I was listening to a speech about advertising from the Marketing Director of a major theme park in Ohio. If I mentioned the name, you would know it.

He said how his advertising budget was a half a million dollars a year. He gave us a few pointers. He said that they didn’t advertise in the Summer months because they didn’t need to. Summer is the theme park season. He told us about how he modified those old ads to make the new ads look more aesthetic. I listened for an hour.

After the talk, I met with him for a few minutes. He told me how he took graphic design in college. The grinding sound you’re hearing is my teeth. I was pleasant. I was a guest. I kept my mouth shut. Until now.

Don’t advertise in the Summer? He wanted to "even out" the attendance. Oh? Is it better to have even attendance? Is the park overcrowded in the Summer? Are people being turned away? No.

Strike when the fire is hot. People want to go to a theme park in the warmer months. That’s the time to advertise. That’s when the most people will respond to the ads. That’s when the most money will be made.

The old ads they used last year were all "muddied up" with descriptions of the largest roller coaster in the world!, descriptions of all the attractions, and loaded with reasons to show up.

Nope, all that had to go. Now their ads consisted of two money off coupons and the theme park logo. Remember, you have to discount now, because the ads are going out...after the season.

Half a million dollars a year being flushed down the toilet.

He is in charge of a half a million dollar budget. The whole concept of "advertising budget" is flawed. If your advertising is producing a profit, why would you limit that profit by restraining your ad production with a budget? If your ads are losing money, why would you continue to use them just because you have to use up the rest of your budget?

I asked my new acquaintance what marketing books he found most informative. He told me that he knew there were books on marketing out there, but he was already trained...in graphic design.

Test your ads...record the results...advertise most when people want to buy. Load your ads with reasons to buy. Re-invest in new advertising that is tested to pay for itself. Your ads will then perpetually pay for themselves.

And won’t that be a pleasant change?

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You’re going to hear a new word about advertising ...Self-Funding.

What I mean by "self-funding" is that the ad generates enough profits to pay for the ad, thus making the ad "Free". You are now free to repeat the ad as often as you can without ever having to pay more than for the initial ad. Your money would just keep rolling over to the next ad.

Ad salespeople love to stress the Brand Building element of ads they sell. Why? Because Brand Building is difficult to measure. T.O.M.A. or Top Of Mind Awareness ads are sold as a way to keep your name in front of the customer. These are sold for two important reasons; you must advertise very frequently to call it T.O.M.A. advertising, and it’s impossible to track your results of your advertising.

For your ad to be self-funding, it must sell something. There must be an offer in the ad. Just because you want to build your brand name doesn’t mean you can’t have your advertising pay for itself. Brand Building happens at a much faster rate when the people involved are customers, instead of people in a focus group. Customers brag about their purchase; they create Buzz.

Buyers have a need to justify why they bought something, especially something of high quality and price. Bragging about the purchase fulfills that need.

So building your brand and using T.O.M.A advertising will accomplish their purposes...eventually. But you can get the exact same benefits from your advertising, and faster, if you sell something in the ad to make it self-funding.

And for it to be a real offer, you need a headline, list of benefits received, deadline, and an easy way to pay for it. A "better than risk-free" guarantee will help too.

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Classified ads are underrated. They seldom generate staggering profits. But considering the low cost they can be very profitable.

Here’s why; The classified section of newspapers is loaded with bargains. People go there to get a better deal, usually on something used.

For the last several years we have been running a small classified ad selling a used vacuum cleaner that we sell out of our store. Our cost is only $16 a week for the ad. It covers three counties. The ad brings in anywhere from $2,000 to $6,000 a month in new business.

Here are the essential parts of a profitable classified ad;

It must sell a specific item. No "Come visit our store" ads.

The price should be in the ad.

A brief description of the item is necessary. But use as few works as possible to paint the same picture. You are paying by the word or line.

Make sure you are listed under he correct heading. If you are selling a good used washing machine, it goes under Appliances, not under General.

A Bold heading draws the eye and costs almost nothing.

Make sure you are selling a product that is easy to describe. It helps if the brand is easily recognizable.

In our ad, we don’t say we have more than one, but we do. It may help if you don’t include in the ad that you’re a retailer. Your store name may repel calls because the "air of getting a true bargain" may be lost.

When someone calls about an item, you have to resist the temptation to sell. They already want to buy. I’ve actually turned a "pick-up" into a sales presentation and missed the sale.

Now, we’ll show someone how to use the product, but we try not to sound like salespeople. If you sound like you’re selling, the natural reaction from the caller (or visitor) is that they will resist.

We live in a rural community. We’ll get people asking if we can bring it to them. We will, because the profit justifies the trip. But I say "We’ll deliver it if it’s hard for you to get here. But we’re not coming out to demonstrate it. We’re coming out to deliver it. OK?"

For a solid year, we advertised that we paid cash or a specific brand of air purifier (a very popular brand sold in our area). In the same paper, we advertised that we were selling the air purifiers. We made $200 on each unit, and sold between 5 and 20 a week. Nobody ever mentioned that they saw both ads. Eventually the demand slowed down, and we stopped running the ad.

Just think of the things you can sell! The ads are cheap, the sale is made before delivery (or before they pick it up) You don’t have to negotiate price, the price was in the ad. Good luck!

Claude Whitacre is author of the book The Unfair Advantage Small Business Advertising Manual. Available at www.claudewhitacre.com. Want to know more? You can also receive three months of Claude Whitacre's Unfair Advantage Gold Membership which includes $834.00 in newsletters, information, CD's, bonus, and outright bribes for only $5.95.

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A tale of two headlines......


Let’s imagine that you sell vacuum cleaners. You have read an article that tell about the dust mite and all te evils it brings to the home. You get all excited and think "If I can just get the message out about this little critter, I’ll get people to come into my store to solve the dreaded dust mite infestation plaguing them." So you write an ad, and put it in your local paper

The headline reads "All About The Dust Mite" and has a little picture of the dust mite next to the headline. The rest of the ad tells about how terrible the dust mite is, and how you can get rid of them with your wonderful vacuum cleaner.

You wait by the door of your store, preparing for the thundering herd of buyers waiting to be saved. Nobody shows. Why? Because nobody read your ad.

Here’s why nobody read your ad; Nobody is interested in reading an article about dust mites.

Here’s what has to happen before the reader reads your article;

They have to know what a dust mite is.

They have to know that they are undesirable.

They have to want to know more about them out of curiosity.

You have to compete with everything else in the newspaper. And the only way you’ll win is if nothing else on the page is more interesting that learning more about an insect.

And the vast majority of readers won’t see a personal benefit to reading the rest of the ad.

Take the exact same ad an picture of the dustmite, Now the headline reads;

"If you own a pet, your home may already be infested with these mites! Here’s how to tell..."

The reader stops, their eyes widen; "Oh, my God! I have a dog. I’m sure everything is OK, but I better make sure! I remember my dog scratching last week. Maybe we do have an infestation! I better read this to make sure we don’t!" See the difference?

The key words in the headline are If, already, infested (a visceral word), and here.

The word here drags you into the rest of the ad. But first, you have to get their attention.

Claude Whitacre is author of the book The Unfair Advantage Small Business Advertising Manual. Available at www.claudewhitacre.com. Want to know more? You can also receive three months of Claude Whitacre's Unfair Advantage Gold Membership which includes $834.00 in newsletters, information, CD's, bonus, and outright bribes for only $5.95.

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I’ve heard this so often, my ears are bleeding. "My customers are different".

We all have differences. We like slightly different kinds of humor, cars, mates, pets, and food.

There are cultural differences. There are educational differences. Differences in social status.

I’m not saying these differences don’t exist. I’m saying they don’t matter when you’re advertising.

Here’s why; All great advertising grabs us on an emotional level. We have emotional, even instinctual needs. And they are all the same. We all want to be accepted, respected, thought well of, envied, thought of as witty or clever, and considered attractive.

All of us think we are misunderstood, undervalued by employers (or customers), and taken advantage of. When we tell a story about ourselves, we are always the good guy, never the bad guy. Or at least we’re the victim. We have all been humiliated.

We all think we are unique. We all share the idea that we are special in some way.

None of these beliefs are logical. They are all emotional. And that’s why all ads should first have an emotional grabber. Then later in the ad, you can logically justify why the reader should buy.

Your headline has to have a "Grab Them By The Face" quality. It has to hit them on a gut level. You want the reader’s little voice in their head to scream "Wait! This concerns me!" and then immediately after that "Hey! This solves a major problem I have. I need this now!".

All the other parts of the ad,; comparable priced items, reasons to buy from you, convenient terms, free delivery, liberal refund policy, only serve to make it easier to justify the decision they have already made.

Customers just need something to tell their neighbor when he asks "Why in the world did you buy that?"

Think of the number "11". Now think of a vegetable. Did you think of carrots? Everyone does.

Claude Whitacre is author of the book The Unfair Advantage Small Business Advertising Manual. Available at www.claudewhitacre.com. Want to know more? You can also receive three months of Claude Whitacre's Unfair Advantage Gold Membership which includes $834.00 in newsletters, information, CD's, bonus, and outright bribes for only $5.95.

Click Here to take advantage of this special now!