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Friday, March 18, 2011

5 Surprising Places to Look for Creative and Effective Marketing Ideas


Examples of fantastic (and bad) marketing and advertising are all around us. By modeling the pros, you can cut the amount of effort it takes to develop your advertising supplies, and you can drastically enhance the results you\'re finding. The key is simply to know where to look and what to look for. These five places are a terrific place to commence.

Magazine covers. The headline writers at common women\'s magazines like O, Cosmo and Marie Claire are masters at reducing an entire topic into a short, captivating headline that grabs people\'s attention. Generally the full story isn\'t fairly what the headline makes it out to be. But a headline has performed its job if it piques a person\'s curiosity sufficient that she walks out of the supermarket with that magazine tucked neatly inside her eco-friendly reusable tote bag. The same factor goes for headlines you write for emails, on the net videos, blog posts, teleseminars and info products. Their only job is to hook your audience so you can tell them extra.

Infomercials. Few admit to watching them. But if individuals weren\'t tuning in to infomercials-and if they weren\'t raking in the large bucks-then organizations wouldn\'t shell out a tiny fortune to obtain the airtime. So what can you discover from them? Two issues in specific. The 1st is how these sales programs construct increasing desire for their item over the course of 30 or 60 minutes. You\'ll want to take careful notes on the order that information is presented. For example, how does the infomercial start? At what point do they introduce the product they are selling? And when do they initial give you the chance to obtain?

The other thing you want to watch for is how they build credibility by showing results. Usually this is completed by demonstrating the product in action or by incorporating testimonials of persons who\'ve bought the product or a combination of both. Pay careful attention to what makes the claims appear believable so you can model these practices.

Product packaging. We may perhaps have been told by our parents not to judge a book by its cover. But just take a look at the goods that end up in our shopping bags or that grace the shelves of our bathrooms and you\'ll see most of us do precisely that. Women\'s beauty items in certain, from cosmetics to perfume to shampoos, have just about every thing to do with marketing and advertising-specifically given that most high-end goods are made in the exact exact same manufacturing plants as those sold in drugstores.

Take for example the Ahava Mineral Botanic pictured above that sells for around $17 a bottle. Why so a lot? For starters, for the reason that it is not soap. It's mineral botanic. (I was just saying the other day how I seriously will need to pick up some mineral botanic at the store...) smiley

This item is not produced just anywhere. It\'s produced in a \"Dead Sea Laboratory,\" which is of course where certainly smart scientists with magical ingredients work. The item doesn\'t contain lengthy chemical names you can\'t pronounce, but rather ingredients like bamboo, fig, hibiscus and pansy. Significantly of the label is in French, which of course means it works \"superior.\" smiley And to top it all off, the glossy, chocolate brown bottle itself looks like a million bucks.

The point here is basically that we\'re sometimes suckered into paying top dollar for some thing that works no better than a cheaper option basically considering that of how the packaging and the words on that packaging make us feel. And when you discover to invoke emotion through your own marketing and advertising supplies, you\'ll see better results.

Junk mail. Prior to you toss today\'s junk mail into the recycling bin, sort by way of it and look for the pieces that jump out at you. Watch for the actually exceptional pieces. Pay attention to the layout, the style, the headlines and the advertising copy. Some of my favorite issues to model are the lengthy sales letters from nonprofits, book/CD/recipe of the month clubs and time-share offers. These businesses invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in testing what works and what doesn\'t. Take benefit of that expertise by dissecting what they\'re performing and mimicking that in your own sales copy.

The 11:00 news. I have to be honest. I hate local news. But I also have to give the producers credit for the sharp-witted teasers they use throughout prime time programming to get viewers to stick around. Comments like, \"obtain out what food is in your refrigerator that will lead to specific doom,\" and \"the major mistake you\'re generating that could price you your life savings,\" certain do make you sit up and take notice. Granted, I do not agree with their negativity. But you have to admit that the way in which they lure you in undoubtedly is resourceful.

These are just a couple of of the many examples that are all around us. So if you want to get better at your own marketing and advertising, basically start to take much more notice of what\'s acquiring your attention, and then give some thought as to why. Not only will you develop into much more helpful at selling your own products or services, but you\'ll also grow to be a wiser consumer too.

Where do you like to look for creative marketing and advertising suggestions? Let us know by leaving a comment below...

by Angelique Rewers, ABC, APR
Richer. Smarter. Happier.