How to Make Small Ads Pay Big Dividends

Advertising Copywriting Skills...

How to Make Small Ads Pay Big Dividends!

Some people who come to my seminars ask about creating smaller ads to save money. Others are asking how they can use smaller ads, but still generate more sales for every ad dollar they spend. Still others need to cram their sales pitch into just four 60 character lines when advertising in ezines. On the face of it, all three of these may seem like unreasonable expectations, but they may not be as impossible as they appear. Let me explain---

Small ads force you to get to the point right away. There’s no room for generalizations, statements of the obvious, or wasted words that plague a lot of larger ads. Every square inch counts when space is at a premium. It reminds me of how I pack my suitcase when I fly these days. When I first started to travel for business in the mid 1970’s I carried a huge suitcase AND a garment bag, filled with all kinds of stuff I only thought I might need. Today, with the increased level of airline security and carry-on restrictions, I carry only one small bag efficiently packed with only the things I absolutely need. It should be the same with your ads.

Frequency Counts
One thing about smaller ads is that they can be run more frequently than larger ones for the same investment. Frequency helps deliver more impressions for the same or less money. I have successfully used ads as small as 2 column inches (One newspaper column wide by 2 inches high) to launch a highly successful new venture.

Small ads pay off best as part of two step campaigns that first ask a prospect to request additional information or to identify themselves as leads to be followed up with later. While I can’t sell you a vacation home with a small ad, I can find out if you are interested. Small ads work best for simple things easily understood like "Free Month’s Rent" or "Free Tax Tips." They don’t work so well if you use them try to sell things like health related products, seminars, tax shelters and other complex things that require a more lengthy sales effort. Here long copy almost always works best. If you sell something complicated like these items, use small ads only for two step type approaches, never to close the sale.

How to do it
One net effect of such down-sizing is often a much better ad. One way to try this for yourself is to take your current ad and try shrinking it by 50%. If you don’t yet have an ad for your offer, try to write one half as large as what you eventually think you’ll want to use. Here are some ways you might make your ads smaller while perhaps making them better in the process:

* Shorten up your headline. These are cases when you can use just 2-3 words like: QuickBooks Help; Disney Vacation; Free Adoption Booklet; or 5.2% Mortgages. Make these big and bold as possible at the top of your ad.
* Sometimes you can use only the headline from your larger ad as the ENTIRE smaller ad--- that is if it’s good enough! This is especially true for ezine ads.
* Drop any pictures unless they are absolutely critical to illustrating your point.
* Use reversed type for headlines to give them more punch. (Reverses have dark backgrounds with light or white text.)
* Drop any logos unless they are nationally known.
* Use bulleted "benefit-rich sell copy" packed in as tight as you can.
* Provide only the one form of contact information that most of your prospects use, like phone number or web address. Don’t include your street address unless prospects need it to respond.
* Edit mercilessly like you are writing a classified and paying by the word.
* Abbreviate when you can.

It is critically important that you test your shortened ad before betting your whole campaign on it. If you are now running larger ads, do a split test to see which on pulls better in terms of return on investment. Run half of your regular ad and half of the new version in the same publication. Use a key code to track response in terms of eventual sales, not just calls. I once ran the same small ad in two different newspapers on the same day. The one in the larger city resulted in more calls, but the one in the smaller town registered more actual sales.

If you find it difficult to shrink your current ad down don’t despair. If nothing else, you have probably just made it better!

--- Jim McCraigh