The answers to these questions should be gleaned from your own experience, the understanding of your products and services, and of the motivation that drives your customers.

• Who is my primary target?  Housewives? Blue-collar workers? Baby Boomers? Business Owners? Teenagers? Retirees?
• Who  is interested in the benefits offered by my products and services? Remember you should be selling the benefits of the product—not the product itself. Teenagers don’t buy pimple creams; they buy the promise of a clear complexion—immediately followed, of course, by popularity and romance!
• Are my products and services targeted at active or passive customers?
• In exaggerated form, what will my products and services do for them?
• In realistic terms, what will my product of service do for them?
• Why should they act now?
• What might possibly prevent my target audience from acting now?
• What questions might my target audience have about my products and services?
• What objections might my target audience have towards my products and services?  Can I overcome them in my advertising?
• Why should someone patronize my business and not my competitors?
• What is one thing I offer that my competitors do not?
• What is one thing I offer that your competitors cannot? Why?
• Is there a circumstance that will allow the customer to take advantage of my business? An offer or bargain?
• What is so special about my business?
• What is so special about my product?
• Why do people buy my products and services?
• What is the one key element that influences customers to purchase one such product over another?
• What emotional reasons do people have for purchasing?
• How is my business perceived by consumers?
• What do I love about this business?
• What mistakes do customers of my products and services often make…and how can they avoid making those mistakes?
• What do I want to accomplish by the end of the year? Next Year? Five Years?
• How do you plan to accomplish it?
• Where is your biggest potential for growth?
• What was your greatest success?
• What was your greatest failure?
• What are my goals and expectations for my advertising campaign?
• What about your business keeps you up at night?

If I could wave a “Magic Wand” over my business and change it any way I wanted to, what would I change?

NOW THAT YOU HAVE ANSWERED ALL THESE QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS…ASK YOURSELF: ”WOULD MY MANAGEMENT AND STAFF HAVE ANSWERED THEM THE SAME WAY????  SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT!

Discovering the answers to these questions requires time and work. But before you can design an advertising program to achieve your objectives, you need to gather the facts necessary to create an appropriate and effective campaign!!