You might have heard the expression, “sell the sizzle, not the steak.” It means that, by playing on the emotional connection, you stand a better chance at making a sale than simply pushing the products. It’s a benefit story waiting to be told. You have to figure out what your service or product will do

A simple rule of thumb can be the price and drive-time correlation. More precisely, when one is making a modest or lowcost purchase, shoppers tend to stay closer to home. Therefore,

I always thought the three-quarter-pages were a better deal than the full-pages, unless you need to be at the very front. But, in a heading like plumbing, all the better full-page spaces

making the call. A smaller ad toward the back of a well-developed heading is a poor investment. Once the size is determined, the placement is easy to figure. You can gauge

obvious and shoot for the memorable. The best sellers in non-fiction books, year after year, are the “HowTo” books. Most commonly, dieting, aging, better sex, or moneymaking and this happens every single year. Do the same people buy these, hoping for the miracle cure or solution? Perhaps, but does it really matter? Human nature dictates that they w

deciding among the middle-sized ads, the third and sixth-pages are the best bargains. In a typical three-column

Suppose you sell a high-end product like cars. The average person might drive many miles to save thousands of dollars. So, it’s incumbent upon the business to reach everyone, meaning the largest directory. Okay, then you go in the Metro Chicago book. But what about the people in an outlying area? Will they drive that far and which book will they us

Mrs. Jones has just become our newest customer. It happened with a simple headline. We could have said, “You May Not Need A Repair, Ask Us Why.” Or how about, “The Secrets to a Better Repair Job.” How about, “Why Get a Repair, When All You Need is a Part?” or “What Every Washer Owner Needs to Know.”

At an average cost of about $300 per 10,000 mailers, it appears fairly reasonable. But let’s assume you want to reach 50,000. A one-time mailing is $1500. Say this is an insert into an envelope stuffed with other mailers, perhaps as many as twenty-five. Now, suppose you are a carpet cleaner. For you to get a decent ROI on your $1500 investment, man