Coupon advertising provides a very small amount of space to give the information that motivates customers to use your services or products. To attract customers, you need to provide the right information, in the right format, over a sufficient period of time. Whether you design your own coupon ad or have one of our advertising specialists prepare it for you, make sure you study the copy, artwork, and offer carefully.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself that will help you decide if your ad is ready for publication:
Does your ad should have a specific message that tells about your product or service? Is it concise and to the point? Can you remove words that aren't needed?
Is what you're saying in the ad reasonable, factual, and believable?
Is the offer good enough to entice someone to act? Would you use this coupon?
Have you set up a system to track your returned coupons? It can be as simple as a small code in the disclaimer, or changing colors for different advertising products.
Direct mail advertising works best when you have simple message, a believable statement of fact about your product or service, a specific offer for that product or service, and once you know the ad is working for you, a consistent, repeatable campaign to keep your name, offer, and information before a target audience in a specific area.
I know we have presented these suggestions in the past, but they should be repeated as often as possible. This approach works and, if you use them, you will find a greater degree of success in your direct mail advertising.
Let us know any methods or approaches to direct mail advertising that have worked for you.
If you read this far you most likely have an interest in selling a product or service. So, the first thing you need to understand is not everyone knows they have a use for your product or service. Selling is best achieved by knowing what your prospective customers needs. This is achieved, usually, by asking questions that leads to understanding what problems need to be resolved, or filling a gap in a persons life. In other words, for some people they know something is missing and your product or service may help them. While, on the other hand, some people may not have a clue as to how your product or service could improve their life.
The five basic rules of selling to anyone:
Know your potential customer’s wants
Know your potential customer’s needs
Know your potential customer’s beliefs
Know the value your potential customer places on 1, 2, and 3 above
Know your potential customer’s urgency to acquire or use your product/service
The only way you can successfully sell a product or service to a potential customer is by asking questions. Here is the key to selling: asking specific questions, listening carefully to the answers of such questions, and offering helpful, meaningful options. The active involvement of your interest in another person’s situation is essential in formulating a positive environment that meets the needs of a potential customer.
Thus, to sell to anyone, you must believe in your product or service, be very familiar with its benefits and limitations, and capable of presenting it in such a way that others are convinced in your sincerity and honesty.
This does not mean that sales will occur every time, but following these basic principles will increase your potential for selling to anyone.
They're starting to show up everywhere these days; in stores, on vehicles, print ads... the ideas are really limitless.
QR codes aren't as common here as they are overseas; Europe and Japan have been using them for some time, but they are slowly showing up more and more in American media, and as smartphones and similar devices become more commonplace, QR codes are sure to make more appearances in our daily lives.
What can QR codes do for you and your business?
They started as a way to track parts in vehicle manufacturing, but have, over the years, been used in many other forms. Recently it has started to become more prevalent in marketing and advertising.
When you buy a print ad, you have a limited amount of space. To use our own product as an example, you have a print area of 8 inches by 3 inches; that really limits the amount of room you have to share information with your prospective clients and still design an effective, eyecatching ad. A QR code can directly link the person looking at your ad to your website, blog or Facebook page, where the space is unlimited to tell your story and share information about your products.
Imagine this: An interior decorator includes a gorgeous photo of a sitting room she designed, and includes a QR code with the photo. When a reader scans the included QR code, they're taken to the designer's photo gallery, which showcases the entire house she decorated, or maybe a gallery of other living rooms.
How about a general contractor? He could feature a photo of a kitchen or whole house remodel, and then QR code could take the viewer to a blog post about the process; this would give the contractor the chance to discuss the quality of their workmanship, the extra effort he puts in to keep everything clean, maybe a written or even video testimonial from the happy homeowner!
The possibilites are endless. There's cure to be a way to put this popular new technology to work for you... to get you more customers. It's just a matter of finding the best way for you.
This short video (4 minutes) will give you an overview of some businesses that are using QR codes in some exciting new ways:
The question is this: Will your customers use QR Codes? We'd love to hear your story!
It seems like every few months, a hot new marketing tool comes along that everyone is talking about. In the last several years, we've seen personalized mailing pieces, followed by email marketing, then text message (SMS) advertising. The current trend is something called a QR Code, which stands for "Quick Response Code" and was developed by Denso-Wave, a Japanese subsidiary of Toyota, in 1994.
You've probably seen them around town, even if you didn't know what it was at the time.
Here's what a QR code looks like:
How does it work?
The first step is to download a QR code reader to your iPhone, Blackberry or Android device. There are many free versions available through iTunes and other sources. Just search "QR code reader" and your operating system and you'll find thousands of choices!
Using the QR reader app, simply scan the QR code, and it will take you directly to a web page. This can be a great way for potential customers to quickly and easily access information about you and your products. Because it's so easy to create customized QR codes (no special software needed!) you can send interested parties to very specific spots on your website or blog... anywhere, really!
How do I get my own QR code?
It's fast and easy to include QR codes in your advertising; you've probably already seen them, even if you didn't know what they were at the time. They're popping up on print advertising, television commercials, in stores... I even saw a big one on the back of a bus that I could scan from the passenger seat in the car behind them at a red light.
It gives you the opportunity to share an incredible amount of information with interested people, with very little effort on your part.
Turning again to Google, just search "QR code generator" and you'll find dozens of options. Just go to one of those sites, put in the information you'd like to include (a URL, a phone number, just text...), click the Generate button and voila! A working QR code pops up on the screen.
Save it to your computer and you can use it just like you use a piece of clip art. It's really that easy.
Next week, we'll look more at how you can really utilize this trend and how it can benefit your business.
