Sharpen Your Axe – Increase Productivity
As a history buff, I love reading quotes and stories by famous historical characters. Abraham Lincoln was one of America’s most iconic leaders, speakers, and conquerors of adversity. I love his quote on cutting down a tree, “If I only had an hour to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first forty-five minutes sharpening my ax.”
In business, it is essential to work smarter not harder.
So, it is worth whatever it takes to learn how to sharpen your business building ax to increase return on investment and profits. One superb way to get more bite out of your marketing budget is to augment your advertising campaign with advertorials.
While an advertisement is an obvious sales pitch to sell a product or service, an advertorial differs in that it is a promotion of a product or service wrapped in editorial content. It looks like a news article. At the end of the advertorial the sponsor’s contact information, website, or phone number appears so customers can purchase the product or service promoted.
Advertorials can be in print, online, on the radio, and on television.
But are they really effective? In 2007 Reader’s Digest conducted a split marketing test to discover how consumers perceived an advertisement vs. an advertorial. Reader’s Digest ran two nearly identical texts to sell Adolph’s Salt Substitute.
The results were astounding! The product promoted through the advertorial approach sold over 81% more product than the product promoted through a traditional advertisement. In fact, as the Reader’s Digest study discovered, customers were more than 500 times more likely to read and advertorial over an advertisement.
While the results were amazing, the effectiveness of an advertorial depends on many factors.
The key factors are the quality of the written content (as useful and informative) and an approach that doesn’t appear overly “salesy.” Poorly written content that comes across as an overt sales pitch decreases advertorial effectiveness. So, when deciding on your monthly marketing plan, be sure to employ these powerful ax sharpeners-advertorials. If you need some help, we’d be glad to work with you to create incredible news-like ads no one will forget.
