When we talk to business owners, these days more often than not we hear: “We have to cut our advertising budget – times are tough!” Although that may seem like a good strategy for survival, it really isn’t in the long run. Before you decide to cut your advertising spending, think about the true purpose of advertising. Advertisements are your tireless sales force.

Think about it this way:

If, for example, you run a radio ad that is being heard by 60,000 people–that is in fact equal to 60,000 chances to give a sales presentation! Imagine, 60,000 separate individuals hearing your ad.

Or, to give another example, if you have a video ad on the web, an unlimited amount of potential customers will have 24/7 access to your sales presentation. They can view it as long and as often as they like to gather the information about your company, products and/or services they need to make an informed buying decision, or take the next step in the sales cycle.

Now I want you to think about this. If you had a chance to make a 60-second sales presentation to all the individuals that heard your radio ad or clicked on your video ad, what would you say to convince your prospects that buying from you is the best decision they can make? Chances are, your in-person presentation would be filled with compelling reasons why prospects should buy from you. Sadly, most advertising we see and hear does not.

The most common examples of non-compelling HERE-WE-ARE-COME-BUY-FROM-US advertising are found in newspaper ads and the yellow pages or similar directories. Let me prove my point: Go ahead, pull out the yellow pages and let’s take moving companies for instance. Here is what they all say in my book:

“free estimates,
packaging available,
guaranteed pick up and delivery dates,
local & long distance.”

Every single ad is almost identical. You could literally cross out the advertiser’s name and substitute with a competitor’s and the ad would still be valid. It is next to impossible for a prospect to make an intelligent decision about who to call based on any criteria other than who’s got the prettiest or biggest or most colorful ad.

So what happens with this type of “buy from me for no compelling reason” type of advertising? A typical prospect gets up to 3 bids and decides from there – usually the middle bid – as studies done on that subject indicate.

If you understand nothing else I hope you get this: Advertising like this forces everyone to compete on price.

The true purpose of advertising is to give potential buyers reasons why they should buy from you. You need to think of your advertisements as an army of tiny salespeople giving presentations on the spot. Although this CAN be accomplished in most advertising mediums, in our view video advertising is by far the best and most effective way to compel prospects to buy from you. We are so convinced of this we made a business out of making it available to everyone. Video ads allow you to make a “face-to-face” connection (and create the all important familiarity factor with your prospects) and give your finest, most compelling sales presentation. Plus, there are no space limitations, print deadlines, AND it is easily affordable.

Video ads truly are like an army of sales people available 24/7 with no territories, sales commissions or car allowances. You or your sales force couldn’t personally give a sales presentation to thousands and thousands of people but your video ad can.

This article was written by Birgit Rickert of Results Marketing and The Video City Directories, and may not be copied, reproduced or altered without prior consent.