You’d think we’d know a lot about print advertising at this point. It’s not exactly a new medium after all. But there seems to be a strong tendency to make the same mistakes over and over, and then wonder why the campaign didn’t work. Here’s a list of do’s and don’ts to help make your print ads more successful.

Do

• Clarify your audience—knowing whom you’re trying to reach is the ultra-crucial first step.
• Hire a professional to develop a media plan—wrong publications, wrong timing, wrong frequency, wrong mix can easily doom the best ad campaign.
• Decide what you’re selling before creating an ad.
• Sell benefits, not features in a product or service ad—focus on the top two or three.
• Show your product or service in action—incorporate people.
• Consider premium positions to increase readership and recall.
• Learn from other advertising campaigns—including your competitors.
• Write killer headlines that speak to benefits—five times more people read a headline than body copy.
• Communicate the brand and a positive message.
• Incorporate high-impact visuals and easy-to-read typefaces.
• Remember that you are not the buyer—what matters is whether your campaign works, not whether you like it.
• Include URLs to drive website traffic—a study shows the biggest lifts in women’s service (198%), home (203%), and travel (286%) categories vs. ads with no URL.
• Track and test, track and test—improve tracking with coupons, new VOIP services, special pricing, landing pages, subscriber surveys, tip-ins, etc.

Don’t

• Underestimate the power of frequency—it’s a critical campaign success factor.
• Forget to include a strong direct response component to generate leads.
• Fail to hook readers quickly—the average reader glances at a print ad for two seconds with 1.5 devoted to the visual.
• Sacrifice brand visibility for “creativity”—ideally integrate the brand with the visual.
• Choose visuals that generate negative, unintended associations.
• Make people work hard to connect your visuals with your product and brand.
• Wander from your key points.
• Load your ad with meaningless platitudes—“we provide quality service,” etc.
• Forget that a direct response ad needs more copy to explain a product or service.
• Choose an inappropriate format for your message—consider spreads, inserts and advertorials if you need more space.
• Neglect to advance the reader to the next step.
• Limit your advertising to just print or any other single medium—it’s very much a multi-channel world.

By Larry Bauer