THE IDEA IS WORTH MORE THAN THE INFORMATION
You should know by now that the idea is worth more than anything else you have to work with. Getting all the right and correct information is good but without that idea, without the compelling direction, your marketing will be less than powerful, less than satisfactory, and just flat-out less.
There are many tools that can help you be creative and help you use your imagination to construct a marketing campaign that brings results and lasts the test of time. One such tool is
Ad Slants. Let’s talk about the
“Advice” Ad Slant.
Initially, it will be useful if you can keep in mind that even though these are Headline Starter categories, these groups serve as the basis of a whole ad – even the whole campaign. The “accordion” principle holds for these slants as well. The basic structure can give rise to a complex plan, it just depends on how much information you want to pack in as well as how much time and space you have and need. Truly these slants are a one word statement of the entire plan, hence their power in aiding you to get the idea.
Each slant is chosen using a set of requirements or common situations. These situations come from properties of the company you are marketing and from situations in the typical prospect’s lives. This is how you will narrow down your choice of slants; the Advice Slant is the same.
The Advice Slant
So how do we know when to use this particular slant? You would want to use this slant in the following situations:
• The prospect is faced with a new situation or twist on a situation.
• He/she doesn’t know what to do and is faced with a decision.
• He/she lacks information or has very little information.
• He/she needs opinions and options upon which to judge.
• He/she is actively searching for information and getting some but not all.
• The outcome is important, but perhaps not absolutely critical.
• The information you have is not necessarily negative or positive – perhaps more directive.
You really don’t have to be super inspired to choose the right slant. Just fit the situation to the bill, so to speak. As long as you have some of those situations, you can and should choose this slant.
For example, you are a chimney sweep company. They are a service so you could default to the
Advice Slant right away. But let’s describe the typical prospect’s situation first.
• The typical prospect has never had a chimney sweep come to the house.
• The typical prospect has never seen marketing for a sweep or if they have, it was a postcard with the usual menu style information.
• Chimney sweeping is not a familiar service, most people don’t know a sweeper personally nor have they ever really thought about it.
• The outcome, if your chimney is blocked, is pretty important. You can’t light a fire until you get the problem fixed.
• The prospect might not know exactly what the problem is and he/she needs some additional information.
Does that sound like a reasonable situation? Perhaps those of you in the Northern U.S. or other cold weather climates would be more familiar, but overall the situation stands. If so, the
Advice Slant would be perfect.
More on this tomorrow.
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