response advertising, you will be able to directly track response and profitability of each individual ad on a daily basis.

HOW TO TRACK YOUR ADS

      Tracking ads is more simple than you might think. Let us consider three print ads in three different magazines.

When a customer responds to a phone number, you will have the customer ask for a specific "extension number" that you know corresponds to the mag­azine the customer is responding to.

1-800-555-1212
Magazine #1, "Ask for Extension #101"
Magazine #2, "Ask for Extension #201"
Magazine #3, "Ask for Extension #301"

When your customers are asked to respond by sending in a card or a request is made to respond by mail, you simply add a different "addendum letter" to the address.

GUERRA ENTERPRISES
P.O. BOX 412-M
LOS ANGELES, CA 92564

In the above address, the "M" would stand for "money magazine."

After one month of advertising you will learn:
You spent $500 on magazine #1
$500 on magazine #2
$500 on magazine #3

Total advertising one month: $1,500.00
Your return is: 300 responses with 60 sales

When you calculate your cost per unit for advertising, it equals: $25.00 per unit
You decide that this is an acceptable cost per sale.

But!!!!!!!!

Magazine #1 generated 130 responses and 35 sales.
Magazine #2 generated 70 responses and 12 sales.
Magazine #3 generated 100 responses and 23 sales.

Even though your overall results were successful and cost effective, tracking has revealed that magazine #2 is not cost effective.

If you were to budget the same amount of money for advertising next month, you may consider: Dropping magazine #2; increasing the budget for magazine #1; and maintaining your budget with magazine #3.

Another consideration to make is that you may want to make one more attempt at maintaining your ad space with magazine #2 by simply rewriting a new headline for that ad. Often, just changing one word in a headline can increase the profitability of the ad by 200%.

FIVE FUNDAMENTALS OF GOOD ADVERTISING

1. GET ATTENTION
Your headline will be the most important key. A headline should strike a chord of a person reading, viewing or listening to your specific ad. It should be brief and to the point.

2. SHOW PEOPLE AN ADVANTAGE
What advantages or benefits will the customer get by responding to the ad? Earning more money is usually a prime motivator. It could even be an easier way to make more money by working at home in your spare time.

Focus on what advantages a customer will realize as a result of responding to your ad.

3. PROVE IT
Some of the strongest elements in any advertisement are testimonials, facts, and figures. People love to hear from other people they can relate to who have already taken the risk that they are considering and who have succeeded. Facts and figures support your claims. If your data indicates that the average company increases its business by 60% in the first month online with a web site, the customer gains confidence in your service. It is also important to remember that when you do report facts and figures, never round them off to 60% or $200.00. It's more credible to use figures like 58.6% or $197.60.

4. PERSUADE PEOPLE TO GRASP THE ADVANTAGE
Here is where you tailor your ad to the individual. Ask them a question like:
"what would you do with a $10,000 a month income?"

These types of questions get people to think and begin to see themselves with the money.

5. ASK FOR A CALL TO ACTION
As with all sales, you must create a sense of urgency. Implant the thought that as times goes by, they are losing money!

Either the industry is leaping ahead without them as they pass up a once in a lifetime opportunity, or perhaps the offer will be withdrawn after "X" amount of people sign up. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as the customer has a call to action to act now!

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