Title - Image vs direct response advertising Tags - advertising
Have you heard the old story about a motorist caught in dense fog?
He couldn’t see a thing, so he followed the tail light of the car in front. He stayed very close to this car, afraid of losing the guiding light and having to navigate on his own.
Suddenly, the car in front of him stopped very quickly, and they crashed.
Enraged, the driver jumped out and yelled, “why didn’t you warn me you were going to stop?!”
“Why should I?” the man replied. “I’m in my own garage.”
Here’s the point: following and modeling others can be an efficient and profitable strategy, but…
Only If You Choose The Right Model!
When it comes to marketing, most small businesses emulate big brand-name companies… and spend (waste) a lot of money on image, brand and presence.
The problem is, these big companies have 101 reasons to advertise the way they do. They want to please their board of directors, appease their stockholders, look good to Wall Street, present themselves well in the eyes of the media, build brand identity, and win advertising awards.
Right at the very bottom of that list: getting customers.
The main concern for most small businesses, however, is exactly that: getting enough customers to pay the bills and, sometimes, to grow. So, allow me to introduce you to a radical idea…
Everything You See Big Brand-Name Companies Doing Is The Exact Opposite Of What Works For Small Business.
Here is what I mean. Most corporations outsource their advertising to agencies. Several agencies compete for the account. Whoever wins gets to spend the client’s budget for the period of the contract.
If sales go up whilst the advertising runs, the agency is celebrated. If sales go down, the agency is fired. And, the cycle continues.
The problem is, the link between their advertising and sales is weak at best. They have no idea whether an ad produced any sales at all, let alone how many. If sales rise, it could be due to any number of factors. So, there’s no way to know whether the advertising was effective or not. It’s very expensive and wasteful.
As I said, these companies have lots of priorities over and above getting customers and making sales. Throwing money at advertising without a return is not an issue; they have the resources to absorb the expense. And, perhaps they hope to get their money back in a future sale or an increase in share price. I don’t know. But what I do know is this: small and even medium-sized businesses do NOT have money to waste on unprofitable advertising.
For them, the purpose of advertising is to make sales. Not to satisfy some creative whim or stroke a man’s ego…
To make SALES.
Damn it! I promised myself I wouldn’t ramble on about how terrible most marketing and advertising is. But hey, at least I’ve got it out of the way early on. And the reason I bought this up in the first place is that…
This book is for small to medium sized businesses, who sell nutritional supplements, and want MEASURABLE RESULTS.
It’s for owners, presidents, marketing directors and copywriters who want to use direct response advertising to generate sales.
Specifically, you will find a roadmap for producing an effective nutritional supplement advertisement—whether that’s an online sales page, sales letter, space ad, magalog or something else.
Everything you will learn can be applied to any format, any media type, any market, and any product.
Therefore, from this point forward I will refer to the different types of advertising collectively as “ad”.