Golden Rules for Using Promotional Tools

The following is the golden rule for many of the promotional tools, whether it is designing an advertisement, writing a mailshot letter or leaflet, or writing for an insert or brochure You only have a couple of seconds before someone turns the page and misses your advertisement. You have a couple of seconds before they put your mailshot letter in the waste paper bin, or lift the insert from the magazine and throw it away. So you need to make sure that you grab their attention. To do this you need to be imaginative. Try using a strong headline or a bold question that captures or plays on your key benefit. It is the benefits that persuade people to buy, not the features.

On television, obviously you can use a number of techniques to capture the imagination.

Television and Cinema are moving pictures with sound and vision both of which you can exploit, but that doesn't necessarily mean people will keep watching, they may zap channels, or pop out to make a drink, or buy an ice cream, therefore missing your expensive advertisement. Again, you need to think of your target audience and capture their imagination perhaps through humour, a story line, a cartoon or nostalgia.

Sound will make people notice your advertisement on the radio. You can use sound effects, a good voice artist or music to get the attention.

In the printed media, which most of us will be concerned with, you can use colour to make your advertisement stand out in a mainly black and white publication. Or you could use a black or coloured border. Borders are very effective. Illustrations or photographs also work well. Or you could use a combination of the above. But don't fall into the trap of trying to cram too much text into too small a space.

Keep it simple. Too much text and your advertisement will be lost in all the other text on the page.
Look through the advertisements in magazines and newspapers to see which ones stand out. Ask yourself why and then adapt the technique to suit your own advertisements. In a mailshot letter, leaflet or flyer, essentially you are writing advertising copy. So again you need to put your key benefit first or pose a question to get the reader's attention.

Don't begin a mailshot letter with waffle, or with the standard, 'I am writing to introduce my company to you.' It's obvious you are writing and besides I didn't invite you to introduce your company to me did I? And if I read another letter starting with, 'In today's competitive climate,' I think I will scream. I know it's competitive so please don't tell me what I already know!