How to Make Your Advertising Pay for Itself

How to Make Your Advertising Pay for Itself

Feb 20, 2013 | Advertising How-To, Direct Response Advertising

Want to become an advertising superhero and make your advertising actually become a revenue stream vs. an expense?

Here are four steps to accomplish that:

  1. Understand your sales system. Ask yourself, “How do we convert leads into sales most effectively? Is it online? Over the phone? In person? A certain day of week or time of day? What is the conversion ratio from each? Which one is easier to convert?”
  2. Once you know when and how you generate sales effectively, now you can make your advertising match your sales strengths. TV, Radio, Online, Mobile, Pay Per Click, Pay Per Lead, Newspaper, Magazine, Inserts: Each one has strengths and weaknesses. You need to make sure your advertising mix matches your strength in closing sales. A good advertising agency will help guide you here.
  3. Develop a conversion ratio so you can define your media effectiveness ratio. Dig into your sales data. Figure out how many prospects you have to engage to generate a sale. Then write down how much revenue an avg. sale generates. For example, if you close three sales out of 10 leads, then your conversion ratio is 30%. If you generate $1,000 on avg. per sale, then your revenue is $3,000 for every 10 leads or responses your advertising generates.
  4. Media Effectiveness Ratio. To discover your Media Effectiveness Ratio, look at your conversion and revenue numbers. From the example above: If you can drive a qualified lead or response for $100 each, and you generate 10 responses from every $1,000 you invest, then you know on average you can create $3,000 in revenue. Your Media Effectiveness Ratio is 3 to 1 with these numbers. And these are the numbers you need to know to make your advertising a revenue stream.
Four Secrets to Making Your Advertising Work

Four Secrets to Making Your Advertising Work

Feb 20, 2013 | Advertising How-To, Direct Response Advertising

Four secrets to making your advertising work like never before.

Secret #1: Know your goal. Most advertising campaigns fail because there was no real goal for performance. There is “I sure hope this works.” But what does “work” really mean? Don’t be scared to put specifics on what you want your advertising to accomplish. It could be a certain number of visitors to your website, likes on Facebook, leads in the door, sales, phone calls or anything you can quantify.

Secret #2: Place a measurement tool on your advertising to measure your performance against a pre-set goal. This could be a specific URL, dedicated 800#, or special offer code.

Secret #3: Craft your message to deliver a response. Make sure your message is customer-focused, benefit-driven, and not focused just on your company. Your advertising should always give valid reasons for the customer to want to buy. Then create a sense of urgency for them to respond quickly, and tell them how you would like them to respond. Call now, log on to, visit us at, redeem with special offer code…

Secret #4: Don’t pay too much for your advertising. Media is negotiable. It’s a commodity. You usually can get much more for your money if you negotiate well. If you need someone to help accomplish this, DX Media Direct would be honored to visit with you.

Written by: Buddy Vaughn
buddy@dxmediadirect.com