If you do want to get your name out there, then I have some very good news for you. When you do direct-response advertising, and especially if you do OUTRAGEOUS direct-response advertising, you often get the byproduct benefit of branding.
People start to know who you are while they are being urged to take direct action.
For instance, I sent out eighteen pieces of direct mail a year for my business at Gage Menswear. Because of this exposure, I knew that if I stopped advertising to my customers for a while they would still keep coming in the store.
Plus, I also knew from various national consumer surveys that my stores had the highest recognition factor of all of the competitors that were in my same category (menswear retailers).
You really do get the benefit of branding through direct-response advertising, but the best news is you don’t have to directly pay for it.
yellow pages: a yellow brick road
A lot of people look at various media such as radio, newspapers, TV, and yellow pages and think that they cannot use this type of advertising as direct response.
That simply is not true. For example, let me show you how to use your local yellow pages as direct-response advertising.
Now before I show this to you, I want to make sure you understand that in most cases your local media salespeople hate it when you try to insist that you only run direct-response advertising.
Why do you think that is?
Well, the answer is simple. It’s because they don’t want you to be able to track results because they know that if you are able to accomplish that and do not get good results, you will likely stop advertising with them.
So, when you get a yearly visit from your local yellow pages sales representative, he or she will adamantly try to talk you out of running a direct-response ad and only place a brand-building ad.
How do I know this? Because if you pick up any yellow pages and look at the ads, just about all of them are brand-building ads, ads for which you can-NOT track results.
Try it yourself. Go to your local yellow pages and look at all of the ads in your particular category. What do you notice about them? Two things:
In very few cases can you track responses … AND
They all look very similar, don’t they?
Why do you think this is? It’s because the yellow pages don’t want you to know if you are actually getting a return on your investment. They don’t even want you to have the ability to know.
Yet the great thing about the yellow pages (and every other type of media for that matter) is that you can still use it to do OUTRAGEOUS direct-response advertising.
On the next page is a great example of how to place a direct-response ad in the yellow pages. It was created by Larry Conn for his own carpet-cleaning business. In fact, Larry got so good at creating direct-response yellow pages advertising that he started a whole new business of teaching entrepreneurs in every field how to make this work for their own businesses.
Now let’s take a look at Larry’s yellow pages ad. First of all, it has a compelling headline (see chapter 5) and great testimonials (see chapter 7).
But those don’t make it direct response, although they certainly make the ad more effective. What makes this direct response is the fact that there’s a money-savings coupon in the ad complete with a dashed coupon border that allows Larry to track response.
The other thing that makes this a direct-response ad is the “Allergy Relief Hotline,” which allows Larry to track how many people call it, and those people can also be transferred directly to Larry’s office.
Larry can tell exactly who calls from this ad and how much they spend with him when they get their carpets cleaned.
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OUTRAGEOUS boost
The “Allergy Relief Hotline” in Larry Conn’s yellow pages ad is a great example of giving customers and prospects a secondary nonthreatening way to respond to your advertisement without them having to call a live person. Giving them a free recorded message to listen to will substantially increase response. See more about nonthreatening ways to respond later in this chapter.
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three piles of advertising
Most of your advertising won’t find quite as targeted an audience as your yellow pages ad, but your goal will be to make it even more targeted. In order to do that, you must first understand a basic concept: people divide all advertising into three categories.
The easiest way to understand this is to visualize three piles of mail. I call these three piles “A” (the YES pile), “B” (the MAYBE pile), and “C” (the NO pile).
The A pile is what you absolutely have to look at this instant.
The B pile is advertising that you think you might be interested in but are just not sure about, and you set it aside for now.
The C pile is advertising that you absolutely have no interest in at all.
Fooled you with that B pile, didn’t I?
We think we divide our advertising into only two piles—either YES or NO—but the truth is that much of the advertising we look at falls into the MAYBE pile as well. The MAYBE pile is often overlooked by most entrepreneurs, and it costs them a bunch of money. Not me. I don’t overlook it. In fact, I teach it.
yes or no – or maybe later
The two top choices are clear and simple.
The A pile, which is the same as the YES pile, contains the things you must look at immediately. You feel compelled.
For instance, if you take a medical test and you are waiting for the results to be sent to you by mail, those results are part of the A pile. Yes, you want to open those immediately. Your child’s report card falls into the same pile. This pile is not to be ignored because it is information you want and need.
The
