Page 138 - 101 Ways to Market Your Business

MAKE EVERYDAY ADVERTISING IDEAS WORK

Quite often I hear people complaining that an adver-
tisement didn’t work. The business blames the publication.
Nine times out of ten I look at the advertisement and it
is a jumbled mass of information that is hard to read, has
too much colour and too many words.

Very few businesses take the time to ask their customers
how they heard about their business so they don’t really
know if their advertisements are working or not.

I often flick through directories like the Yellow Pages
and newspapers to see what type of advertisements catch
my eye. You can try doing the same thing. If it stands out
enough to catch your eye try to determine what made it
so effective.

One funny story I heard recently was about an Ameri-
can phone book. A takeaway pizza company was offering
a free pizza for anyone who brought in another pizza
restaurant’s advertisement cut out from the Yellow Pages.
The end result is clear—but as you would expect there were
a few very unhappy pizza shop owners in the area.

The point I am making is to put a lot of thought into
your advertising. Take the time to do a good advertisement,
not a rushed, jumbled mess that is guaranteed to have no
result. Yellow Pages is relatively expensive but very effective
for most businesses.

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