Are you too suffering from the advertising disease that affects most of the small businesses? If your firm’s ad is like this as well, then it’s time to start your treatment …
 
Question: what’s the most common ad structure used by the small businesses like Yours?
 
Just check out Yellow Pages, the free advertising newspapers and you’ll make an interesting discovery. Wait a minute; you’ve already done that, because your ad looks like that too! You’ve inspected these ads first when you were looking for a model, for inspiration, for assurance that if you make an ad just like those ones, then everything will be alright.
 
I’m wondering, are You as well satisfied to just tell your ad, what Your company does, the kind of services it provides, its profile, and then to just write there your address, phone number, website where you can be contacted?
 
Unfortunately this kind of ad has just a little flaw: that it’s not an ad!
 
It doesn’t make the target audience’s heart beat faster. It doesn’t raise their interest. It doesn’t ignite any kind of desire in them. It doesn’t determine them to drop everything just so they could pay all their attention to your offer.  
 
What offer?
 
Well that’s the problem! A giant business can afford itself to do image advertising, to advertise simply that “it exists”, but a small business knows that the fact that people have heard of it, know its name, cannot be deposited into their bank accounts.
 
A small business doesn’t need an ad that just informs the world that: “I’m here and I’m in this kind of business”.
 
A small business needs an ad that sells. One that doesn’t mince, doesn’t beat around the bush, but presents an offer that is simply irresistible.
 
What does an irresistible ad need to have?
 
What’s that irresistible opportunity worth instantly grabbing by your market? What is that extraordinary discount, gift, fantastic guarantee, that attractive entry product that has the potential to move the buyers?
 
Be careful: the simple fact of writing down what your business does is not one of them.

Don’t forget: your advertising is not Yellow Pages where people look only when they need you. Here you’re the one offering something that they can’t refuse, even if they don’t need the general offerings of your business!
 
What could that offer be?

- With the first lawn mowing you get a free thug with “installation”
- A free product sample
- Buy one and you’ll get the second at the price of only $100
- Free information – ask for our catalogue
- Buy this novelty and you’ll get this outlet product as a gift
 
The important thing is for the offer not to be a general but a specific one, an opportunity valid only for that ad campaign. Don’t forget: you want an immediate response!
 
Surprise: being irresistible is not enough
 
Finally surprising the market with an offer instead of the usual “we exist” type ad is already a huge step forward on the scale of ad efficiency. But this is not enough. The target audience is filled with interest, but what happens next? Suddenly they put aside your ad, they turn the page, change the channel, saying “not a bad offer, I’ll think about it”, and the next minute your ad is already forgotten. How can you help this?
 
The ancient trick of demand and supply
 
I’ve learned from a bookstore keeper that if you want to sell a book, you should build two towers out of them. Make one higher with about 10 books and take three from the other one, then take a step back and enjoy the effect.
 
It’s almost hypnotic the way we immediately have to inspect anything that seems like it was running out! And that’s exactly what you’re going to take advantage of in your ad. The keyword is immediately. If you don’t have anything in your ad that urges immediate action then it will be a lot less effective.
 
How could you make your ad be urgent?
 
1. A validity term: “our offer is valid only until the end of the month”
 
2. A limitation: “this special offer is valid only for this 278 piece stock”
 
Don’t forget, if you use this kind of urging, in order for your next offer of this nature to be credible, you have to be strict about the validity term or the limitation. If it’s over then it’s over, there is no extension, there is no repeating the special offer, cause that would discredit your next similar offers.  
 
Bonus tip: your contact details
 
It’s surprising but more people respond to the ads that provide them with only one contact detail, only one possible way to respond and buy. This also contradicts the traditional small business’s way of advertising the same way as the “we exist” type of ads do. Let’s just write there everything: phone number, fax, e-mail address (in case they’d like to send us a mail!), website, the address of the store.
 
It seems logical, doesn’t it?

But on the contrary: you must not force the poor buyer to think, give them only one possible way to react and interestingly there will be more people responding to your ad. I wish I knew the psychological mechanism behind this phenomenon, but I don’t. I confess that the thing that interests me more is this: the numbers prove that if there is only one contact in the ad, then that ad will be more effective.
 
So:
- An irrefutable offer
- An urging validity term or limitation
- An express contact data
 
Is this structure very different from your current ad? If yes, then your income is very different from what you deserve!