How to create a good advertisement

Advertising is what draws attention to your business. When your business gets attention, people spend time considering your product or services, and these are the people who bring money to your business. One can say advertising is the main way businesses make money.

Advertising should be the main part of your marketing plan, so it’s important to create advertisements that will help you get the most out of your investments by bringing in lots of business and future customers.

There are many ways you can advertise online. The most popular is by joining the Google Adwords “Pay Per Click” network.  You can also choose to pay for placing ads on other websites using other advertising networks.

While it’s important to strategically choose where you advertise your product, it’s even more important to choose how your product is advertised. Let’s take a look at how you can obtain the most from your advertising campaign.

Keep it Short and Simple

People are constantly exposed to an excessive amount of information.  To avoid being overstimulated by too much information and too many images, people tend to block out advertising that does not immediately grab and hold their attention.

Create a sense of curiosity with your advertisement.  From the very first moment, make sure you have the attention of your potential audience, and make sure they know what you’re advertising. You may only get a brief moment of their time, so it’s extremely important that your ad is simple, clear, and memorable.

Brevity is the soul of wit when it comes to advertising.  Simpler and shorter is the best way to clear communicate a single idea, product or service.

Think of some of the catch phrases and advertisements that have stuck with you over the years.  Chances are, they are very short and to the point.

When thinking of a way to summarize your product or services, think of the shortest and fastest way possible to explain what you do.  You have very little time to capture the attention of your audience, so make sure you are quick and clear.

One way to make sure you are able to quickly engage your customers is to identify what about your product meets your customers’ needs.

Engagement is the Key

Many ads aren’t effective because they try to sell to customers. While this is indeed the point of the ad itself, it would be far more successful if your advertising could engage the customers with a strong visual presence, emotional content, or by entertaining them.

You don’t want to provide customers with a documentary regarding your product or services, but give them enough of a glimpse into the product to encourage them to click on the ad, follow your web address, or think of your product later on, when they may have a need for what you provide.

The point is to make them think and become instantly interested your message.

This message will engage them more than pretty pictures of your product or testimonies regarding your services.  You want to connect with your customers on a visual and emotional level to capture them in your message and make them feel compelled to learn more about your business.

The more you engage them, the more the chances they will click on your ad. From there, your sales page will do the rest!

If you want to engage your viewers, you need to understand them.

What are their needs?

What are their problems?

What can you do to solve them?

What types of things interest them?

What is their age group?

Where do they live?

Understanding the demographics of your customer can help you understand why they might interact with your product.  This will also help you understand what types of things they like and don’t like.

While it is important to gain the attention of a potential customer and engage them with your message, you do not want to frighten or offend them, as this will drive them away from your business.  Whatever your message is, you want to make sure it resonates with your intended audience.

If your product is more cutting edge, and your customer base more modern, you might consider being a little controversial in your message, perhaps with some humor or daring visuals.  In this case, it’s best to not be obvious about your product, but to create a bit of curiosity through your creative ad, which makes them want to click and learn more about you, your company, and your product.

On the other hand, for some customer demographics, it may be best to be straightforward and simplify the message to ensure the customer is not caught up or confused in extra information.  It is very important to identify who you are selling to, as this will ensure you speak to them directly with your message to engage their business

Next step: Tracking

This is one of the most important elements in any advertisement campaign, from the business side of things. Customers will never see it or know it exists, but tracking is crucial in order to understand how successful and effective your ad is.

There are a number of great tracking programs you can use, and some of them are available for free.  What you want is a tracking program that includes these metrics:

1. How many times your ad was shown

2. How many “clicks” your ad received (meaning, how many times users clicked on the ad to learn more)

3. Which pages your visitors visited

4. How long they stayed in your pages

All of these metrics will help you understand how people interact with your ad and with your website.  You want to know that people are not just watching your ad, but clicking on it to learn more, and from there, exploring your web page to learn more about your services and products.

While this is the basic information you’ll need in order to know how successful your advertisement is, take a look at our training that focus on how to build these metrics, and what additional metrics can help you understand how potential customers interact with your website.


What are your thoughts?