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Ad Copy

Ad Design by Design

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Ad design and layout is equal parts art and science. The science is the math in knowing what converts and how well. The art comes from the creative. A strong call to action with a solid USP always wins. But how you position those components on the page – direct mail – flyer – even website matters just as much. So today I want to give you some ideas on what to include in your ad design as well as where to place it on the page.

Headline use

The last thing you want to do is put your company name in the headline. I know you love the name of your business, but your readers could care less. They want to know what’s in it for them. So use this space to target the buyer.

“We’ll solve your air conditioning problem in two hours or less…guaranteed!” is much more effective than “Bob’s Heating & Air Conditioning – Home of The Happy Heater!”

Key ingredients

Just like the cakes and pies our Moms used to make from scratch, there are key ingredients to creating ads from both a content standpoint as well as a design perspective. So, if your ads contain nothing else, make sure you have the following 5 key ingredients:

  1. Never talk about yourself, always target the buyer
  2. You have to have a USP, or hook, or whatever you want to call an attention grabber
  3. Focus on your copy and your graphics since graphics tell the story of your copy
  4. Obviously, your name, phone number and website are a must
  5. List your convenience and trust factors – “24 Hour Emergency Service” is a good example while listing any industry associations or memberships help with trust factor along with years in business, family run company or photos of principles.

Typeface and Fonts

Mix it up a bit by using 2 or 3 typefaces to showcase specific talking points from your ad copy, and never use all caps. While you are at it, avoid compartmentalizing the ad by placing lines that separate copy from pictures.

Design factors

You also need to make sure that your picture doesn’t interfere with your ad copy. So if you have one big picture underneath your text, make sure the ad copy is clear to the reader.

Use bullet points in rows to draw attention to services, features and benefits, and highlights you want to make sure the reader looks at. If nothing else, readers look at the headline and bullet points of ads.

When using a photo, show an image of the user gaining a benefit from your product or service. Emergency type services (plumbers/tree removal/roofers) love to show the pain side of advertising, but people are already feeling the pain, that is why they are looking at your ad (usually) so provide them with the “pleasure” effect with your image.

Make sure your photos face into the ad, not away from it.

And finally, be stingy with color, only highlighting the MAJOR points of the ad copy will draw the most attention to those points.

Contractor Marketing Ideas: What Are Benefits?

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Yesterday I talked about the difference between features and benefits. After re-reading the post, I came up with an even easier way for you to determine the difference between the two. Benefits answer the “What’s in it for me?” question every consumer has when looking for a home improvement contractor.

That’s why your marketing has to be about results

A customer’s perception of each of your features is what moves them to action. When someone chooses a self-cleaning pool vacuum, the assumption is that the benefit is convenience, and the results are that they won’t have to clean their pool as much.

When you only talk about features, the customer is responsible for figuring out how it is going to either give them pleasure or remove pain. But people are lazy…or busy, or whatever, so make it easy for them by spelling it out for them, because that is the advertising they are going to be drawn to.More

Targeting Buyers With PPC Advertising

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PPC advertising, done correctly, allows you to reach a valuable, ready-to-buy set of customers at a point-in-time when they are actively seeking information about your product or service. And since they are fully engaged, and looking for help in selecting products and services and businesses to meet their needs, you must have your business front and center when they go looking.

Targeting buyers with PPC advertising

Targeting the RIGHT keywords gives you access to people who have already “kicked the tires” and are looking for a contracting company to hire. Keyword phrases like “Home remodeling companies Philadelphia, Pa” are much closer to the buying phase than people searching “remodel my kitchen” probably are, and you are not even sure what the searcher’s intent is with such a vague search term like that as they may be looking to do the work themselves. But someone looking for a company to do the work is exactly the type of searcher you want to find your page.More

Miracle Whip Commercial: My Quick Review

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If you haven’t seen the Miracle Whip commercial where they literally tell you “We are not for everyone” in the ad, than you have missed a real treat. If this ad ran during the Super Bowl I would bet it would have beat the Darth Vader Passat hands down.

Poking fun at yourself is OK…

Making a joke at your own expense is alright if everyone already knows who you are. But the fact that the Miracle Whip commercial hits home on a psychological level really is great marketing.

What do I mean?

If your house is divided over the Miracle Whip – Mayonnaise debate like mine, than this commercial quite literally hits home. In my house, my wife is a Miracle Whip freak, while my daughter and I prefer mayo…but not just any mayo as any mayo fan knows – it’s got to be Hellmanns!More

Narrow Your Focus

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Everyone knows a window guy or door guy or concrete guy. Here is a way to cut competition, keep your prices high and become the defacto “go to” guy in your market for whatever niche you want to target.

In this environment, you have to put as much distance between you and the rest of the pack as you possibly can. In other words, you have to carve out a market or niche for your business. By creating this distance, you protect yourself from competition but also from quick dips in the market.More

McDonald’s Marketing For Contractors

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Sell Like McDonald’s, Make a Fortune in 2011

You have just worked your ass off and you are hungry as hell. You know it’s not good for you, but you pull into the McDonald’s drive-thru to grab a quick bite. The voice from the big screen in front of you asks you what you want.

After you place your order, the voice asks if you would like to add two apple pies for another dollar. In the olden days (before the movie “Super Size Me“), you would have been asked if you wanted to Supersize your order. Congratulations, you were upsold and cross-promoted to, and you probably went for at least one of them back in the day didn’t you?

Make McDonald’s work for you too!

Most of you face stiff competition from all types of competitors in your local markets, and lose jobs every day to contracting companies that are able to give lower bids. So you lower your prices, and the next thing you know you are working for nothing…or not working at all.

But if you took the McDonald’s approach to selling and offered your clients or customers add-on’s and upgrades to get steeper and steeper discounts, you have a better chance of beating the low-ballers at their own game.

It may not work in all the home services categories, but if you work in one where an obvious upgrade or cross-sell could mean the difference between making ends meet or making it big.

Try it on for size

There isn’t a kitchen remodeler out there that doesn’t throw in the kitchen sink (or backsplash) to close a deal, or a carpet guy who doesn’t upgrade the padding if the home owner bumps up their carpet. My point is, there has to be something you can do to make your contracting company different in a down economy, you just need to figure out what your apple pie is and sell the hell out of it!

Photo Credit: Singamelodie

Make Your Direct Mail Pull Double Duty

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direct mail for contractorsBranding and direct marketing shouldn’t go together. They are night and day in the marketing world. But, in a few short words, I am going to show you how you how to do it…and succeed! Branding creates awareness or build on an attitude about your company. It’s what you want people to “think” or “feel” about you. In direct response advertising, you are trying to motivate people into action. Pick up the phone, stop into your showroom or send you an email. It’s what you want them to “do”.

Breaking down branding

Branding doesn’t do much in the way of converting prospects into client or customers on a per message basis, but over time, branding will be the subtle nudge people need to move them into action. What branding should do is:

  • Get attention for your company
  • An image or feeling about your company, Think Starbucks.
  • Memorable…if done right
  • A powerful, creative idea

Direct response advertising is what makes the cash register ring. Great direct response advertising:

  • Also get’s attention
  • Delivers an offer to the person consuming the ad
  • Motivates the reader into responding
  • Begins building the relationship between client or customer and you
  • To get the most out of your direct mail, you need to…
  • Target the highest potential prospects, in other words, people ready to buy!
  • Motivate the consumer perform an action, so you need to ask for a response
  • Measure the success with some type of key code or offer code
  • Expect a positive ROI

To generate a positive ROI, you need to focus on the key elements of a direct marketing campaign. This means you need to focus on your list by trying to pinpoint “buyer”. Once you have your list, you then need to nail down your offer. You do this by showing the reader what they get, and what they have to do to get it. Finally, the creative. This is the artwork and copy that makes up the direct mail piece.

If you had to break down the three key elements on a percentage basis, you should focus:

50% of your efforts on your list
30% of your efforts on the offer
20% of your efforts on the creative

In the end, you need to forget about reach and frequency, and aim for responsiveness. You do this with an offer-driven strategy with a strong call to action. Then you segment your new clients or customers by value, and treat them differently. Once you do that, you need to cross-sell. In McDonald’s terms, that would be “Do you want two apple pies for $1.00”? You also need to upsell. Again, using McDonald’s vernacular, it would be “Would you like to Supersize that for just .59 cents”?

Once you have done all this, you profile your best customers and then rinse and repeat!

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