Sara noticed that there was no recycling available in her small town of Buffalo Falls. She decided to launch a private recycling pick-up service called ProCycle. There were several barriers to success for her business concept, however, including that people in the area were not familiar with recycling, much less paying for the service. Before purchasing a truck or seeking contracts with a recycling plant, Sara decided that advertising her business was an important first step.
Answer the questions below to help Sara create advertising for ProCycle. If you need help recalling the guidelines for different types of advertising, revisit the study titled "Creating Promotional Materials."
1. Help Sara advertise ProCycle by reviewing the steps to create an effective print advertisement.
a) What are five strategies Sara can use to grab attention with her advertisement?
b) What are the four elements that Sara should include in the print advertisement?
c) Sara may have to change attitudes in her small town in order to persuade people to purchase a recycling service. What methods work best when trying to persuade?
d) Sara wants to get an idea of how many people might be interested after reading the ad, so she wants to get them to follow ProCycle’s page on a social media site, Connect, for updates. What is the best way to get them to follow ProCycle’s page?
a) Five strategies Sara can use to grab attention with her advertisement include using eye-catching visuals, using a catchy headline, including customer testimonials or statistics, offering a special promotion or discount, and using bold, contrasting colors.
b) The four elements that Sara should include in the print advertisement are a clear call to action, such as "Call now to sign up for ProCycle"; information about the benefits of using ProCycle, such as "Convenient weekly pick-up services"; contact information, such as phone number and website address; and a professional logo or branding for ProCycle.
c) Some methods that work best when trying to persuade include providing factual information or statistics about the benefits of recycling, appealing to emotions through storytelling or testimonials, offering incentives or rewards for taking action, and making the message personal and relatable to the target audience.
d) The best way to get people to follow ProCycle’s page on Connect for updates is to include a clear and enticing call to action in the advertisement, such as "Follow us on Connect for exclusive recycling tips and updates!" Additionally, offering a special promotion or discount for those who follow the page can incentivize people to take action.