Getting the Most out of Print Advertising

The response by our customers and cost of print advertising in recent years has made it a much less desirable option than direct mail or Internet marketing. Using print can still be a highly effective way to generate new leads. Always try to work with the newspaper to get a better deal. Create a remnant ad that can run anytime. That way when they have a space that they need to fill, you will have a shot at it.

How do you get the best value for your money out of print advertising? Here are a few tips:

 

1. Make sure your headline will grab the customer's attention. Spend a lot of time coming up with many headlines to use and they choose the most compelling one. They won't read the rest of the ad if you don't first grab them with a great headline.  
2. Customers are all about them and how your product will benefit them, so be sure to include the key benefit of your offering in the headline of your ad.
3. Have a reason for a sale or special offering ie: over stock, special purchase. 
4. Help your prospective clients connect the dots, by pointing out the specific applications of your goods or services so people can relate to them immediately.
5. Focus on communicating key points in such a way that they can be picked up easily when someone skims your ad. Everyone is pressed for time these days, so use bullet points, headings and illustrations to get your point across in the most economical way.
6. Use testimonials in your print ads, but make them credible by including the name and city of the person you are quoting.
7. Give your sales prospects a reason to act on your ad: offer a free sample, trial or consultation.
8. If you are looking to generate commercial accounts steer clear of image ads and focus instead on delivering your message and sharing the benefits that your products or services have to offer. Businesses want to save time or money.  
9. Always include a way to track your ad like a coupon or special offer that you don't offer elsewhere.
10. Create urgency by including a deadline in the ad.  

Monday, Feb. 27 from 10:15 am to 11:15 am

There's Gold in Those Old Customers!

Instructor: Howard Anderson, Long View Retail Consulting

Learn how you can turn a one time customer into a customer for life. Many think of a Central Vacuum installation as the end of a relationship with the customer. After all, it will last for 7-15 years, right? Wrong! Howard will show you how to make more money after the sale than you did with the original sale and keep that money coming in year after year. It's like having an annuity. After 32 years in the Central Vacuum business Howard has unlocked the code for profit and will share that with you. This class is a must for people who are in the Central Vacuum Business and struggling to make ends meet or anyone who just want to make more money. This is all new information that Howard has never shared.


The One Thing You Need to Know for 2012

Instructor: Howard Anderson, Long View Retail Consulting

There is a lot of pain in our industry. People going out of business. Some retiring and having no buyers for a business they spent years to build. What's new that you can do to get out of pain and into enjoying your business? This seminar will discuss the latest ways to build a lasting business for the future. We have a great industry. There are huge winners in this business. What are they doing to compete and win that could help you? Do you want to make more profit? Just one thing from this information packed class could change your business forever. Howard's classes are famous for having great content, thought provoking ideas and standing room only! This is a must seminar. Don't be late.

Call it ecclesiastical horse sense
Joe went to the racetrack one afternoon. As he was consulting the racing form, he saw a priest step onto the track and bless one of the horses on the forehead. The horse was a long shot, but Joe thought, "With a priest's blessing, this horse has got to win." He ran to the window to place his bet, and, sure enough, the horse came in first.

A few races later, the priest again stepped onto the track and blessed another horse's forehead. This horse was also a long shot, but Joe was feeling lucky, so he placed a larger bet on that horse. Again, it won.

One hour later, right before the last race of the day, the priest stepped onto the track again and blessed a horse on the forehead, eyes, ears, and hooves. Like the others, this horse was also a long shot. Joe decided to go for broke, and he went to the window to wager everything he'd won so far on this last horse. The horse came in last.

Dejected, Joe left the track. But out in the parking lot he spotted the priest. "Hey, Father," he shouted. "What happened? You blessed two horses, and they won. Then at the last race you blessed a horse, I bet everything, and the horse lost."

The priest sighed. "Some people just can't tell the difference between a simple blessing and the Last Rites.".

The Renegade Millionaire Way

 
by Dan S. Kennedy
 
Being About Something More Than Chicken

Each year, the Chick-Fil-A restaurant chain, famous for its tongue-in-cheek ads featuring cows urging folks to "eat more chicken", has a Cow Appreciation Day. Customers who come in dressed up as cows eat and drink for free. Anybody wearing anything with a cow pattern - hat, cap, shirt - gets a sandwich free. Last year, 400,000 people came in dressed up as cows. The guy who started this chain was a bona-fide Renegade Millionaire. Even though many of their shops are in malls, they're all closed on Sundays nationwide, because he believes in rest and time with family on the Sabbath. If a mall won't let them close, they don't go in the mall at all. Hasn't hurt them. In 2011, at mid-year, they were up system-wide by about 12% in same store sales vs. prior year, the chain is growing, the company profitable. I believe it's the founder's son running the show now. I saw him on Fox-Financial, cheerfully and goofily dressed up as a cow, pitching Cow Appreciation Day.

A lot of people let ego, often undeserved ego, stand in the way of achievement. They envy others their wealth, but aren't willing to totally put themselves out there to get it for themselves.  On the other hand, a lot of people operate without underlying principles and a strong navigational system, so they are easily blown off course. The folks running this particular company have clear, firm values. One is that customers have fun. That's something missing from too many businesses: nobody's having any fun. The experience of being a customer is, at best, ordinary; at worst, terrible.

I like to ask business owners what their business is about. What they're doing. Small-thinking shopkeepers always answer in terms of core deliverables. We clean carpets, we cut hair, we sell insurance. Slightly more sophisticated students of marketing tend to give boilerplate marketing message answers: we help people protect their financial futures. Executives at big dumb companies usually quote the vaguest of mission statements. But there's little juice in any of that. At one point, Trump set out to change the skyline of New York City. Well, that's something. When you tell people that's what we're all about here, you can capture their imagination. That has juice. I set out in 1975 to introduce more people to 'success education' than any other person or company ever had, and I believe I've done that, although I'm not quitting just yet. That has juice. And it's navigational; you can ask about everything you might do, is it fulfilling that purpose?  It's good to be about something significant and inspirational. Then, when somebody asks you what you do, and you tell them, they get that you're about something interesting and will want to know more about it, may be interested in helping you, or being a part of it somehow, if only as a customer. One of the essential ingredients of the Magnetic Marketing® that I've taught is creating something that is magnetic. Most businesspeople are thinking too much about how to sell their stuff - not enough about to make it and themselves magnetically attractive, so the selling of stuff occurs naturally.