Direct Response

I blogged yesterday about ineffective advertising. Today, I’ll talk a little about what makes an advertisement (either print or broadcast) effective.

First, let me say that it’s difficult to measure an ad’s effectiveness if you don’t provide some type of call to action and track the number of people who respond to your offer. For this kind of direct response advertising, your offer usually has to be more than a “call now for a consultation.” Often, it’s for a free demo, evaluation kit, guide or tip sheet - something that is easy for prospects to request by mail, your website, or even by calling your office - but isn’t as intimidating as setting up a consultation and possibly getting a sales pitch that wastes their time.

An effective ad must have a purpose. What do you want your ad to do? Should it educate the reader about a problem? Should it persuade the reader to do something? Or should it remind them about something?

AIDA

All good ads create Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action (AIDA).

1. Grab Their Attention: To be effective, an ad must capture your prospect’s attention somehow. Most people will barely give your ad 2 seconds of their time. They’re multitasking - eating dinner, watching the kids, reading an interesting article - so your ad must interrupt them from what they were doing long enough for them to notice.
2. Create Interest: Once you have their attention, you have to pull them in. Why should they watch your ad or read your copy? What’s in it for them? How does it meet their need?
3. Arouse Desire: Now that they’re interested, how can you persuade them to want more? What can your product or service do to alleviate a major problem they’re having? How can you appeal to their emotional need for your product or service?
4. Get Them To Take Action: The final step is to tell them what to do to find out more about your product or service. This must be as painless as possible and must be the next logical step they’d consider taking - not what you hope they’ll do. This might be to purchase your book, register for a seminar, download a free guide, or call for their initial consultation.

A recent article in this week’s MarketingProfs newsletter reminded us how to get back to basics with Direct Marketing.

The article detailed how one should build advocates to generate referrals, select the right media for your target audience, design the right offer, break through the clutter with your advertising, and measure results.

» Read Article: Back to Basics in Direct Marketing

These days, branding is out and measuring return on every marketing dollar is in. Direct response is the way to make marketing accountable. How do you do that? Always ask for the next step in every marketing piece by including an attractive offer that gets prospects to take an action such as calling you or requesting more information.

Direct response is a powerful tool that spans both online and offline marketing channels. It can be used in ads, self mailers and sales letters to get prospects to call or to visit your website. It can be used online with ads, email newsletters, and your website to capture leads. continue