There are many reasons your local marketing doesn't succeed. Here are a few of the most popular reasons.
Using "Image local advertising"
Most image local advertising is generated by an local marketing agency. Image advertisements are created to sell the ad to the advertiser, not sell the thing you sell to the customer. Image advertisements are helpful in one way. They make the local advertising more valuable. It's a lot easier to sell something if the name is accepted. Credibility has already been partially established. But you still need the local marketing to get the customers off the couch and into the small retail business. Image advertisements generate familiarity. Local advertisements produce the desire to get the merchandise now. Great ads create the value in the thing you sell, and a motive to buy it promptly.
High expectations
Some exceptional ads will generate revenue at ten or twenty times their cost. But most lucrative ads break even with merely a modest profit earned. If your ads break even, you have acquired a new buyer at no expense. Most flourishing companies are content if their advertisements break even. They are "buying their herd" without cost. The vast majority of the proceeds are made on the relationship you have developed with the buyer, not from the first sale. But making a profit on the first sale is simply done if you go by a few uncomplicated rules.
Consumers can't see the advertisement.
If you are in the wrong segment of the newspaper, you will not be seen by your most probable buyers. If you are on a radio station that plays Heavy Metal music, and you promote hearing aids, your most likely consumers won't hear your advertisement. You need to advertise where your customers are.
Potential consumers don't read it.
This may be painful to be told. Nobody will read your ad if they aren't compelled to by your headline. Your company name is not a headline. It produces no advantage. It produces no demand. A headline needs to grab the reader's attention, and create instant interest, or the reader won't read the advertisement.
Slogans are not headlines. "We service what we sell" is not a headline. Read magazine covers. Everything printed on the cover is a headline. They are intended to make you want to read more.
Look at a newspaper. Each piece has a headline. The newspaper itself has a headline. Would you ever read an article without a headline? Not at all. Headlines are a method for the reader to "skim" through the newspaper (or TV, Radio, Direct Mail) to stumble on something that grabs their attention and interests them. Each profitable ad has a headline, and it really is nearly always at the top of the ad.
Advertisements create no value
This is a main cause of ads failing. The reader has to see, in the ad, how they are benefitting. If you are advertising a product for $500, you better exhibit not less than $1,000 of value in the ad.
Ads are trying to be cute
The first place many "creative" ad writers go is the Clever route. Cute, humorous, wily ads are fun to make and feel like they should produce a profit. Here's why they don't; Clever ads make the reader-listener-viewer think about the ad. You want them thinking about the offer. Have you ever seen an infomercial? Do they employ jingles? Sing songs? Tell jokes? Nope. Have you ever had a sales presentation? That's what an ad really is, a sales presentation in print. Profitable sales presentations concentrate on three things; Benefits, benefits, and benefits. The shopper is wanting to know "What's in it for me? What do I get? How does it benefit me?".
"Clever" entertains. "Giving the consumers an irresistible offer" sells
Author Resource:
Marketing and small business expert Claude Whitacre is the author of the book The Unfair Advantage Small Business Advertising Manual. You can download a complete copy for free at http://www.local-small-business-advertising-marketing-book.com . You can also just buy the paperback at http://www.claudewhitacre.com
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