Adding Direct Response Into Small Business Advertising

A lot of small business advertising isn't meant to make an immediate sale. There's advertising and promotion that's intended to raise brand image, improve consumer awareness in a given company, product, or service, and marketing materials that hopefully will elicit an instant response or sale - which we'll cover here today.

There's many forms of direct response marketing, from the short-form advertising copy (such as print ads, TV commercials, radio spots, contextual PPC advertising, etc.) to the longer marketing messages like text-heavy, full page, advertorials and the Dale Carnegie-style sales letters. All are valid and which medium you use to get your message across depends on what you're selling and who you're trying to sell it to; that much you probably know if you've spent more than ten minutes in marketing - another important factor is when your audience is affected by your message.

The Right Message To The Right Market In The Right Media At The Right Time

These four factors judge the success of any direct response advertising campaign. - and we'll briefly cover all four below:

Message: It doesn't matter how great your product or service is if you can't effectively communicate its advantages over what the competition is offering - in other words you won't make any sales. Appealing to your audience on many levels, especially on an emotional one, can cause them to jump into action immediately. I'll explain crafting an attention grabbing message that closes the deal later.

Market: As I wrote earlier, even if you offer a great product or service, and even if you have a great message, it really doesn't matter if you're targeting the wrong audience. Don't bring coal to Newcastle. If you don't know who your target market is before starting a direct response campaign to reach them, then you need to fall back on the basics of your business' marketing plan. If you don't know who you're selling to, you'll never be able to put together an effective direct response message.

Media: Depending on the demographics, and other areas that your marketing research has focused on, greatly come into play when choosing the type of media to use to attract your target audience. Judging which type of media will be more or less effective depends on who your target audience is. Various groups may be more easily persuaded through direct mail or print advertising, while others may prefer online marketing strategies like email or banner ads. Just as if you were preparing to give a speech, you have to know your audience in order to create a message and a method which will allow you to make the greatest possible impact.

Moment: Timing is just as important as targeting the right audience with the proper message using the correct form of media. So when's the right time? When they want to buy, not when you want to sell. You're always ready to sell, at least if you're in the least bit suited for business - but you need to remember that not every person out there is ready to make a purchase, even if they're decidedly part of your target demographic.

Incorporating these factors: Message, market, media, and moment, can ensure that your direct response campaign produces positive results and a good return on investment by targeting the right people that are ready and willing to buy from your business right now.

Accomplishing this can be done in multiple ways. You can keep in touch with prospective and current customers via a series of email messages using auto-responder software. If they're more prone to offline marketing, then by running regular advertisements in the media channels that have the most influence in your targeted demographic is a good way to reach them.

But any way you look at it, these are the 4 components of successful small business advertising... By getting all 4 of these factors right, you can begin to see an immediate increase in the effectiveness of your small business ads.