Start the presses! A guide
to creating your first print ad
By Jay MacDonald • Bankrate.com

They are all around us. Each of us is an expert in them. Even your youngest child would be considered a foremost authority on the subject by the rest of the world.

What's our specialty? The advertisement, of course.

As Americans, we wallow in them, sunup to sundown. As the world's No. 1 consumer culture, we are the unrivaled authority on the hard sell, the soft pitch, the come-on and the last-chance-going-fast-super-low-markdown.

Ads? Oh, we know ads.

So why can't we write one?

Every small-business owner must one day face the Great White -- that blank sheet of paper that must somehow become your first print ad. Suddenly, all those years of subconsciously studying ads as a consumer amount to zip as you try to figure out how to pitch your company to an audience as media-savvy as yourself.

Don't freak out. This isn't rocket science. But there is a logical evolution to developing your first ad and there are plenty of tricks to help you come up with the visceral punch you'll need to get noticed.

Start with a plan
Just as your business began with a plan, so should your advertising. Actually, in an ideal world, advertising would be part of your overall marketing plan, which would encompass every means by which you plan to market and promote your company, from skywriters and news releases to free balloons. Here, though, we'll focus just on the print advertising portion.

Like a business plan, your advertising plan forces you to make clear, tough choices. Before you can advertise effectively, you must answer these questions:

• Who are my customers -- the target market for my advertising?
• Who do I hope to be to them?
• How can I best reach them with my message?

Clearly, to have much of a chance out there, you need to find your market niche, either an under-served market for your product or something you do better than anyone else. Got it? Good. Because from here on out, the name of the game is focus, focus and focus.

"The purpose of focus is that you turn down what isn't your business," says Don Hobbs, a partner in Hobbs/Herder Advertising, which specializes in marketing seminars and materials for the real estate industry. "A neurosurgeon doesn't deliver babies. A corporate lawyer doesn't handle divorces because he needs the money."

An advertising plan acts to keep you on course -- your course, not somebody else's.

"In a normal business, every week some guy comes in with a coupon plan for $500," says Hobbs. "Without a plan to show where you are going, what you are going to do and what you aren't going to do, how do you know if this guy's idea fits? When you don't have a plan, everything seems like a neat idea. You fall victim to the plan of the week."

Where to advertise
Now that you've got your direction, deciding where to advertise becomes easier.

"Who you advertise to will dictate how you advertise and where you advertise," says Hobbs. "It becomes, 'What do I want to be and to whom do I want to be that?'"

At this point, focus in on the print publications your audience reads: daily and weekly newspapers, monthly magazines, and specialty publications. To get the biggest bang for your buck, in most cases you'll steer away from classified ads, which are sold by box, line or inch in the classified section, and toward display ads, which are sold in box form from full page to quarter-page and smaller (for instance, a three-by-five display ad would be a box across three columns, five inches deep).

Determine whether the daily newspaper, magazines, specialty publications or a mix of all three will best reach your target audience. Then place your ad in the specific sections they read; in the newspaper, men tend toward the sports section, women the food section, for instance. As far as placement, the top right-hand corner is considered prime. And yes, it's OK to request placement; most publications, however, won't guarantee it. Some charge a premium for placement. But by all means avoid the crowd.

"You've got to get away from where everybody else in your industry is advertising," says Hobbs. "Where is everybody? Good -- let's not be there."

When it comes to ad "buys," frequency is all-important.

"Frequency is huge," says Hobbs. "You've got almost no chance of memory retention. Everybody thinks that once a month is a lot, but you need to be there once every 10 days. But there are tricks. If a newspaper has a weekly food section and I own a kitchen store, I can advertise there once a week and 'be' there every day from that consumer's point of view because I'm in that section every time they open it."

Make me read your ad
Ready to write that ad? Great. But first, let's look at how most print ads are designed.

"The headline is the ad for your ad," says Hobbs. "It has to stop people dead in their tracks. If it doesn't, you've failed."

Need a little inspiration? "The best headlines in the world are in the worst publications, the tabloids," he adds. Of course if your market is the uptown crowd, you'll need something a little more refined.

Then there is the body copy or text. Here, your opening line is key. Draw the reader in with engaging, lively, punchy writing, but keep it flowing in story format, as bullets tend to act as stop signs for the reader and break the spell you hope to weave.

If you want to use a photo, make sure it has the same stopping power as a headline. Photos that are unique draw attention; cliched or overused photos -- a lawyer seated at a desk -- are a waste of valuable ad space.

Then there's the offer -- your two-for-one, your 25 percent discount, etc. -- and your contact information. Rules here: Make your offer clear and easily understood, and keep your contact information short: address, Web URL and one phone number, not six.

If a further jump-start is required, head to your local library and see how others in your business present themselves in newspapers, regional magazines and specialty publications around the country. Hobbs says there is a legitimate reason to study ads in your own market.

"You may want to do that to avoid repeating what somebody has already done well. You don't want to be the second person in that position," he says.

Consider hiring a pro
Depending upon your business, your market and your resources, you may want to explore hiring an advertising or marketing agency to work with you. Why? They're specialists, for one thing. They've been through this a hundred times, they know the market demographics, the best media buys and generally what works. They can also help you monitor the success of your ads and make the proper adjustments to your message or media mix to correct missteps.

"You've got a CPA doing your financial work, an attorney doing your legal work, and then you're going to do all your marketing stuff yourself without knowing a thing about it?" asks Hobbs. "How effective will that be? Did you save money or did you waste every dime of what you spent?"

Hobbs, admittedly a zealot on the subject, insists it just makes good business sense to hire a pro.

"When Realtors say they don't have the money to spend with an ad agency, I tell them they don't have the money not to spend. You don't have any money to waste. If you had an unlimited budget, you could try this, try that, see what works, see what doesn't. You don't have that option! You can't afford to have a mistake. A mistake is all that you've got between you and disaster. How long do you have before you're out of business?"

Jay MacDonald is a contributing editor based in Florida

--Posted: Oct. 16, 2000