How is an Ad Like a Trade Show Booth?
Hard-working ads, good ads, pay for themselves and then some. In the 1920s, John E. Kennedy succinctly defined advertising as “sales in print.” But somewhere along the line, most advertising campaigns have become unhinged from sales results. Nowadays, many folks count impressions, or clickthroughs, and they do have their place in the marketing mix. However, somewhere in the food chain of marketing, an ad, sales letter, commercial, brochure, catalog, self-mailer or what have you ultimately needs to make the reader pull the trigger and buy something. As Publisher of Web Digest For Marketers (WDFM), I get to see which ads increase sales and which ones don’t. The sales may not happen right away. In fact, it’s more than likely they won’t. After all, B2B sales typically take a few weeks or months. It isn’t often that someone says “Hey, I feel like buying a $125,000 ad campaign in the next ten minutes.” 🙂 The ads that work best in WDFM are those that open up a relationship and lead to a sale
