One Small Ad In The Paper Won’t Make Your Cash Flow

Skye Leist
May 27, 2011

They say it takes a village to raise a child and Ill add it takes a campaign to make your marketing stick. Ill never forget a meeting with a small business owner who had just dipped her toes into the advertising world for the first time. We got together to discuss her marketing efforts for her small business and when she arrived at my office, she was just beaming.

First on my agenda was to find out exactly what she had done to market her business so we could figure out together what would be most effective going forward.

She grinned as she pulled out a section of the newspaper to show me her ad. It looked like thousands of other small business ads Ive seen over the years business name and logo at the top, along with her company tag line, phone number and website address.

I asked her how many times the ad had run and what her response had been. Only once, was her reply. No calls yet, but Im sure well get some.

Sadly, she was quite wrong. That newspaper she showed me was two weeks old. If she hadnt received any calls, she sure wasnt going to get them now. And her ad was all wrong too. Once she realized that, she would probably take the position that ads dont work for my business just like so many other small business owners.

And that would be a mistake. One ad is not a campaign. Plus ads must speak to your prospect. Heres a simple formula.

Give your ad the who cares test. (This applies whether your ad is online or off.) You have approximately five seconds to get your prospects attention. Make those five seconds count!

Start with a grab em headline.

Follow with a transitional sub headline.

Make the body count.

Give them a reason to call now.

Your prospects dont care about your company. They care about themselves and how you can fix their problem, make them more comfortable, save them time or money, or relieve their stress.

One of the best tools youll find to help you with your marketing is the Small Business Marketing Bible by David Frey. It is loaded with actionable steps you can take.

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