Before they read you, they Must notice you

First things first -- Grab them by the eye! There's an old saying in advertising, "The sale starts where the eye stops."  The percentage of time spent on an image versus text can be as high as 65/35.

Use attention-grabbing photographs and headlines.

If they don’t notice you, they can’t read you! Put yourself in a shopper’s shoes. Leaf through your Yellow Pages heading, which ads grab you? Where does your eye stop? Is it at your ad? Be brutally honest. This is your livelihood we are talking about.

Notice also, that we do not mention illustrations, also known as line art. Photographs, with their tones and shades, are more visually interesting to the human eye. The eye is trained to notice color, movement, and subtle variations of contrast. Even a black-on-yellow photograph has 256 shades of grey that grab the eye. Lowes, the home improvement superstore people learned this lesson years ago when they switched to product photos from line-drawings in their flyers.

People open the Yellow Pages when they are ready to buy. They are well past the "thinking about it" stage and into the "who gets my business" stage. That's the unique thing about the Yellow Pages, and also what makes them so valuable. So, yes, garb them by the eye, but grab their gut too.

Study after study has proven it ...

People buy emotionally

This is where most advertisers miss the mark completely. Everything is sold on an emotional level (Yes, everything!) When considering a photograph, ask yourself this question, “Does it appeal to an emotional response?” If you can’t describe the picture using emotions, then don’t use it.

Go back to your heading, or any other one for that matter. Leaf through and see how many ads even try to appeal emotionally. You might be surprised to see that few if any do. Just building an emotional appeal will vault you over most advertisers and may increase your phone calls by 50% or more!

People Love people.

Whenever possible, select photographs with people in them. A photo of your Air Conditioning repair truck is fine if you are selling to other Air Conditioning repair guys, but not so good for anyone else. If you love your truck, keep the picture on your desk. Use another one in your ad.

Sure, your message is important, even vital, but what is the use of a great message if no one reads it? Using a high-impact photograph, or a montage of several photographs can draw the readers' eyes directly to your ad.

Gra-Fix Design.com uses only high-quality, royalty-free photographs expressly selected to attract the buyer you wish to target.