Just as every takeoff ultimately needs to lead to a landing, every advertisement needs to lead to a sale. Ignoring this basic advertising reality leads to a failure to engage the reader and un-engaged readers fail to become customers. The checklist to utilize for improving returns on advertising is I-E-E-O (Interrupt, Engage, Educate, and Offer).- Every effective advertisement must first INTERRUPT the reader and get their attention. Just as you call “clear” before turning the key of an airplane at startup in order to catch the attention of those around you, in advertising, the interrupt must be a call-out that will catch the reader’s attention.
- Once the reader’s attention has been secured, the next step is to ENGAGE the reader with a promise to teach them about a solution to the interrupt. This can readily be done by asking a pertinent question and then suggesting an answer. The successful “Got Milk?” campaigns are good examples of the interrupt then engage step of an effective advertisement.
- Now that the reader is involved, the EDUCATE step needs to set the hook by identifying key issues the reader can relate to and demonstrating how the advertised product or service can uniquely solve for those issues.
- Finally, every advertisement must serve up an OFFER strong enough to reel the reader in and drive an action to learn more. Without an offer, an advertisement is just noise in the wind.
Just as using a checklist can help ensure the desired result of a flight, use of the I-E-E-O (Interrupt, Engage, Educate, and Offer) checklist in preparing an advertisement will ensure that the right message is conveyed in a manner that results in sales as opposed to noise. As you can see from the results table, in this review, Aspen Avionics performed best versus the checklist. BendixKing tried but missed the mark. And J.P. Instruments seems to have forgotten the checklist entirely.
Back at the beginning of the last century, not long before the Wright Brothers 1st Flight, the retailer John Wanamaker uttered, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; I just don’t know which half.” Those words are still true today unless advertisers follow the Interrupt, Engage, Educate, and Offer checklist. Just imagine … more effective advertising expenditures leading to more involved and well-primed readers who want to become buyers. You see, just as in flight, following a checklist helps to ensure success in advertising too.
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