How often do you update your advertisements in printed media? Do you have a written implementation plan with accountabilities?

Many businesses run the same advert, month after month without monitoring its performance. It is more important than ever to make every penny count. How can an informed decision be made about which adverts are bringing an income to the business, and which are not, without a formal monitoring system?

There are many ways to do this;

• Tracking numbers

• Offer codes

• Cut-out vouchers

• Publication specific offers

Using any of the above, or one of the many others available, will let you know which ones are performing the best, and which ones are not performing at all.

Once you have this information you can introduce a plan to update, change, or stop altogether. One simple change can, and often does have a massive impact to how an advert performs.

Adding, moving or changing an image; changing the style, colour, typeface or rewording a headline can all make a difference to whether viewers make contact.

All of these things can, and should be tested to find the one that works best for you and your business. Each test should be monitored and logged, so the results can be used to make informed decisions.

I know; you're thinking ‘this is all fine but where do I find the time to do all of these things.’ Look at it another way, how much money could you be wasting be not doing them!

Obviously costs differ from business to business, but if you are paying £500 per month (£6,000 per annum) for a monthly advertisement in a magazine, and you have never had anyone contact you off the back of it, would that £6K not be better spent somewhere else?

Can you now find the time to monitor your adverts?!