Recipe: Making Advertising Work

There are a number of reasons why advertising is last on the list of marketing strategies for professional services. First, there’s the know-like-and-trust factor. Advertising is not an effective way to gain a prospective client’s trust.

Second, advertising generates leads, not sales. People calling, e-mailing, or visiting your website because they saw an ad will take much more convincing than prospects whom you already know, or are referred to you. They will be more likely to bargain for a lower price, ask for references, or require a written proposal and lengthy sales cycle than will people who know you better.

Third, like any other marketing strategy, advertising must be done repeatedly to have an effect. Ongoing advertising can be very expensive. H & R Block can afford to advertise their tax preparation services because they have an enormous staff in many locations waiting to serve clients. The cost of this advertising is reasonable when divided by that many people, all working to generate revenue. But a two-person accounting office just can’t generate enough revenue to pay for an extensive advertising campaign. This is why a small firm shouldn’t copy what large companies do, thinking that is the best way to replicate their success.

The reality is that the other five strategies outlined in Chapter 1 will attract more prospects who become clients—and at a lower price—than advertising does, for the vast majority of professionals. Sure, advertising might bring you some clients, but your objective is to get the best result with the least investment of time and money.

And advertising is an investment—a high-risk investment. In using it, you should follow the same steps as you would to invest in anything:

1. Analyze your options carefully.

2. Choose the vehicle with the highest return at the lowest cost.

3. Don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose.

Does it ever make sense for an independent professional to advertise? Yes, it can. As noted in Chapter 1, advertising, used alone, almost never works to find clients for a professional, consultant, or coach. In other words, you should never rely on advertising to bring you clients. But it is possible to judiciously combine advertising with other strategies and produce results at a reasonable cost. For example:

A brochure-style website, used alone, is merely an advertising tool. But combined with follow-up techniques like an e-zine, writing techniques like a blog, or networking and publicity via social media, it can become quite powerful and cost-effective.

When producing a promotional event like a free workshop or webinar, you might advertise it to attract more attendees.

You might run a pay-per-click ad campaign to drive traffic to a page where you collect the e-mail addresses of prospects in return for a free bonus, then follow up with them to build a relationship.

You could produce a video to advertise your services and make it available on your website and social media channels.

You might take the time to create a basic listing for your business in some of the online directories that offer this for free.

If you offer products or paid seminars in addition to your services, you might choose to advertise those other lines of business. (As noted in the Introduction, the Get Clients Now! system is designed for marketing professional services; it’s not a complete solution for marketing products and packaged learning programs.)

To examine the potential return on any investment in advertising, ask yourself these questions:

How many prospects do you expect your ads to generate?

What will each prospect cost you, based on the expense in time and money to create and manage your ads?

How many will become clients?

What will be the dollar value of those closed sales?

Is there a cheaper way you could generate the same amount of revenue?

How much can you really afford to spend?

Once you have made the commitment to advertise, and know how much you can afford to invest, here are some suggestions for getting the most from your advertising dollar:

Target the right audience. The narrower your target, the better. Specialized publications and websites aimed at your market niche are often cheaper to advertise with than the ones with wide appeal. Targeting also permits you to tailor your ad for the people most likely to buy.

Place your ad where they “shop.” When is it most likely that a client will realize she needs you? Where might she be looking at that time? If you are a résumé writer, you can advertise in your networking group’s e-zine and hope that people about to start a job search happen to see your ad. But it’s more likely that job seekers would find you from an ad on a job posting website.

Request an immediate response. Institutional advertising is for the big guys. You really can’t afford to advertise just for name recognition; you need a direct response. A financial planner might headline an online ad: “How much will your investments bring you at retirement? Click here to find out with our free online calculator.”

Repeat; don’t scatter. People often don’t respond the first, second, or tenth time they see your ad, so give them more chances. When your budget is limited, buy repeat ads in the same venue, not one ad in several different ones. Make sure people see your ad often. For the same money that a large banner ad on a niche website’s home page would cost each month, you could probably run a smaller ad on the same site’s blog that would be seen along with multiple posts.

Appraise your website. Before you start directing ad viewers to your website, make sure your site does a good job of capturing visitors and selling your services. There’s no point in paying to get more traffic if prospects don’t choose to interact with you when they visit.

Track and adjust. Keep track of the response to every ad—not just the volume of calls or site visitors, but the value of the sales they generate. To do this, you will need to keep accurate records of where every prospect comes from, and how much each one spends with you. If an ad isn’t bringing you paying clients after you have run it several times, dump it, even if you’re getting plenty of inquiries. Revisit the points above, and see if you can come closer to your target, where they shop, and what will prompt a response. And if an ad is working for you, don’t change it. You will get tired of your ads long before your clients do.

The variety of advertising venues available is truly enormous. Online, you can run pay-per-click ads in search engines or on websites, contentspecific ads on social media channels, banner ads on websites and blogs and in e-zines, classified ads, calendar listing ads, and directory ads. In print, you can place display, classified, or calendar listing ads in newspapers, magazines, newsletters, trade journals, directories, or event programs. Out in the world, you can put ads on flyers, posters, signs, and billboards. And then there are other approaches both old and new, like ads on your T-shirt or car, or ads on smartphone apps. How do you even begin to choose?

This is where targeting is extremely important. There’s no point in placing an ad somewhere that has minimal exposure to your target niche. There’s also no point in running ads that cost more than the business they bring in. Pay careful attention to all the tips above on how to determine whether advertising is for you and how to make it work. And before placing any ad, ask yourself, “Is this the most likely place for prospects to be looking for a business like mine?”