AVALANCHE: The Lawyer Marketing Group

Supercharging Your Print Advertising and Haircuts

Many law firms advertise in periodicals (newspapers and glossy city-wide magazines). Some firms experience great success with their newspaper or magazine advertising; others do not. One of the things that influence the success of advertising in periodicals has to do with the frequency an advertisement appears, and how readers respond to ads.

This post will show you how to supercharge your newspaper and magazine advertising through understanding how readers behave when they see advertising.

It will not, however, teach you anything about haircuts.

If you already have experience advertising in periodicals, you likely have experienced something that most law firms encounter when they advertise in newspapers and magazines: the ad works well the first few times it appears and then it stops generating telephone calls.

Even great ads, ads that give you a one hundred to one return on investment when they first appear, generate fewer positive responses with each successive publication. Why is that?

To discover why ads lose their effectiveness with successive publications, pick up any newspaper or magazine you read on a regular basis and read through it. Notice that you focus mostly on the editorial content in the publication. If a headline or a photograph grabs your attention, you probably read the first few paragraphs of the article. If the first few paragraphs are of interest, you may go on to read the entire article. However, you won’t continue to read the article if the content does not continue to interest you.

While you are perusing your newspaper or magazine for its editorial content, you also notice the advertising. (Generally, you are not looking for the advertising; you are looking for editorial content.) You use the same criteria for deciding whether you will read the content in the advertising that you use to determine if you will read the content in an editorial piece: am I interested in this?

While reading periodicals, people read the content they are interested in, be it a story, a news report, a stock quote, an opinion, a book review, or an advertisement. When readers are not interested in the content, they continue through the publication until they find something of interest to them. Okay, you already knew that. I just needed to remind you of that so you can better understand the next few things I am going to share with you.

Most newspapers and magazines have greater subscriber circulation than they have newsstand circulation. That means that most of the people reading any given periodical read the issues that came before the one they are reading now, and they will read the issues that come after the one they are reading now. That also means that your advertisement is seen by the same people each day, each week, or each month that it appears.

Maybe that’s a good thing. Most people who sell advertising and most people who teach marketing will tell you that multiple-exposure is a good thing. Multiple-exposure is important to build awareness and relationship. Multiple-exposure is necessary to build business. I agree with those points.

What salespeople and consultants often fail to tell you (what they often fail to understand) is that multiple-exposure to the same ad generates as much interest as multiple exposure to your new haircut! I know that comparing advertising to haircuts sounds like a mighty long stretch; but it’s a very good analogy. And, you are probably relieved to see that this post is about haircuts too. Remember the title, Supercharging Your Print Advertising and Haircuts? You found that title interesting, or you would not be reading this post.

So, you get a new haircut. It looks great. Several of your coworkers, a few friends, and a family member or two, comment on it. They noticed your haircut. The next day, perhaps only one person makes a comment. (That would be the person who did not see your haircut the day before.) Within a few days, nobody notices your haircut. You don’t notice your haircut.

Same thing with a new dress: no matter how stunning it makes you look, people stop noticing it after they have had multiple exposures to it. (Unless, of course, you are a big, burly guy, and then people will probably notice your dress no matter how often you wear it.)

When people see the same thing over and over again, they lose interest in it. Remember: interest is what gets us to read editorials, look at advertisements, go to movies, and order entrées. If you want your advertisement to generate new clients, it must be read. To be read, your advertisement must interest readers.

You want people to notice your ad every time it appears.
At the same time, you want — you need — the benefit of multiple-exposure because multiple-exposure creates familiarity and relationship. Multiple-exposure brands your firm. Multiple-exposure generates phone calls. But, if you run the same ad over and over again, people don’t see your ad anymore. You lose the benefits of multiple-exposure when you run the same ad repeatedly because people stop seeing it.

So, when you want to supercharge your print advertising, create multiple ads. Create each ad with a great headline, a headline that captures the readers’ attention. Create each ad with a stunning graphic, one that draws readers’ eyes to your ad.

Graphics (illustrations or photographs) get attention best when they get people to think, “Hey, what the heck is this photograph about?” (Tempting as they are to use, photographs of lawyers tend not to generate a “hey, what the heck is this photograph about?” response from most readers.)

You might start your ads with stories. People read stories. Stories can be serialized. If people like your first story, they are more likely to look forward to and read your second story, and so on.

Though you want to create different ads to keep people interested and reading, you don’t want to lose the value of multiple-exposure to your brand, so make sure your ads have continuity in their design and theme. Most importantly, make sure your logo, your most identifiable brand, appears at the bottom, right corner of the ad, right next to your telephone number.

Why the bottom, right corner? You will have to call me to find out why the bottom, right corner of any print ad is the most important piece of real estate on the planet.
(800) 554-9939

The Headline of Your Ad is the Ad for Your Ad.

Have you ever noticed that most advertising is pretty humdrum? (Have you ever noticed that you do not notice most advertising?) Sometimes – occasionally – an ad jumps out and grabs your attention. Often, that is the headline at work, grabbing your attention, then, engaging your mind.

Good headlines work; good headlines grab attention. Buyer-focused headlines are even more powerful than company-centric headlines. Buyer focused headlines guarantee that ads get read. In fact, eight out of ten readers decide whether or not to read an advertisement based on the strength of its headline.

So most advertising has headlines, right? Yes, most do. However, take a look at lawyer advertising. (A good place to see a lot of lawyer advertising is in a yellow pages directory.) You will see that headlines are the exception, not the rule.

If the headline of an ad is the name of a law firm such as “Bergston, Williams & Hankman” or the name of a lawyer such as “David L. Johnson, Attorney at Law,” the ad does not have a headline; it has a name at the top. These advertisers are wasting their most valuable message space (the headline) telling readers something that is of absolutely no interest to them.

New York-based Video Storyboard Tests conducts extensive research to discover the value of headlines. In a recent study, they showed focus groups ads that included headlines communicating key buying points. They then showed other focus groups the same ads without the headlines.

The ads with the headlines scored dramatically higher in message recall and understandability. More importantly, the test groups rated the ads with headlines substantially higher in persuasiveness and relevance. Headline ads persuade. Headline ads are seen as relevant. Aren’t relevant and persuasive what you want in your law firm advertising?

Which kinds of headlines work best?

• Headlines that provide solutions to readers’ problems (or suggest to readers that if they continue reading they will find a solution to their problem)
• Headlines that communicate key buying points, and
• Headlines that jump off the page and grab the readers’ attention.

How can you write a powerful, engaging, attention-getting headline for your law firm advertising?

• Create a question.
• Create an attention-grabbing statement.
• Create a statement that engages the reader.
• Create a problem followed by a solution.

The best headlines are headlines that:

• Provide solutions to readers’ problems (or suggest to readers that if they continue reading they will find a solution to their problem)
• Communicate key buying points, and
• Jump off the page and grab the readers’ attention.

If you want your ad to work, make the headline work.

Make the Headline Work

What is the single most important element of a printed ad? My consultant has been telling me the photographs are the most important part, and he has some great photos—car wrecks, ambulances, bald eagles, court houses, the Lincoln Memorial, and American flags. But they really don't seem to have much to do with setting me and my practice apart. Have you ever noticed that most print advertising is pretty humdrum? (Have you ever noticed that you don’t notice most ads?) Only occasionally does an ad jump out and grab your attention. Often, that’s the headline at work, first grabbing your attention, and then engaging your mind.

Think of a headline as the ad for your ad. If the headline “sells,” readers will read your ad.

New York-based Video Storyboard Tests (VST) conducts extensive research to discover the value of headlines. In a recent study, they showed focus groups ads that included headlines communicating key buying points. They showed other focus groups the same ads without the headlines.

The ads with the headlines scored dramatically higher in message recall and understandability. More importantly, the test groups rated ads with headlines substantially higher in persuasiveness and relevance. Ads with reader-focused headlines persuade; they are seen as relevant. Isn’t that what you want from your advertising?

Which kinds of headlines work best?
• Headlines that provide solutions to readers’ problems (or suggest to readers they will find a solution to their problem if they continue reading)
• Headlines that communicate key buying points, and
• Headlines that jump off the page and grab the readers’ attention.

Here’s an exercise that will help you create more powerful headlines for your advertising:

Write down all the reasons that you think potential clients would choose your firm over a competitor’s.

Next, reduce your list to the three most powerful reasons. For each of these three reasons,
1. Create a question.
(Examples: “Are you tired of... ?” “Do you want... ?”)

2. Create an attention-grabbing statement.
(Examples: “Warning!” “Wait!”)

3. Create a statement that engages the reader.
(Examples: “Not all ___________ are alike.” “We goofed!”)

4. Create a problem and follow it with a solution in the subtext.
(Examples: “Last year, 22,478 Smithville residents overpaid for their auto insurance...” ...We guarantee the lowest rates.
“Don’t take chances!” ...If you value your fine carpeting, don’t let just anybody with a carpet cleaner and a van “clean” your carpet.)

Now, test your headlines on others. Then, decide on a headline. (If this is a hard decision to make, great! Powerful headlines are hard to choose between.) Now put your new power headline to work.