How to Create Effective Low-Cost Advertising

Every business owner want to advertise, but many are put off by the idea advertising is expensive and that cheap advertising methods don't work. It is true you do need to spend some money on advertising, but it isn't true you need to have a huge budget to create a successful advertising campaign. It's also a fact effective advertising doesn't cost you money, but makes you money. Effective advertising brings a return on investment, so it doesn't matter how much money you spend as long as you get that money back plus something extra.

So how do you create a cheap yet effective advertising campaign?

One of the first things you can do is forget spending money on very big ads filled with colour. There's a belief large colourful advertisements are more effective than smaller, plain ones, when that just isn't true.

In many cases, the newspaper or magazine wants you to run a large, colourful ad because they charge you more for it, and so make more money. But it doesn't matter how large the ad actually is, because it won't bring in any business if it isn't designed and written in the right way.

A good principle to follow is to forget trying to make a sale immediately from your advertising, and move to a lead-generation model. You do this by giving away something in return for the contact details of your prospect, especially an email address. After that you can sell to them over a long period of time. Using email is especially effective for this, mainly because it's so cheap, but you can get some great results by using direct mail and postcards.

Once you move to this type of advertising, you'll find immediately you can cut your ad costs because the ad can be fairly small and doesn't need to have much colour at all. In fact, a simple black and white advertisement can work best when taking the lead generation approach. All you need is some simple text offering some free information such as a booklet or report, and then put your full selling message in the report instead of trying to do it all in your ad.

And because your ad costs are smaller by using this method, you can run more ads. A powerful technique is to create an effective ad offering the free information, and then run it several times. In fact, once you find an ad that does work, you can run it indefinitely, and that means even more savings because you don't have to keep creating new ads.

Another simple way to cut your ad costs even further is to simply refuse to pay the prices the newspaper or magazine is asking. Everything is open to negotiation, and you'll often find a newspaper will accept a lower offer for the advertising space, especially as they struggle to get advertisers during the recession.

The good thing about using these techniques is that most businesses won't use them, and when you do, not only do you get cheaper advertising, you also get more effective advertising. And that brings in more customers, and eventually more revenue, which can only be a good thing.

Direct response marketing and lead generation specialist Steve Prescott is the author of Smart Business Power Marketing.

This report reveals how web and traditional marketing can integrate to increase response rates and generate qualified leads. These techniques have been tested in a wide range of markets and so are almost certain to work for you.

Even better, this report is being offered free.


Article Source: Steve S Prescott