The simple truth so often overlooked, ignored, and shut out by businessmen and ad agencies alike is this:
Advertising is nothing but an expense unless it generates sales.
It is not an investment if it doesn’t produce leads that turn into sales. It is nothing but an expense, a luxury doodad, if its primary purpose is to stroke the ego of the business owner who bought it. (And bought it hook, line, and sinker, too, I imagine, by the agency who convinced them of its merits.)
The end-all measure of an ad’s success is the number of sales it brings in. They can be high-quality sales in a lower quantity, high-quantity sales without concern of their quality, but it must be sales. The ad must produce tangible, measurable results.
Learn from the successes and failures — mostly failures — of the big boys who spend millions on Super Bowl commercials.
goDaddy reported good sales from its 2012 Super Bowl commercial. It was able to track them using “QR-codes,” which allow smartphone users to take immediate advantage of a discount or other offer by snapping a picture of the code on their phone (“QR” stands for “quick response”). It provided goDaddy a means of tracking the ad’s success. The Q-code encourages viewers to take action NOW because they know the commercial is of finite duration. In this case, they combined a special offer with time pressure.
They also said they received criticism for trying this, but as a result they hit record sales from their advertising. Lesson: advertising critics don’t know what they’re talking about.
By launching a Super Bowl commercial that was built upon the basics of direct-response marketing — including encouraging the reader to take a specific action step (“Scan our QR code!”) — their ad was a success. Read their full press release for the details here: goDaddy 2012 Super Bowl Press Release
Contrast this success with E*Trade’s 2011 report. Their “talking baby” ads were a hit with consumers, but they were in 4th place in new user sign-ups compared to their competition. They were considering trying new commercials to increase sales. In the 2012 Super Bowl, however, they still ran a baby commercial. The lure of notoriety remained too great for them to resist. (They finally retired the baby in 2014.)
<<Link:>> E*TRADE Looks To Outgrow That Talking Baby
You can succeed where you competitors can’t. Offer a benefit. Ask for action. Track your results. Turn a profit.
Forget fancy. Clever doesn’t sell. Time-tested salesmanship techniques do.