Advertising is a fun thing to do for the advertising practitioner but not so much for the business owner shelling out their pockets.
I studied advertising in college and I thought that advertising was cool. You could make those wonderful, radical,colorful,creative, emotional commercials and print ads. And win those awards and be recognized by your industry.
But after treating my art practice more as a business and less a something I do for fun only. But something for fun and profit :) I had another perspective of what advertising is.
I remember the great Dan Kennedy noting that, "One should be wary of agencies that win a lot of awards". Because just because the advertisement won a lot of awards and recognition and is very pretty and creative doesn't mean it would convert nicely to profits.
One thing common about award winning commercials that you can see that obviously wasteful for the business owner is the minimized area and sometimes omitted contact information about the business. Most of these award winning ads are focused on the story, on the "brand, on the image on entertaining.
But not so much on entertaining the business owner with tons of cash coming in from that expensive advertisement. And most of us small business owners only have so much money to invest in advertising.
So we need those ads to convert and convert well. And when you begin to study marketing with you you will learn that good profit inducing advertisements are direct-response oriented.
They are focused on the benefits that your customers will get with working with you, on the pains that you will cure for them, your offer and a compelling,irresistible offer for them to give your business a call and for them get money out of their pocket to your pocket.
For them to say, "John, take my cash cure my marketing pains."
Direct response marketing is testable, trackable thus can be tested, optimized and leveraged for better results :D
Your thoughts on wasting money in advertising?
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