Two other points that are probably worth their own discussion is reach (in the case of broadcast media) and readership in the case of print media. Having been involved in the media for more days than I care to remember, these are two very important points in the potential effectiveness of any advertising. It doesn’t matter how cheap the ad is if it doesn’t get into the hand of your market.

One other point in regards to Yellow Page advertising – it is merging into an online source that is becoming effective. I agree the printed directorys are a waste of money — why anyone would want to be listed right next to their competition has never failed to amaze me.

Fully 30 per cent of the visits to my website from search engines are coming from http://www.yellowpages.ca.

Although that has to be put into the persective of its still less than a couple of per cent of my entire hits. Fully 80% of the total visist to my website come from somebody actually typing in the website address directly instead of using a search engine. So search engines make up only about 20 per cent of my visitors.

Thank you for your comment, I really appreciate you taking the time to read my posts and respond.

I agree totally with your assessment of most photographers’ ads – 90% of them are a waste of time. Your formula for effective advertising is definitely true and, as you said, it applies to virtually all media.

1. Headline – An absolute must – has to grab the reader’s attention. But the key point when advertising photography is that it must be an emotional headline. People buy photography for emotional reasons.

2. Body Copy – Also very important but, for photographers, it should not be crafted to get the reader to buy – that’s too much of a leap for the prospect to take. It should, however, be designed to get them to call and meet for a chat about the photography. This should also present an offer of some kind (not necessarily free stuff though).

3. Call to action – Again, essential. If we don’t ask them to do something then they won’t respond.

4. Contact information – at a minimum phone, web site and email address.

You also made a good point about the frequency of advertising – the prospect has to grow used to the brand and will need to see the ad several times before responding.

You did miss out one important point with an ad, in connection with the call to action – there must be a deadline. If there’s no urgency to act then they will just procrastinate.

I think one of the reasons why a Yellow Pages ad really doesn’t work is that it isn’t possible to incorporate an offer or a deadline into a Yellow Pages ad, since it’s going to be there at least a whole year. When people look through the Yellow Pages, they are mostly price shopping – and then it’s a really hard struggle on the phone to get them into the emotional thinking needed.

Unfortunate as it is to the industry, newspaper print ads appear to be giving way to online advertising that’s more effective, at least in my experience. TV and radio ads are simply too expensive for the budget of any photographer I know, at least here. Maybe it’s different somewhere else, I don’t know.

Thanks again for the great comment – this is just the kind of discussion I like to see on here.

Best regards

Nigel

Having said that, your statement that newspaper, radio, and TV advertising doesn’t work is simply wrong. All of the media that you mentioned as not working can be very effective–if used correctly. The problem lies not with the medium that is used, but with the message that you put in that medium, and that is where most people fall down.

Just look at most ads for wedding photographers. They consist, on the most part, of some (what they think remarkable) photo, and then the studio name. There is no headline, there is no body copy, and there is no urge to action.

That’s like trying to drive your car backwards down the freeway and when you go in the ditch blaming the dealership where you bought the car from.

The formula for an effective advertisement in any media is very simple.

1 – Headline: Which should be written so that it will reach out and grab your target market by the throat and slam them up against the wall.

2- Body Copy: Which will justify the reason why they should put their hands in their pockets to give you their money.

3 – Urge to Action: That’s the reason why they want to do it now. Not next month, not next week, not even tomorrow, but NOW.

4 – Contact information: So they know where to go spend that money that you have convinced them to spend.

The other thing to remember about effective advertising is that frequency is far more important than size. So if you have a limited budget you are better off to purchase a number of small ads rather than blow the budget on one large ad.

Chris Moran