Look at Advertising: Every Element Has a Purpose!
  Written By Darren

In any business, the major key to your success will lie in the number of sales. However, in order to get sales, a business needs to advertise. A business needs to let people know that a product is out there that can:

1. Make life easier
2. Fulfill a need or
3. Satisfy an impulse

From the very beginning of a marketing campaign, every element has purpose. You can break down an ad campagin into a three-step process as follows:

I. Initial Intro

Usually this is a simple and fast mentione of your product and usually requires some type of action from the consumer in order to get more info. On the web, this can be in the form of a banner. The purpose of this banner is generate a click in order to get more info...nothing more, nothing less. Try and fluff it up any other way or make it into something else and you've already lost. It serves ONE purpose...to capture a persons interest enough to go to the next step.

In mainstream companies that aren't running an ad campaign on the web, you usually receive junk mail in the postal mail. This serves the same purpose. It's only intention is to get you to fill out the card so they can send you more info. Nothing more, nothing less.

II. The Product Info

This is the meat and potatoes of the campaign. This is the material which describes your product and gives the person a reason to buy it. In the adult web business, this is the site and the tour. The tour can be multiple pages or just one page depending on your market. The purpose of the site tour is to tell the people what they get in exchange for their hard-earned cash. Here is your chance to be the salesperson...the chance to talk the talk and walk the walk. This is your chance to talk someone into buying YOUR product, even though they may already own 200 of them from another company. Remember the "WIIFM"? What are the benefits of YOUR product or service versus the thousands of other offers they are being subjected to viewing? If you can't answer this, don't worry, your competition can and will.

We're often use to seeing this sales material come in an envelope with a letter that says, "Dear Darren, enclosed is the info you requested... blah, blah, blah." Again, this is the descriptive info that sells the product/service. Much money and thought is sunk into this portion of a campaign, and why not? It's not an expense, it's an investment. It should be well-planned and creative.

III. The Closer

This is the final step that makes someone part with their dinero. For us web dudes/dudettes, we often call this the "join page." In other forms of advertising, they may use an actual form or even give you a number to call where a real person (a closer) exists whose soul function is to "close the deal."

In a perfect world, a join page should emphasize again what they will be getting, it is your closer. This page serves the same purpose of a good sales closer. The join page reminds people that there is a reward waiting on the other side that will satisfy their needs and make the world a much better place to be. On the web, it's also a good idea to instill trust and ease by showing that they have different options of purchasing, telling them that payments are processed securely using 128-bit encryption, as well as letting them know they can cancel if not satisfied.

As you can see, there are certain individual elements in a campaign and these also relate to the web. Each element has a purpose and should be used for that purpose order to be effective.

Marketing is a process regardless of what type of business you're in, and just because we work in the adult internet business, the same rules apply for the most part...however, new rules are always being added, right?