Six Essentials of a Successful Ad Program

If you are new to advertising, or if you're using media or publications you haven't tried before, it's important to assign your ads to outside specialists rather than try to create them yourself. These specialists may be the creative group at an advertising agency, a freelance writer and designer, or the ad department of the newspaper, magazine, TV channel or radio station where you plan to advertise. Such people are experienced in translating information about a product or service, target market, U.S.P. and advertising goals into advertising that suits each medium and conveys an effective image and sales message. Moreover, it's extremely helpful to work with and learn from specialists for several years before you consider doing advertising in-house.

Whether you work with specialists or create advertising on your own, here are six guidelines to follow in developing an ad program:

1. Do your homework. Start compiling your own ad file. Collect ads you like, to give you ideas, as well as ads run by your competitors, so you can monitor what they're doing. Read books on advertising, including anthologies of the best ads of the year, how-to's by advertising greats.

2. "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." The old rule about selling products based on the benefits and excitement they provide has proved true time and time again. So focus on your U.S.P. -- and on those intangibles that motivate human behavior and generate sales. This rule does not apply to Yellow Pages ads, which do sell steak, but it remains the essence of all other advertising you do.

3. Stick to your own image and personality. Stay with the basics of who you are. Make sure that the personality and image projected in all your advertising ring true.

4. Work as a team with your ad rep or ad agency. The best advertising results from a synergy of your expertise in your business and your ad specialists' expertise in advertising. Carefully explain your product, market and goals, and let the ad people go from there to develop their ideas. Advertising is a give-and-take process, and both sides need to communicate and work together, without dictating, until the outcome feels right.

5. Give each advertising medium you choose a fair test. Advertising rarely brings sales overnight. Run your ad at least five times -- or at least two months in weekly publications -- to test out the market properly. Often, consumers need to get used to seeing your ad before they'll act on it. Results take time.

6. Don't overlook current customers. Nobody sells you better than a satisfied customer. So in your efforts to gain sales from new prospects, remember that you can build sales equally well through the customer referrals and repeat purchases of existing clientele. Maintain a mailing list and, at your earliest opportunity, start producing sale notices, newsletters, catalogues, or other goodwill and sales-generating materials for the customers you already have. Some of these items lend themselves to a direct mail campaign targeted at new prospects as well.

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