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Effective Music Industry Advertising
When most people think of promotion they think of advertising. Well, the
truth is there are many opportunities for successfully promoting your
music products and services. Advertising is just one small part of the
overall promotional milieu. And face it, ads are expensive. And for many
businesses, they rarely payoff. Why do people continually waste their
precious capital resources on advertising? I suspect there are several
reasons:
-- Ignorance. Some people just don't know any better. They see all the
big advertisers plopping down millions to sell their gym shoes,
dot.coms, soft drinks, cars, and perfumes, so they think they must do
the same.
-- Laziness. Advertising is easy. Most other promotional strategies take
time and effort. Advertising promises instant results and gratification.
But this is a deceptive lure.
-- Limited resources. A small business must carefully control its
promotional budget. When advertising promises a flood if new customers,
many (foolishly) put all their money there.
Lest you think I'm totally against advertising, I'm not. It has its
place, BUT IT'S NOT A CURE-ALL! There are many less expensive, more
lucrative opportunities and options for promotion that work better (the
subject of future columns, of course).
So, if you must advertise, follow these tips:
-- Many smaller ads are better than one big ad. Repetition of your
message is crucially important to your target market. You must bring
your music products and services to their attention repeatedly.
-- Don't use an ad to sell directly, especially a small or classified
ad. Use it to generate leads. The reason is simple. It's hard to sell
most music products and services from a few lines of copy. People want
complete information before they make their buying decision. Elicit a
response from your target market -- get them to contact you -- and then
you can control the process. Advertising works if you use it this way.
Include these main parts in every ad:
-- Audience identifier. You can skip the audience identifier if your ad
appears in a targeted magazine or Web site. There's no sense wasting
words on "Attention Producers" if the ad is in Video Producers. The
beauty of regular classified advertising is you can skip most
identifiers because your ad falls under the appropriate classification.
That leaves you room to concentrate on benefits.
-- Main benefit. Pack your ad with benefits. Focus on your clients and
provide them with the results and benefits they get by using your music
products and services. All benefits can be presented in one of these two
ways as the basis for your offer: Remove a pain; or promote a gain.
Every benefit your music product or service offers can be framed either
way. For example, to promote my commercial music business, I could
choose either headline to deliver my main benefits.
-- Stop paying too much for original music. (focuses on removing a pain)
-- Save money on your next music package. (hints at gaining something)
-- Offer. Invite prospects to contact you for more information, offer a
free initial consultation, or send a free demo, brochure, or booklet.
Don't push the item itself, instead stress the benefit of having that
item. And don't try to sell them your music in an ad.
-- Necessary details. Your contact information is crucial. Put in your
phone number, e-mail, and Web URL.
Here are a few other tips:
-- Don't use abbreviations. Whittle down the words to the barest minimum
needed to present your benefit and make your offer. Don't sacrifice
words for clarity, though.
-- Make sure you track all your advertising. When people contact you,
take a second to ask them how and where they heard of you. Keep a record
of their responses so you can see where your money, time, and energy are
best spent.
-- Talk to your prospects, not at them. Use simple, everyday language
and write short, action-packed copy that moves from one place to the
next.
-- Cut to the chase. Don't spend too much time on useless background
material. State your case up front, make your point, and present your
argument. Remember your job is to motivate further action, not educate
or pontificate.
-- Use action words and prefer the simple words to their longer
counterparts.
-- Avoid hype like the plague. If you can defend your claim, it's not
hype. If you can't defend your claim, it's not hype either -- it's
lying.
Follow these hints and advertising can play an important role as part of
a carefully conceived and executed promotional strategy.
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