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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