Using proven techniques to increase the selling power of your trade journal and magazine advertising

Designing your advert, be it for a trade journal or magazine, Quiet Storm abide by techniques proven to increase its selling power. Things like:

Advertisements in colour typically cost 50% more than those in black and white but they are 100% more memorable
Headlines which promise a real benefit or a new way to use an old product work best
Headlines of ten words typically sell more than short headlines
A picture is worth 1000 words but it will have greater response if it has story appeal
Pictures should focus on the results of your product and 'before and after' shots work best

The point is this, do you want us to break the mould or follow these, and other, proven rules?

Trade journals and magazines usually have a specific target audience, so it goes without saying this profile has to match that of your prospect or you wouldn't be advertising in them.

The frequency of your advert or adverts should be a component of a clear well-formed strategy. Each advert should have a single-minded proposition. At Quiet Storm, our focus is business to business (B2B) advertising communication, although we do have considerable experience in business to consumer (B2C).

There must be an effective way of monitoring all of the opportunities arising, down to a specific advert in a specific publication - the same advertisement may perform differently in different publications, different positions, etc. This feedback will help you to manage your budget and maximise your return on investment.

To advertise in these publications is usually expensive so it is imperative that the results are measured accurately and in real-time - it's no good finding out that your advert is not performing on certain pages or in certain publications when your budget is gone.

Measuring the performance of your advert

By phone: Non-geographic telephone numbers (for example those with a 0870 prefix) which forward on all calls made to your number and in doing so register every enquiry made by telephone, including the time of day and any 'dropped' or 'unanswered calls'. Quiet Storm are able to offer you this service, providing an accurate measure of all telephone enquires generated by your trade journal or magazine advert.

Through your website: Driving readers to your web page will create expectations and your web page must deliver the information they seek. The web address should be unique to the advert enabling all visits to be recorded. When at the web page there should be an offer. Your offer will require that they 'complete this web form to receive...' providing you with valuable customer profile information. Quiet Storm can create online landing pages so that you may have an accurate measure of all web traffic and enquires generated by your advert.

Physical evidence: Vouchers or 'present this advert for...' help monitor 'through the door' traffic. This very much depends upon the services or products you offer but is one of the ways you can measure the physical response to your advert.

Prospect list

Anonymous readers have no value - so you need to develop strategies that make readers willingly supply you with information. Every advert can build a prospect list.

Research & testing

It may be that the advert gets lucky first time but more often than not to get 'the best performing advert', in the 'best performing position' and the 'best performing publication' will involve testing and this must be allowed for when planning your campaign.

Research will limit experimentation to a minimum, for instance according to research carried out web is the strongest* response channel. (Web = 60%, Telephone = 20%, Voucher = 20%. So publish an URL in your advert!

* Source: UK marketing campaigns during 2004

To arrange a no obligation FREE consultation please complete our enquiry form - stating which days and times would be most convenient for us to call you for a brief and informal chat about your requirements.