Don't Tell the Customer to Act Now
Your "Call to Action" is completely optional if you want to turn your ad campaign into a disaster. You might as well tell customers, "Contact us if you want to or when you get around to it."
A compelling Call to Action is crucial to completing the sale. Tell customers to, "Call Now!" or "Hurry! This offer expires soon." If you're not telling the customers to act right away, they won't. They'll put your company in the back of their mind and then forget about you in a few minutes.
Budgets are for Schmucks
Don't worry about the numbers and you'll find yourself in a jam when it comes to advertising. Of course, that means you'll lose out on advertising opportunities you could've invested in but you didn't want any sales, right?
Plan out your ad budget to the penny. This way, you'll know exactly what you can afford for your ad materials as well as how often you can advertise and in what types of mediums.
If your budget is low, you may find a commercial is out of the question and your money would be better spent in print. After all, since frequency is the key, you don't want to spend your entire ad budget on one commercial that can only air once when you could've run a print ad multiple times to gain customers.
If They Have Good Rates, Spend Your Money Wherever
That budget publication can offer you more for your buck than those bigger publications. Advertise with them no matter what if you want to blow your ad dollars.
Shop around. Your the customer when it comes to buying space in publications or on the airwaves.
Anyone who doesn't want to blow the company's ad campaign will compare the rates to how many people the publication or time slot will reach. A commercial at 2 a.m. will be dirt cheap compared to one that airs during the nightly news but how many people will actually see the ad at 2 a.m.?
A print ad running in a small publication will be much cheaper than running an ad in a national publication or even a local magazine but are you talking about reaching a handful of prospects or thousands? Compare the price difference with the difference in viewers/subscribers and it will be easy to see where you should be spending your ad dollars to make the campaign effective.
Write to a Broad Audience
You want to appeal to everyone so you can reach every single consumer with the product or service you're trying to sell.
Back to the real world now. That's just not possible if you want to write an effective advertisement that will reel in the customers. You think your big screen TVs would definitely be right for a college student but what college student is going to be able to shell out hundreds of dollars for your product? Write to a specific audience - your target audience - that person who you're going to speak directly to and who has the wallet with the cash needed to buy your product.
Any Old Publication Will Do
You're selling disposable underwear for the eldery and this entertainment magazine has great rates. It's a no-brainer. They've got the subscriber base you want and you're seeing dollar signs.
How many elderly people do you know who like to read about Brad Pitt's latest movie or George Clooney's current girlfriend? Think about who will be reading the publication you're interested in and how that content relates to your target audience. If your target audience isn't buying that publication, they won't be seeing your ad.
Be smart with your ad dollars and your ad campaign. Your company's success depends on it.