I recently saw a billboard that said "Bigger is Better, when it comes to advertising". I know that they were just trying to sell billboards, but it brings across a good point that many advertising salespeople try to use to sell advertising space and many contractors tend to believe.
The thing that many believe is that the bigger your ad, the better response you will have. That is not necessarily true. It is like saying that if you shout louder than anyone else, than more people will want to do business with you. I have seen large ads that got zero response and small ones that pulled in business regularly.
Advertising
Now, I am not saying that there is never a time to have a large ad. The one thing that a bigger ad will do for you is that, sometimes, it will get more people to notice your ad. This is one small part of the equation of a successful ad.
The bad part about bigger advertising is that it usually costs you more. You need to be aware that most of the people selling ad space in almost any medium are trying to sell ad space. They have very little real world experience in getting customers to call you because of your advertising.
In any successful advertising there are 4 basic steps to include to make it work. You have to get the persons attention, you need to get them interested, you need to get them to have a desire to call you, and then you need to get them to take action.
A bigger ad will sometimes help with the first part. It may help to get their attention. It will also give you more room to insert the copy necessary to do the other steps. However, most people with a bigger ad will not use the extra space to put in more copy. They will usually just use bigger letters and leave more blank space.
Now on a billboard it is difficult to have much copy to sell a person as they are driving by at 70 mph. In cases like this, it would be a great idea to have an attention getting and relevant headline along with a way for the prospect to contact you to get more information. This is known as two step marketing. The advantage of two step marketing is that you don't have to sell the person with just one touch. It gives you the opportunity to sell to the prospect later, and to know who has an interest in using your services.
Very often with two step marketing, you can do as well or better with a smaller ad, and you can target your more extensive advertising to the people who are really interested in your services. This can really help your marketing dollars to be more effective. After all the purpose of marketing is to bring in more money than it costs you.
So the next time a salesperson tries to sell you advertising space and they want you to buy the biggest space, remember that bigger is not always better. Also remember that their purpose is to sell advertising and they have no real vested interest in selling your services. It is your job to figure out the best ways to sell your services.
One Fallacy About Advertising
Herb Reinhard is a contractor who specializes in building relationships with his customers so that they use him for all of their jobs. He also teaches other contractors how to market to create more income and a stable business. He can be reached at herb@contractorriches.com. He publishes regular blogs about marketing your contracting business at http://www.contractorriches.com.