Or, to put it another way: Print advert design tips for businesses looking for advertising idea
By David Tingley
Advertisers often tell us: I don’t know what should go on my advert! Many small business owners are the same. Typically, we don’t start off in business as a marketing expert – most of us start businesses doing something which we know how to do. Which means, IF that isn’t marketing, then it can be confusing to know where to start, trying to put together an advert design for a printed magazine – like Lindfield Life or Haywards Heath Life.
I have created a video specifically for this, which you can watch here:
But here’s the highlights of it…
1) Make your headline BIG.
According to those that know, a headline on a printed advertisement should take up around 25% of the total space of the ad! That’s a lot, right!?
The principal here is that you want to write a headline which resonates with your target audience. Often posing a question is a great way to engage their brains? ‘Are you fed up with high electricity bills?’, ‘Looking for a kids holiday club, this Easter?’ or ‘Too busy to fix that dripping tap?’
You want a reader of the publication to not be able to ignore the headline as they flick through the pages. This is one of the big tricks with print ads – you have to arrest the reader while they are doing something else!
2) Use a powerful image
If you are selling a product, of course its likely that that image would be a box shot of what you buy. And for service industries, its a good idea to think of something which sums up the problem that you solve. If you’re a bathroom installer, its likely to be an image of a beautiful bathroom you recently fitted. A florist will want to show their amazing, creative arrangements.
And, for businesses that are people-focussed (think, physiotherapists, solicitors, and home helpers) it is a great idea to show the people who are doing the work in a professional way, and that they are lovely and approachable. Images of people on ads, are a brilliant way to show your team, and build trust with your potential customers.
3) Include an offer
An offer is a great way to test and measure advertising effectiveness. But – be warned – it has to be an offer of notable value to the customer! AVOID 10% off – as that doesn’t really mean anything of value to most businesses, and customers just assume that you are raising prices, before you then give the offer discount!
Ideally, an offer can be of great value to the customer, but little cost to your business. What offer could you give to new customers? You will also want to consider how much a lifetime value of a new customer is worth to your business, so that you know how much you are prepared to ‘spend’ to get a new one!
The other factor to an offer, is to include a closing/end date – hence creating a need to make a decision within a specific time frame.
4) Call to action
Every advertisement should contain a call to action. This is the next thing you want the reader to do. Phrases like ‘buy now’, or ‘call today’ are important triggers for people to do something.
A call to action can include call tracking numbers – these are digital phone numbers which simply forward to your main line number. The benefit of these services is that number of calls to those numbers can often be tracked numerically. Thus making the idea of having a different phone number per advertising stream, might be a good way to track effectiveness, and Return On Investment.
Other classic calls to action include a specific web page to point people to, and using QR codes now is a great way to push a reader in print, straight to your digital space, and onto the one page you want them to read next!
5) Put your company logo at the BOTTOM of your advertisement
No one cares who you are, before they know whether they want to buy your product or service! And yet many businesses owners are desperate to put their beloved logo at the TOP of their ad – probably because the name is really important to them, or they paid a lot of money for the branding!
You definitely want to make it possible for readers to recognise your brand, and that is important – but it isn’t as important as someone being hit with a great headline question and a powerful image to draw them in, and make them stop from turning the page too quickly!
