Deadly Yellow Page Ad Design
Mistake #1 – Is using Image style advertising and your business name as your headline in your print or Yellow Page ad design. This is the biggest overwhelming mistake I see in print and Yellow Page advertising. Small business advertisers try to emulate the huge multi-national company’s ads with Image and Branding style advertising. Image and Branding
style advertising is only viable for companies with sales in excess of $100
million per year.
What small business marketers need to be using is Direct Response advertising and marketing strategies. A good direct response headline will contain the 2 or 3 of the most sought after benefits your ideal prospect seeks. Or your headline can ask a challenging question as my mentor, Dan Kennedy prefers. Either way you go, the goal is to have a powerful headline that stops your ideal target prospect in their tracks and forces them to read every word of your ad. Your business name is unable to accomplish this effect.
Deadly Yellow Page Ad
Design Mistake #2 – Letting your print or Yellow Page salesperson design your ad. I was shocked to learn that the Yellow Page publisher’s goal is to have all their ads perform equally. You see if one ad outperforms the others, the other advertisers will complain that the advertiser with the outstanding ad got preferential treatment which causes legal liability. So their goal is to design all the ads to perform equally.
Your sales representative does not have the time or know-how to design an outstanding ad so they ask, “Do you have a business card? I’ll just design your ad from that”, and you get a mediocre ad design. You need to hire a direct response marketing expert in print and Yellow Page ad design who has a proven track record of success. Your increase in ROI will more than pay for their money-making marketing strategies.
Deadly Yellow Page Ad
Design Mistake #3 – Is failing to include an offer. An ad is not a direct response marketing ad unless it has an offer. Your offer is the marketing
strategy that “knocks prospects off the fence of indecision”. The offer is what
causes the prospect who is weighing the benefits of several ads to immediately reach for the phone and call your business first. The best offers remove or reduce the risk of the prospect doing business with you. So the best offers are a free sample or trial offer which removes 100% of the risk for your new prospect.
Deadly Yellow Page Ad
Design Mistake #4 – Is failing to include testimonials. What you say about yourself in an ad is immediately discounted due to your “biased position”. But testimonials from satisfied clients are pure gold in your advertising. Have a testimonial system, like the one in my Gold Mastery system, which causes 100% of your clients to obligate themselves to give you a testimonial and watch the nice comments come in. Some marketers encourage writing the testimonial for the client. I frown on this unscrupulous practice, and new FTC testimonial guidelines prohibit and access huge fines for this type of behavior. Let your clients give you testimonials, and you will be blown away what nice comments they make. The other thing that
testimonials do is allow word of mouth to be heard with out the prospect having to be there when it was said. The use of testimonials in my marketing agency has dramatically increased the effects of “word of mouth referrals” by
expanding their exposure.
Deadly Yellow Page Ad
Design Mistake #5 – Is failing to use risk-reversal and have a guarantee. Having a guarantee in your ad answers the second question in the prospect’s mind which is, “What is the downside of doing business with this company?” When you offer a risk-reversal guarantee, it lowers the barrier of the new prospect doing business with you, and lets them prove to themselves what a terrific value you provide. Ads with a well conceived guarantee will outperform ads with out one every time. Do not underestimate the
power of this direct response marketing strategy.
Deadly Yellow Page Ad
Design Mistake #6 – Is describing features, not benefits in your bullet points. Most small business owners are very proud of equipment they own, and brag about them in their ads. But the prospect is not familiar with the machine, so listing the machine’s name offers no obvious benefit to them. What you want to do is ask yourself, “What is the benefit to the prospect?” Then list the most sought after benefits as your bullet points.
Deadly Yellow Page Ad
Design Mistake #7 – Is using too many graphics and uncaptioned photos that kill the eyeflow through the ad. You should be able to take a pen or pencil and draw a continuous line through your ad where the eye would go. Many ads have multiple graphics and photos which causes the prospects eye to jump over the benefits in your ad and move on the ad next to yours of below yours. Using photos and graphics in the wrong way is advertising suicide. I have spent the last 3 years teaching my graphic artist
how to get this right every time in my direct response marketing agency.