PBB Best Buy Knows Marketing

PBB Best Buy has displayed thousands of ads for hundreds of businesses over the years.  Some worked, others fizzled, but a few were spectacularly successful.

We studied the highly successful ones and discovered they had a couple of things in common.  We've made a checklist of 7 Tips for you to follow when you're making your own ads.  They won't guarantee you'll hit a home run, but they will give you the best chance of succeeding.

PBB Best Buy's 7 Tips for Advertising Success

1. Start With A Great Offer.  If you're trying to sell something nobody wants, you won't be in business for long.  Choose your product carefully and make sure you have a fair price.  Do a little research, find some people who you think would want your product and ask them, "would you buy this?" If the answer is no, move on until you find a better one.
2. Create a Fantastic Headline. Advertising legend David Ogilvy said, "On average, five times as many people will read your headline as will read the body copy."  He also suggested you spend 80% of your time creating a great headline. He had 5 suggestions about writing headlines:
   1. Be Value-Centric. The headline has to entice the reader to read the ad.  Ogilvy considered this to be his greatest headline: "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock." The ad was so successful it ran for four straight years.
   2. Be Specific. Specific numbers are more believable. If 9 out of 10 dentists recommend your product, say it that way, don't say "Dentists Prefer."
   3. Summarize the rest of the ad.  Ogilvy used the body copy of the Rolls Royce ad to explain how the car was better built, and therefore so quiet.
   4. Be Compelling.  You can't bore people into reading your ad, you have to be enticing. Talk about the reader's interests.
   5. Use Subheadlines. Expand on the point made in the headline.  Ogilvy's subheadline on that ad: "What makes Rolls Royce the Best Car in the World? 'There is really no magic about it - it is merely patient attention to detail,' says an eminent Rolls Royce engineer."
      (See the ad: http://swiped.co/file/rolls-royce-ad-by-david-ogilvy/"
3. Explain: What's In It For Me?  Believe it or not, your readers don't care about you. Not even a little bit.  But they do care a whole lot about themselves.  The more you make your ad about your reader, the more likely they will continue reading. After you finish writing your first draft of your ad, print it out. Now grab a couple of highlighters, one yellow the other red.  Go through the ad and highlight everything that is about you, your product or your business in red.  Every sentence that talks about the buyer gets highlighted in yellow.  If your ad isn't at least 2/3rds yellow, go back and make some changes.
   Along the same line, be sure to explain the Benefits of any Features you include. You might like to include the phrase "which means" in your ad after every feature you list.
   For example, a smartphone ad might say the phone has a 1920 x 1080 screen resolution which means streaming movies will always be crystal clear.  The screen resolution is a feature (about your product) the idea that movies will be crystal clear is a benefit (talks about your reader's interest).
4. Use Power Words. You, Free, Because, Instantly, and New are very powerful words in advertising that never grow old. You will want to read this new free article from Copyblogger because it will make this concept instantly clear. (https://www.copyblogger.com/scientific-copywriting/)
5. Include Visuals. Long blocks of text bore people.  Keep your reader going by using short sentences and paragraphs, subheadlines and images to tease them down the page.
6. Take All The Risk. Buyers don't trust you.  They question everything you say. Remove their doubts by accepting all the risk.  That's the idea behind the (1) Money-Back Guarantee, (2 ) 90-day Free Trial, and (3) "No Questions Asked" Return Policy. 
7. Ask For The Business. This is likely the biggest cause of ad failure.  Advertisers do everything to bring reader all the way to the end of the ad and fail to tell them what they want them to do.
   If you want them to click the Buy Now button, tell them. Explicitly. Don't expect readers to take any action, unless you direct them to do it.

Are you trying to grow your business online.  PBBBestBuy.com is the advertiser's home for the PBB Best Buy Network of site.  From here you can learn about our sites and kickstart your growth by advertising with us.