Let’s face it, advertising is a necessary evil of being in business…but are these ads really doing the trick?

They might not be…here’s a quick way to evaluate your ads to see if you are setting yourself apart from your competition, or merely falling into line with everyone else, giving all potential clients and customers heartburn when it comes to making a choice. Let’s be really, really honest here…if you were to take your competitor’s ad, remove their name and/or logo and replace it with yours, would your ad look pretty much the same?

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ABC Sales

Come in and check out our special rates

We have flexible financing, friendly sales personnel, and are open weekends.

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Are you surprised to find that you’re pretty generic…you both are making the same claims? Many people are.  They really, truly believe that they’re different from their competition, but they’ve really given their clients and customers no way of discovering that for themselves.

If you haven’t managed to set yourself apart with your advertising words, why would anyone choose you over your competitor?  Think about it, if your prospect can’t find anything to distinguish you, a way to tell you apart, the only criteria they will use at that point is who has the lowest price, or who answers the phone first.

Are you willing to let your business be subjected to such flights of fancy, or just dumb luck?  I hope not, because if you do, you’re traveling on a dead end trail. You’ll never reach the level of success you probably deserve.

Remember, people want to know about the product of service you offer.  They don’t want to know how great you are initially, they want to know if you can deliver.

If you have the product or service they need, then when they come in to your business you will be able to persuade them to believe in what you say about your quality of service, superiority, pleasure of business experience.

Not before!

Figure out what your clients want and need,

answer that in your ad,

and then make sure you deliver it.