I just found this gem of a blog called Yellow Pages Power by Steve Yankee. Almost all of his posts have a great little nugget of information about designing or writing ad copy for yellow pages.
And here’s a little known fact for you: yellow pages aren’t really printed on yellow paper. It’s far more economical to print phone directories on white paper stock, and then use yellow ink to print the background color, and black ink to print the ads themselves. For years, having a yellow ad background was your only available choice but lately, most phone books have offered “white reverse” ad backgrounds, where your ad can feature a non-yellow background. This is another inexpensive trick to improving your ad readership.
I had actually wondered about that a few times.
Look Steve’s blog over. It’s definitely worth the read.
Want to brand yourself? Focus. Pick one thing great thing about yourself and focus on communicating it clearly.
Getting yourself branded into the minds of your market could be as simple as 1-2-3. It isn’t but it could be:
Determine the most valuable and differentiating benefit your company offers your target market.
Create one simple message that communicates your company’s value and difference to your customers.
Focus on communicating that message to your market constantly and with everything you do. After you communicated it, remind them again. Focus.
There! All done. Now you’re branded. Of course it is not as easy as 1-2-3 but those are very important steps and if you were only to pick one way, that might be the way to go. Focus on repeatedly clearly communicating your most valuable differentiating feature to your market.
The Importance of Branding
Two of the biggest intangible benefits branding creates are confidence and value. Branding helps potential customers feel confident that by purchasing your brand they are working with someone they can trust. They know your product will taste a certain way, drive a certain way, or even make people envy you in a certain way.
The value perception is also improved in successfully branded products. In an almost illogical way, customers perceive more value in products that have been effectively branded. Energizer brand batteries last longer, right? I really don’t know but there’s a little bunny that has been swinging a drumstick since forever and I think about him as my eyes switch from Energizer to the other pack, to and from, little bunny, to and from, every time I buy, er, Energizers.
The biggest tangible benefit of branding is bigger margins. Energizer batteries cost more. So do Diesel jeans, Cross pens, and branded cereals.
There a thousand ways to communicate your brand to your market. Use freebies, testimonials, postcards, celebrity message telemarketing, banner ads, or bumper stickers. Whatever you do make your message clear and focus on communicating it in everything you do.
Crossing the Line with Online Marketing Techniques
In a world over-filled with products and services that must be viewed as unique to get attention and sales it is, well, mediocre, to follow standard marketing formulas. Being different and daring is encouraged in the business world and often hugely rewarded but where do you draw the line.
There is a fine line between ethical and unethical practices in online marketing. Here are a few examples of tactics that might be considered unethical. What do you think?
Questionable Marketing Tactics
Realize that your marketing strategy might be negatively questioned – and your business could suffer the repercussions - if you misuse one of these tactics. Of course, there may be value in shocking your customers, so this in not necessarily a “Do Not Use” list, but more of a “Think Twice” list:
Fluffing up the truth to be more than what it really is
Being misleading, or involved in something that could be perceived as a bait-and-switch or trick
Marketing to children with any type of hard sell or unhealthy products
Encourage credit purchases to those that cannot afford to pay, then making a profit on interest
Selling with sex
Using health scare tactics
Attracting Customers on False Pretenses Equals Unethical Marketing
The first stage of your marketing plan may be to drive more traffic to your site. Potential customers will feel burned if they think they are coming to your site for one thing (e.g., free plans) only to find a big sales pitch. Here are just a few examples of questionable techniques used to draw website traffic:
Using article-spinning software to change the words of existing articles enough to pass them as unique content and avoid web spiders that look for duplicate content for search engines.
Frivolously posting on other people’s blogs with meaningless content just to drive people back to your site. Using poorly engineered software that will post on other blogs and forums.
Including irrelevant reciprocal or affiliate links in your content or asking other irrelevant pages to list your link(s).
Creating trick banners that say that you have won a prize, or look identical to your operating system alerts.
Create a Clear Hook to Set Yourself Apart
Set yourself apart with out-of-the-box techniques that are not blatantly unethical. One good way is with a few great buzz words and a hook. Buzz words do not always have a clearly defined meaning, but by using what is hot in the moment and tying that to your industry, you can pull in people looking for something that is new, unique, and related to what’s going on.
Using a hook will help establish yourself as an industry leader. People will remember you based on your hook, and they will repeat it. Here are a few tips for creating a killer hook for your business:
Keep it short and focused.
Be positive. Enthusiasm is contagious.
Consider humor. People like to know that a business has a good sense of humor.
Rhyme it, if you can do it tactfully.
Stand Out Amongst the Clutter
Controversial marketing techniques will never end and I am not even recommending that you use them. This is simply a discussion. What I can recommend is that you do your best to stand out amongst the clutter like the guys who set up the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Marketing Stunt in January of ‘07, which, for some ridiculous reason sent the Boston police into a frenzy. I believe the network had to pay a hefty fine but there are a million other ads and marketing efforts I don’t remember at all.
Here’s more academic view (pdf) of ethical and regulatory responsibility in advertising.
