Cheap and Effective Advertising Techniques

14Apr2009 Filed under: Advertising, Marketing Author: Bikash

If your advertising efforts haven’t worked, try these tips for writing an ad that gets results.

Probably you have just started your freelance business or your work from home business. You had some money and so you put in many advertisements in different media. You have put in advertisements in the local newspaper and the periodicals. You have sent fliers flying all around the city. You are waiting for the results and nothing has come by now. Only one customer has called you in the last month. What do you do now? You though about using the yellow pages but you will need to wait for it till it comes out after 3 months. You are wondering how other businesses like your get business do.

Answer:

The first thing that we recommend is that you stay away from the Yellow Pages idea right now. Before that you will need to do many things. Before you go for a yellow page, you will have to find a message that works for you. You have seen that none of your messages is working for you right now. The problem is not with your selection of media rather your message. Probably your message is not good enough to get attention and response.

Now before your ads work the best, you will need to try out a few things and may be few different messages. Before we go deep down into the water let’s become familiar with a few words that we will sue in the next paragraphs -

FMI (first mental image)

LMI (last mental image)

FMI (first mental image) is the image that your listeners or ad viewers see when they read your ads.

LMI (last mental image) is the last image that your listeners or ad viewers see at the last of your ad.

Great ads have great FMI. The opening lines of such great ads are fantastic and they catch the necessary attention of the viewers. The FMI is the first image that your viewers see in their minds, so it should be interesting enough. Now let’s take an example

“A big, golden, long……”

And

“An apple, bright red, big and juicy was hanging from the tree”

In thee two sentences which one do you think will be more attention catching and effective- the first one which does not have show you anything or the second one which help you to visualize a juicy, red, big Apple? The second line offers you something imaginable.

In many case, you will find that your FMI is buried into your ad in many lines after the opening. Instead isn’t it wise to let the heavy, huge, black Rhino charge ahead (Imaginable, isn’t it?) and get the right attention in the beginning? Now take your old advertising copy and scan downwards. After a few lines, you will find your FMI. Now, simply strike off the starting lines before the FMI. Find out the unexpected words and see how you can seize the attention of your readers with your ad.

Action words are big and these are what you need here. Action words which often have thread left on them are great for your advertising copy. AVOID the verbs which are long used and are worn with use. Some of the interesting action verbs that add energy to the ad are -wallop, snip, smack, jolt, bury, drop, scan, find, rip, fling, seize, open, avoid, write, croak, kill, sting, slap, and vibrate.

You can use all those adjective modifiers and you may lure your junior high classmates but not your customers. So what do you do? Simply croak the modifiers with action-word/verb bullets. In advertising, you will have to shoot to kill. Use the action words and the unexpected verbs. (Did you find some action words and verbs in the previous paragraphs?)

If you are writing your ads yourself, then let a second editor edit them. It may not sound good (or may even hurt your ego), but it is better than hurting your bottom lines in business. Take help of an experienced editor, if you want your ads to be effective.

The LMI

The LMI (last mental image) is also very important for your advertisements. With the MI, you have one task to complete- loop back to the FMI. It completes the mental circuit and then drives the memory of the message ever deeper into the mind.

The perfect ad will make your readers imagine what you want them to imagine. It will make them take the action you want them to.

One important point: Never ever use the word” imagine” in your ad. Why? Ok “imagine” is a nice word but it will tip the users and then your ad will lose its shine. Would you tell a gorgeous girl “I will now complement you because then you will pay attention to me?” You need to cause your readers imagine and not tell to imagine.

As you have almost completed the page, let’s make it complete with a list