In the previous lesson, I told you about the power of direct response marketing to grow your business.
Today I am going to show you where to find good examples of direct response advertisements that you can ‘ethically use’ to get more clients.
Junk Mail
The first place to look for examples of successful direct response ads is your junk mail.
While you may think of ‘junk’ mail as trash, it is actually the cornerstone of a multi-billion dollar industry. And the reason businesses spend countless dollars every year on it is that it works.
Start reading your junk mail and making a note of offers you could use in your business.
Google AdWords
The next place to look for direct response ads is Google.
Open the search engine, type in ‘Carpet Cleaner YOUR CITY’ and look at the ads that appear at the top of the page.
Take a screenshot of the ads using a tool like Evernote.
Pay attention to the ads that appear consistently in the top position over weeks and months. These ads are the winners. Can you use them in your business?
Yellow Pages
Although it is almost obsolete in capital cities, the Yellow Pages is still widely used in many country areas.
Open your local yellow pages. Scan through the listings and pay particular attention to the larger space ads.
Are there any ads that make an offer and have a compelling call to action? Can you adapt them for your business?
Finally, ‘like’ carpet cleaning businesses on Facebook. When you ‘like’ a page, their ads will often appear on your Facebook feed.
Take a screenshot of these ads. Pay attention to the ones that appear again and again. If a business is using them continuously, they are probably making money.
Now that you know 4 ways to find examples of ads that are working, let’s look at the process in more detail.
TODAY’S TASK: Find Great Ad Examples
While each of the methods above is useful, the fastest way to uncover winning ads is with Google Adwords.
That’s why we will focus on Google in today’s task. However, keep in mind that you can use a similar process for the other three methods.
Let’s get started…
- Open Google and search for ‘Carpet Cleaner Sydney’. You can do this for different areas. I chose Sydney because it’s where Steamaster is based. Here’s an example of the result you get…
- Look at the ad for the top result. The offer is three rooms for $120 or 5 rooms for $150 with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. The call to action is ‘ Book Now’. This is actually an excellent ad. Make a note of the words and structure.
- Click on the ad to go to the website. Look at how their page is designed and written. Here is what it looks like. While this page could be improved, it does a lot of things right. For example, he offers a free quote…
- Repeat the steps for the other ads on Google. You will start to notice similarities in each ad and page. Make a note of the common elements so that you can include them in your ads and website.
If you repeat this process each week for at least a month, you will have crystal clear idea about the type of ads that work for carpet cleaners right now. The next step is to simply adapt these ads for your business.