5 Practical Tips on How to put an Advert Together

Images

The use of an image can be a way to draw the eye to an advert, to capture someone’s attention. A few pointers to keep in mind:

• If you are able to use an image of your own product(s), shop front or team members for example, do just that! But make sure it looks professional and portrays your business in the right way. Use a professional photographer if you can afford it, or maybe you know someone who takes good pictures?
• The image needs to be of high quality, 200KB or much higher if it is used for example as background for a full page. The best way to see if a picture is sharp enough, blow up the picture and see if it gets fuzzy or not. Pictures saved for usage online are often very small (20KB) and not suitable for print.
• If you do not have your own image, you can source one, but make sure you own the copy right. There are some free image providers (for example www.pixabay.com ) or you can purchase images from sites like www.bigstockphoto.com where there is a lot of choice and you are sure to own the right. Do not pick one from a google image search if you are not sure about the copy right.

Less is more… one or two good images could do a much better job than lots of small ones.

What to say?

I like to use the example of a massage therapist. If they want to attract new customers, who might not have had a massage yet, it is important to show what problems they can solve for people. If they just give a list of what type of massages they offer, they will miss out on the people who don’t know anything about types of massages and what they can achieve and just want to get rid of their backache.

What are you solving for people? Show off the benefits people get when they come to you! May be ask a question at the top of your advert, i.e. ‘Do you suffer from backache?’

Fonts

The variety of fonts available to use is huge. When you open a Word Document you can get quite overpowered by the choice. My tip? Keep it simple and stylish. Don’t get too carried away with funky fonts, especially not for the main body text where you explain what you can do for people. Is your café modern? Go for a modern type of font like Calibri or Arial. Is your service traditional? Times New Roman or something similar can do the job. Don’t forget, it needs to be readable – not just the style of the font, but also the size. Ideally use front size 8 or bigger.

Where to put your logo

Does your logo say what it does on the tin? Then you can get away with using it at the top of an advert. Does your logo not say what it does on the tin? Remember, you are not Coca Cola and not many people will know who you are or what you do, so put it somewhere at the bottom or lower down on the advert. Do not leave your logo out, but it should not be the main focus.

Call to action

Your call to action should be very clear. What do you want people to do as a result of reading your advert? Give you a call, visit your website or shop, email you for more information? Whatever the main goal of your promotion, make it stand out the most. For example if emailing you is not the goal, then a mention of your website should be enough, as they can find your email there. A mention of your first name if you are the person behind the business, will make it a bit easier for people to ring up.

When you are trying to attract local people of a certain area and you do not live in the vicinity, you could consider purchasing a landline with a local number. They are not expensive and a great way of tracking responses to a specific advertising campaign to see if it works. And local people like to ring local numbers for their services. A mobile number is fine to mention, but there are still some potential customers who prefer to ring a landline.

Also, prepare for what you are going to say when you do get an enquiry. Publications and websites can generate the leads for you, but you have to do the sale! The potential customer might be ringing a few of your competitors as well – what benefits can you give people, what can you solve for them, how can you stand out from the crowd and close the sale?

Finally, enjoy the process of thinking about your business and how to portray it to the outside world. Learn from other adverts in publications, study them and see what makes them stand out (or not!). Especially those of your competitors or similar businesses elsewhere in the country. And don’t be afraid to ask for feedback from people around you (not necessarily close friends of family, as they will often try to please you and are not always the ones who can give you the most honest feedback), like your customers. Would they ring you as a result of your advert?

Good luck with it!

Free Advert Design and Layout Help with All About Magazines

If you decide to advertise with us and have decided on the size of your advert, all you have to do is email in your chosen photo(s) in a high quality format, the message you want to get across, any fonts you would like to be used (but we can easily find one that suits your business), a high resolution version of your logo and what call to action you have thought off. And we do the rest! At no extra cost. You will get a proof sent over to you to comment on and once you are happy with the layout and design, the advert will be ready to do its job in the magazine.

If you have any questions or want to discuss how we can help please get in touch.