There are substantial advantages in getting your clients through print advertising. The most obvious one is that whoever contacts you from print ads has automatically qualified themselves as a hot prospect for the purchase of your product or service. From that point all you need to have is a solid sales process in place convert the prospects into buyers. To maximise the desired outcome of people contacting you from print ads, the best approach your campaign is though the “3 Ms”: Market, Media, Message.
Your target market is always the first consideration when it comes to choosing the right media. Who are your target clients? Where do they live? What are the main age groups and are they likely to read print ads? What is they main socio-economic make up. What problem or condition can you solve for them? what are the 6 main objections that they have and how can you address them? What frustrations or disappointments have they experienced with you or your competitors? The list goes on but you must take the time to walk a mile in their shoes before you even choose the publication for your print ads.
Now you have studied the market and chosen the media, what is your message going to be, and which form is it going to take? The most crucial part of your rationale for print ads starts with deciding on the style of advertising that you are going to use. The majority of small business owners still choose to do what we call the “Branding Style” of advertising… And that’s where we get excited don’t we? How cool is the ad going to look, how clever and creative is our one liner going to be? How are we going to make people remember it or even better, talk about it?
But wait! Isn’t it where we get totally confused? Where we miss the opportunity to generate the desired outcome: the phone to ring, people coming through the door and buying. As you start spending time and money (lots of it) on the coolness of your print ad, all the work you did on your target market identification gets diluted in a frantic bid to satisfy the ego of the business owner and the ego of the graphic designer. Suddenly your print ad has nothing to do with getting new clients but is merely aiming for a design award.
Well here is my tip: if this sounds familiar, and if your ad creation process is at risk of being hijacked somewhere along the lines by the egos in presence you will have to match the advertising budgets of the likes of Toyota, McDonald’s and so on. So this is where you would be well inspired to take control back and re focus on your target market. From that point you have a much better chance to create print ads that produce real return on investment
