Ad Strategy

Americans are bombarded with ad massages every day, and no one can remember more than a small percentage of the ads that he or she is exposed to. That is why it is important for your ad to be effective. The first key tactic of any effective campaign is running an ad repeatedly. Don’t pin your campaign around one big ad; you are better off choosing one segment of the market and then advertising to it often, rather than trying to reach a general market with less frequent ads.

A second key advertising tactic is to grab the prospects’ attention fast – very fast. People will usually give an ad only one or two seconds. If an ad doesn’t pass this hurdle, it won’t be effective.

A third key tactic is to get your message across in five to eight seconds. An ad may grab attention, but not hold it for a reading of the entire ad. So if you want exposure to be effective, get your message across quickly.

A final guideline is not to use a lot of copy. My experience is that a customer is turned off by too much copy.

I can’t emphasize enough that you restrain yourself in running an ad campaign. There are probably many people who can buy product, and you might want to reach them all – don’t. Restrict yourself to only those who can be reached effectively. There is nothing wrong with running ads in local newspapers or scheduling an ad on a cable channel rather than on a regular commercial channel.