Direct Marketing

1. Direct Marketing Creating Print Advertising Chapter 20

2. Creating Print Advertising • Print ads must stop the reader and engage his or her attention and interest in order to stand out among the advertisers in a magazine or newspaper • The general ad may rest after making an impression; the response ad must stimulate immediate action

3. Creating Print Advertising • Make your strongest appeal to your best prospects—people with the strongest desire for what you’re selling • Use clarity and directness to gather in prime prospects; then use creative imagination to reach beyond them to awaken and excite mild prospects as well

5. Creating Print Advertising • Emphasize benefits if the product or service is unique or unfamiliar • Emphasize product advantages if it is a new, improved model in a highly competitive field with established demand

6. Creating Print Advertising • A good lead is the first step in a straight path of feeling and logic from the headline or display theme to the concluding call for action • Readers should be able to see clearly where the path is taking them

8. Creating Print Advertising • The sections of a classic copy argument can be labeled problem, promise of solution, explanation of promise, proof, and call to action • If you begin with the problem, be sure to indicate the forthcoming solution

11. Creating Print Advertising • Other ways to structure copy include: “cluster of diamonds” technique, which assembles and presents details in an appropriate setting; the “string of pearls” technique, which strings together complete gems of selling in a sequence;

12. Creating Print Advertising the “fan dancers”' technique, which teases readers with short product facts • Avoid the “machine gun'' technique—simply spraying facts and arguments in the general direction of the reader, in the hope that at least some of them will hit

13. Creating Print Advertising • Establish the unique claim to fame of the product or service • Is it better? Best? Largest? Newest? Fastest growing? • Use it to stake out a unique position in the marketplace for the product or service you are selling

15. Key Points • Stop and Engage • Appeal to Best Prospects • Unique Stress Benefits • New and Improved Stress Advantages • Clear Path • Problem / Solution • Establish Unique Claim to Fame