The Keys To Smarter Advertising

Don't Advertise In The Dark!

As you work in this business year after year, you learn that there are many ways that you can cut your expenses and become more economical in your approaches to marketing your products, services and/or programs. One way you can minimize expenses is by testing the ads that you are using.

Everybody talks about testing publications or asks what publication does the best. That's a good question, but you need to consider the other half of the equation. What about the ad you are using? You could advertise in the best publication in the world but have a lousy ad. Of course, when that happens it is usually the publication that takes the bad rap! "Yeah, I tried that publication, and I didn't get any results." If you are getting minimal results from your ad, you might need to step back and take a look at it. You may be just throwing your advertising money away.

Whether you are marketing a product, service or a program, you should have several different ads for each. You need to test each to see how it does. One way to do it is to take two different ads for the same product or service. They should be similar in size but different in setup and copy. Run one in a publication of your choice and then run the second one in the next issue of the same publication.

It is important to "key" each ad differently so that you can tell what ad and publication the response came from. One of the easiest ways to key an ad is to use the two-step method (i.e., use an email address in the ad where readers can inquire for more details). In the ad, you can ask inquirers to put a specific phrase in the subject of the email like, "Home Income 99" and "Income At Home" for instance. One phrase is tied to the first ad and the other to the second ad. track and analyze the results.

You want to test both ads in separate issues of the same publication so that you can tell how each ad pulls responses, and then compare the results. Then try the same test with the same two ads in another publication. If one ad seems to pull better than the other, get rid of the bad one. It might also work out that you end up using a combination of both. Of course, you can conduct the same type test with your offline advertising.

Many publications have ad specials, such as buy two insertions, get a third free. When you place your order, send both ads or even three slightly different ads and ask the publisher to swap out the ad in each issue.

You want to get the best results for your advertising money, so you need to know if the ad is doing its job. And the only way you can find out is by testing it. Once you have a great pulling ad and a great publication to put it in, you are on your way to success.