If done correctly, print ads can have a huge impact on your bottom line. Unfortunately, they can have a huge impact on your bottome line (not so desirable as you might expect) if done incorrectly also. Your ads should pay for themselves and if they don’t, stop running them. For this reason we believe that virtually all ads should invoke some kind of response in the reader. Unless your business is just starting up and you need to increase awareness of your brand and build credibility, you should almost never run an ad just to run an ad. Direct response advertising calls for some action from the reader and that’s how you can gauge just how effective that ad is.

As we’ve mentioned over and over again throughout this site, your messaging is key to the success of your print ad. To message correctly you must first decide what the goal of your ad is (make this quantifiable), who your are speaking to with your ad (know your target audience), know what benefits appeal most to that audience and know what you want the reader to do after they read your ad so that you can gauge the ad’s effectiveness.

If you follow this formula, and advertise in the right publications, you will get response. If the ad pays for itself, or better yet, gets you a great ROI, continue running it. If it doesn’t, go back to the drawing board or try another marketing tactic.

We can help you develop ads that sell! Complete our email form or call us for more information.