Tips for businesses advertising on Just Keep Looking.
by Frank Haywood.
(c) We R Bazaar 2006

"Sell the sizzle, not the steak."

A common thing that we all do to a greater or lesser degree is to tell our potential customers about ourselves. Those of us that have websites usually have "About Us" buttons with pages about how long we've been in business, where we're based, our qualifications etc. This is all good stuff, and helps in pre-building a relationship.

But what the customer really wants to know is what you can do for them. People are normally only concerned in their family and themselves and what goes on in their own lives. They're not interested that you've been in business since 1992, or have 3,000 or 30,000 customers on your books. That's what you're interested in, and just because it's important to you doesn't mean it's important at all to your customers.

On a subconscious level, people know that experience doesn't necessarily mean skill. But it's not something you'd consider when writing an ad.

The real selling point for a customer is when you describe to them how their lives will improve when they deal with you. If you can get that across when none of your competitors do (or they do it badly), it's a done deal.

Think about it. When you're looking for something you want, more than anything you need someone to tell you they can supply it. You'd probably also look in several places and compare before going ahead. There's a good chance you wouldn't be looking for information about the business on your first pass, that would come later, "to make sure". Only then would you make the contact.

Most people are just like you in that respect.

In your ads, tell them how much better they'll feel at having what you have to offer, how carefully you'll look after them, and what a rosier place the world will be for them when they deal with you. That doesn't mean for you to be untruthful, just be genuinely enthusiastic and upbeat about how much better they will feel.

And where possible use testimonials from previous customers. These are fantastic sellers of a product or service as they're written in the first person tense, and describe first hand how happy other people are with what you've done for them. These are easy to get too, just ask for them!

Most people like to tell it like it is, and if you have a particularly happy customer, ask them for some words, first letting them know they're going to be put online and where. You can't even make up some of the great material that comes back. A happy customer will tell you why they're happy, when you didn't even know you'd done something right!

This leads onto...

"Cure not prevention"

Now there's a strange heading in an article on advertising tips for businesses.

Q. What do people want more than anything?
A. They have a problem, and they want the cure.

What they need (and this is almost certainly true about most of us) is to prevent the problem in the first place. But that would involve some effort and forward planning, and people only have so much spare time to enjoy themselves, so that's prevention right out of the window.

Let's have an example. If I exercised a little more (or at all) then I'd lose a few pounds, which would be great. But I'm really busy, and I find it difficult and tiresome to take regular formal exercise. So every year of my life I'll put on another pound (or two) until I have a health problem caused by being overweight.

Then what I'll want is the cure. That's what I'll want someone to sell me in a few years time.

And that's what you, whether you realise it or not, are selling. The cure. Just as was mentioned above, people buy things they want, they don't buy things because they need them. Sure they might need them too, but it's only when they want them that they'll buy. So sell them what they want. Or make them want what you sell when they see your ad.

"Words and pictures, smoke and mirrors"

Have you noticed that most ads in newspapers and magazines are all the same? They use different words, different pictures, but underneath it, they follow the same format. Some great pictures and a few nice sentences, and (sometimes) some contact details.

I've looked at some ads and wondered what was being advertised. Seriously.

I've seen ads that were intriguing, but didn't make any sense.

I've puzzled as to why I should even consider buying something when in a two-page spread, there isn't one word about what the item can do for me.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why? If you've spent even more than a few minutes thinking about it, you've probably come to the conclusion that it's because everyone else does it that way, so it must be right.

Well why is it? I think advertising is regarded as a necessary evil by a lot of businesses, and so they're glad to let someone else write the copy and create the ad for them. But this is something that can be expensive and says a lot about your business, and is *crucial* to your business, so why let another company do it?

Let's have a think about the hows and whys. How did this come about and why does it continue?

Let's say you're a newspaper owner and you're selling space by the column centimetre. As the owner, what would you prefer? Effective, wordy advertising with no pictures? Or an ad with a big lively picture and a few slogans?

In the first case, a well written ad is of most use to the advertiser and their customers, but it's just plain old text and doesn't look so good on the page. As the newspaper owner, you prefer plenty of pictures to break the space up and make it look interesting.

The second case is much better for the newspaper. You've used all your expensive advertising space on an unimportant logo or picture. Nobody but the advertiser is interested in the logo. As the newspaper owner, you tell the advertiser what a geat looking ad they've got, and flattered, the advertiser thinks it's all been a good job.

But then, because the advertising isn't so effective, the advertiser needs to buy the same ad space week after week. And they can only ever get in a few words because there's a big fat logo taking up most of the space.

It's win-win for the newspaper. They tell you what you need (which suits them) or you have a pre-conceived idea about what makes good advertising material. Because everyone else does it like that.

But it's been proven that "copy only" (words only) ads outperform the "pretty" ads. Words can make people want things they didn't know they wanted, a picture usually can't do that.

The problem is, if the advertiser wants to put more words in, then they need a larger ad space, and then the newspaper advises them to use a bigger logo or picture, and then to balance it, the words need to be bigger, and suddenly, they're no better off.

Horrible isn't it?

It's all smoke and mirrors. Advertisers being convinced, or convincing themselves into doing the same thing.

"Time for change"

Even until now, online advertising has followed the same mantra as above. I see ads all over the web that are left overs from the world of print. Even the really big online advertising web sites follow the rules above. It's like they're stuck in a time warp.

Crazy.

Why should this be? The price of electrons is so low as to be almost unmeasurable. So come on! Place big, wordy ads. Yes, it takes a little effort to begin with, but your customers will love you for it. If they're looking for your goods or service, they want to know a lot about what you're offering.

Here's my tips then. Please if you'd like to add anything to this.

Description, description, description
Use plenty of words. Break away from the conventional "18 words or less" advertising habit. If someone is interested in your goods or services, then they want to know all about what you can offer them.

You know all there is to know about your own line of business, but to many people it's a new topic. Educate them. They'll appreciate you doing so by most likely using you rather than anyone else.

Think of it like this. It might feel like a bit of a bind while writing it, but afterwards it becomes your "silent sales machine", working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Your words make the sale before you even know you have a customer.

Bullet points
These are an ideal way of pointing out the benefits of your business, and they don't have to be one or two words either. Here's an important rule when writing bullets; first the feature followed by the benefit.

Put another way, what feature of your business, service or product makes you stand out? And what's the benefit of that feature?

Take the offensive without being offensive
Let your potential customers know what they should be looking out for when shopping around for your type of business/service/product. And just as importantly, let them know about things they should be wary of while looking!

This is an ideal chance to lift yourself above the competition. But be nice! Nobody likes arrogance.

Easy to read
Use small sentences, small paragraphs of no more than 3 sentences, and easy to understand words. The average reading age of the UK population is around 12-14. Yes, 12-14 . So if you get a bit clever, you'll be going right over the head of your potential customers.

Good looking graphics
If you have almost any kind of picture related to your business or a logo, then use it. "A picture paints a thousand words" is often quoted, and while I'm not sure that counts online, a good picture or even a logo breaks up what would otherwise be a large chunk of text.

Make sure your email address works
If you have a link to your web site, click it yourself from time to time and make sure your web site still works! While checking a collection of links in local newspapers to advertisers websites, around 15% of them didn't work and just displayed an error. When I looked closer, the domains of the web sites advertised didn't even exist any more, they'd lapsed and been deleted.

The same is true of some advertisers showing email addresses. Around 5%-10% of those didn't work. So that's paid for advertising down the drain and makes the advertisers look stupid. Who would deal with a business that advertises out of date information?

Bigger web sites
If you do have a web site, it could always do with being bigger. You should add to it every month, preferably every two weeks or less. This keeps it active in the search engines, and always gives returning customers more information and keeps everything fresh. If you can help it, don't treat your web site as if it was an umoving, fixed in print glossy brochure.

Add to it, treat it nicely, it's your silent sales machine working 24 x 7 for you.

If you're one of the people who have had a web site and then not seen any benefit from it, keep at it. Although the internet is instant, getting the attention you crave isn't, and it can take months or years to build a site into a busy stream of customers. Then it's just free advertising!

Treat your online advertising in the same way. Amend it regularly, look after it, and keep it well groomed. Try different things and see what works well, and don't discard things just because they don't work straight away. Think of online advertising as a long term effort, the rewards will come later.

Use HTML formatting
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, and you can use it to give text different attributes such as bold, italics or colour or all three. Don't worry, you don't need to know HTML commands as we supply a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) online editor where you can highlight text and then just click a button to change the colour etc. Use it carefully and it can make your ad look better.

Tell customers what you do, not who you are
If you were looking for a plumber, then "J Smith Ltd. est. 1993" doesn't really tell you much does it?

If you're a plumber, then probably the best thing to put in big words on your ad is one word - "PLUMBER". That grabs the attention of someone who is looking for a plumber. Who and where you are, and your contact details go at the bottom of the ad where they belong. The middle bit should tell your prospective customers how good you are, how happy your existing customers are, etc.

Answer email queries quickly
Within 2 hours is acceptable to most people, longer and you may lose the sale to someone more responsive. I know this isn't always possible due to the nature of some businesses, but it should be made a routine part of your working day. i.e. if you're out all day, then as soon as you get back, you should check your email and reply to it as soon as possible.

I've written to companies and waited two weeks before receiving an answer. By that time I'd found someone else...