An ad deadline is approaching and you must write a clever, convincing advertisement. So what do you do? First of all, type, print out and paste at the top of your computer monitor the following question: "What do you want them to do?"

If you cannot answer that question clearly and succinctly in one sentence, readers and/or hearers will never figure it out. Rule No. 1: do not make your audience exert mental effort to dig into or understand your ad. They won't do it. They are too busy and there are too many other things clamoring for their attention.

So, you decide that your purpose is to create brand awareness for your product or service. Well and good. But remember that merely trumpeting the fact that your product or service is available for the taking will result in few takers. Many ads appear as nothing but small-scale billboards, loudly proclaiming that the advertiser's widgets are in the world, but never giving the readers or hearers any reason why in the world they should be interested.

Brand awareness is build best by close attention to the F-A-B chain: Features--Advantages--Benefits. Recitations of product or service features do not move prospective buyers-unless they are led to consider the advantages that are inherent in those features. But neither does citing advantages move buyers--unless they are then led to consider the benefits those advantages will bring them.

Remember the time-honored old dictum: people who buy quarter-inch drills do not want quarter-inch drills; what they really want is quarter-inch holes. So...now that you have pointed out holes in your advertising argument (pardon the bad joke), how do you motivate the prospects to take some action. Simple answer: make it easy.

If what you want them to do as a result of your brand awareness ad is to contact you for more information, perhaps to get your product or service literature, feature an 800 number in your ad. Don't have an 800 or toll-free number? Get one! Remember that your first concern is not your telephone bill; it is leading people to get in touch with you. And you need to make the process as simple and as painless as possible for the prospect. And make double and triple sure that whoever answers the phone at your end understands what you are doing and can speak pleasantly and knowledgably to callers.

Many prospects will prefer to look you up on your web site. Your web site should be well-designed, completely up-to-date and easy to navigate. Get a friend to click it up and tell you whether it fills these bills or not. If you want your product/service awareness ad campaign to generate good leads and lots of them, get your web site address up front and be sure the site is helpful and not mysterious to someone who does not know you, but wants to know more.

And remember that advertising campaigns work best through repetition: repetition, repetition, repetition. Take a cue from the national television advertisers, who constantly repeat their commercials. Prospects who are not moved to action by their first encounter with your message may be stimulated to act by their third or fourth or fifth.