10 advertising techniques that work

Art Business News, March, 2005 by Murray Raphel

Why does some advertising work, while some doesn't? Are there advertising rules, directions and formats to follow that will increase your sales?

Through the years we've run about 10,000 ads. Some of the approaches that we thought were sure to succeed and bring in lots of customers failed. From these failures, we learned valuable lessons regarding what not to do next time.

Other ads that we created on a tight deadline and thought were just barely passable surprised us by bringing in the crowds. Those, of course, were repeated. If you have an offer, promotion, and/or a special sale that worked well for you, use it again. A great advertisement cannot be repeated too often.

Advertising is a never-ending, always important, ongoing commitment. On average, one out of five of your present customers will leave you every year. Why? It may be because of your competition. Or you may have customers who move. And, of course, some of your customers will come to the end of their earthly lives.

As advertising "guru" David Ogilvy says, "You are not advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade."

With that in mind, here are 10 advertising techniques that work:

1. Always repeat the basics in your ads

These include your name, address, credit cards that your business accepts and the name of a person to ask for when calling your gallery. You never know when someone will read your ad for the first time and want more information. A month never went by in our shops without a customer saying something like, "You have nice merchandise; how long have you been here?" We'd smile and say, "Oh quite a while," while suppressing the desire to yell out, "More than 45 years; where have you been?"

2. Promise a benefit or provoke curiosity in the headline

The average person spends only four seconds before turning a newspaper page. In those four seconds, they first look at the news headlines. Then they look at the ads starting with the headline you've written for your gallery's ad. The average woman only reads four ads in an entire newspaper, so put news into your headline. Key words that will make the reader continue reading include: new, just-arrived, first-time and unique.

On average, five times as many people read the headline of your ad versus the copy, says advertising guru David Ogilvy. If your headline doesn't sell your product, you've wasted 90 percent of your money. It starts with your headline. It must either promise a benefit or provoke curiosity. This was proven to us many times in headlines we wrote.

We once returned from a buying trip in Helsinki, Finland, where we purchased winter jackets for our stores. This was our first headline for these jackets: "We went to Hell-sinki and Back To Bring You These Jackets." We thought using the word "hell" was very clever. Sadly, the readers didn't think so. Few read the ad. Fewer bought jackets. The main reason--the ad was merely clever. We quickly changed the headline to read, "In Our Thirty Years In Business, We Never Sold So Many Jackets In So Short a Time." That promised a benefit and a reason for reading on. We then listed 10 specific qualities in these jackets not available anywhere else. We sold 50 jackets in a few days.

Question: Should you use the name of your gallery in the headline? Answer: Only if there's a special reason. Example: "Only at (name of your gallery) will you find (name of exclusive item)."

3. Using the word "you" in the headline increases readership

A survey taken of the most successful newspaper ads ever written revealed one word was used in these winners more than any other: "You."

4. Try different head. lines for the same product

Advertising guru John Caples says he tried different headlines for the exact same product and one would pull as much as 20 times more business than the others. But you'll never know which one works best until you try them. Doubleday Books ran this headline successfully for years: "Buy any of these four books for 99 cents." This worked well until a competitor came up with the same offer but a different and more effective headline: "Buy three books for 99 cents--get one FREE."

5. Offer that which is unique, different and yours alone

These might include a specific artist and/or services such as free gift wrapping, free delivery and a must-be-satisfied guarantee. Other galleries may offer something similar--but since you said it first, you own it. By doing so, you are establishing your own brand.

Elaine Estern of Coconut Coast Studios in St. John, Virgin Islands, has done just that. She explains, "My gallery only carries my art work. I paint the above and below water scenes in the same painting. I am the only artist in the Caribbean that paints these 'two world' scenes" (For more on Elaine Estern and Coconut Coast Studios, see "Galleries Aim for Many Happy Returns," on page 54.)

As for our own shops, we went to Europe every year to buy clothing to sell. When the European items arrived, we committed the majority of our advertising dollars to these items, even though they accounted for just 10 percent of open-to-buy inventory. Why? Because these were items that our competitors did not have. We soon became known as the only place you could buy "distinctive" clothing. The customer associated everything we carried with that which was different, unusual and (most of all) exclusive--even though it made up only a small percentage of our total inventory.