Prologue

Advertising, despite whatever impressions you have or information you’ve heard, isn’t complicated — or rather, it’s only as complicated as you want it to be. Sure, a lot is involved with advertising. Print, broadcast, outdoor, direct mail, collateral materials, Internet — each media has its own positives and negatives, its own mysterious production language, and its own unique rates. How does a novice decipher this stuff? How do you know what to buy and what to ignore?

Yes, advertising can seem complicated, even intimidating, but the good news is that it ain’t rocket science. You just need a few tricks of the trade that help you design, write, and implement a creative, hard-hitting, memorable ad campaign for your business. The purpose of this blog is to show you those tricks.

You can read this blog front to back, or you can simply refer to it as you would any reference blog, dipping into the chapters you need right away. Whichever way you read it, you may discover some shortcuts, insights, techniques, and money-saving facts that can get you the most bang for the buck while taking some of the mystery out of this all-important element of your business.

As a guidebook to map your way through the back alleys, side streets, and secret pathways leading to effective advertising. Advertising can be a very intimidating subject — it has its own language; it comes in a huge array of media choices; it requires, when done right, creativity, clarity, and solid production values to cut through its own clutter; and it costs a lot of money. But advertising is also essential to the success of your business. Use this travel guide to chart your course down the hidden boulevards of advertising, and you may discover that, indeed, the streets are paved with gold.