The most powerful word in advertising
I've been writing direct response copy for 16 years, and over that time I've learned the single most powerful word in advertising. Use it, and your results will skyrocket.
So what is this magic word? Is it free, Guaranteed, Easy, Money, You, Sex, Now, Fast?
Actually, it's not a magic word at all. The fact is, no one word will transform your ad copy and turn prospects into helpless automatons, unable to resist forking over money for your product. Such words don't exist (and if you're paying somebody to tell you otherwise...stop doing that).
The most powerful word in advertising is measurement.
Measure everything.
Measure your cost per response. Measure your cost per sale.
Work out your break-even point in advance, and use it to assess whether or not any given marketing activity is likely to succeed. For example...
If I invest $100 in advertising, what do I expect to make in sales from that advertising? I personally target a 100% ROI. That is, if I spend $100 I like to get $200 back in sales (that's gross sales revenue - not profit).
I'm an advocate of creating two versions of an ad, and testing one against the other. I see which one produces the greatest response, sales, conversion rate, and profit. I drop the weakest, create a new version, and retest from scratch.
You'll evolve powerful ads using this approach.
You can use the same method to test different ad sites, and see how effective they are. Run the same ad on 2 different sites and measure the results. One will usually outperform the other. It's important to understand a low performing site performed badly for that specific ad/product combination. It doesn't necessarily mean the site itself is a bad place to advertise.
NOTE: Don't assume volume of response equates to profit. Consider this example...
Assuming this isn't a fluke (a sample of 500 responses is enough to be confident), the banner advertising is producing leads that converting twice as effectively. This implies the ad is being shown to a more targeted audience.
Given these results, I wouldn't abandon AdWords (as long as 2 sales met my ROI target). But I would focus my attention on the banner advertising rather than AdWords in this case. In particular, the data tells me to work on improving the click-through rate, which should lower my cost/sale and increase my ROI.
This is where measurement provides something you'll never get from intuition. While gut instinct is important in marketing, measurement gives you objective data that is more useful when you're trying to work out where to focus your activity. It's useful for...
So what is this magic word? Is it free, Guaranteed, Easy, Money, You, Sex, Now, Fast?
Actually, it's not a magic word at all. The fact is, no one word will transform your ad copy and turn prospects into helpless automatons, unable to resist forking over money for your product. Such words don't exist (and if you're paying somebody to tell you otherwise...stop doing that).
The most powerful word in advertising is measurement.
Measure everything.
Measure your cost per response. Measure your cost per sale.
Work out your break-even point in advance, and use it to assess whether or not any given marketing activity is likely to succeed. For example...
- Jane is trying to decide whether or not to spend $5 per click to get a top 3 spot in AdWords for the phrase 'make money fast'. Her product makes her a profit of $50.
- She works out she would have to sell 1 product per 10 clicks to break even ($5 per click x 10 clicks = $50 profit). That's a 10% conversion rate (1 sale divided by 10 clicks).
- Jane decides a 10% conversion rate is unlikely, and doesn't buy the advertising.
If I invest $100 in advertising, what do I expect to make in sales from that advertising? I personally target a 100% ROI. That is, if I spend $100 I like to get $200 back in sales (that's gross sales revenue - not profit).
I'm an advocate of creating two versions of an ad, and testing one against the other. I see which one produces the greatest response, sales, conversion rate, and profit. I drop the weakest, create a new version, and retest from scratch.
You'll evolve powerful ads using this approach.
You can use the same method to test different ad sites, and see how effective they are. Run the same ad on 2 different sites and measure the results. One will usually outperform the other. It's important to understand a low performing site performed badly for that specific ad/product combination. It doesn't necessarily mean the site itself is a bad place to advertise.
NOTE: Don't assume volume of response equates to profit. Consider this example...
- Joe spends $50 on AdWords, and gets 100 responses and 2 sales
- Joe spends $100 on banner advertising, and gets 100 responses and 4 sales
- Both ads lead to the same sales page
Assuming this isn't a fluke (a sample of 500 responses is enough to be confident), the banner advertising is producing leads that converting twice as effectively. This implies the ad is being shown to a more targeted audience.
Given these results, I wouldn't abandon AdWords (as long as 2 sales met my ROI target). But I would focus my attention on the banner advertising rather than AdWords in this case. In particular, the data tells me to work on improving the click-through rate, which should lower my cost/sale and increase my ROI.
This is where measurement provides something you'll never get from intuition. While gut instinct is important in marketing, measurement gives you objective data that is more useful when you're trying to work out where to focus your activity. It's useful for...
- Diagnosing problems (e.g. to find out why an ad or site isn't performing)
- Working out where to focus your energies for the greatest return on investment
66 ways to get links (and traffic) to your site.
- Harry Behrens