How to Create Small Business Ads That Get Noticed

00:00 — Introduction

Announcer: You're listening to Underestimated, the podcast that helps overwhelmed small business owners turn their size into their unfair advantage so they can grow without burning out.

Shawna: You feel like you're throwing a lot of money at advertising. It just doesn't seem to be working like you think it should.

Shawna: Let's talk about it. When we talk about advertising of any kind, whether it's on social media or it's print or it's direct mail or wherever you are currently advertising, we have to look at the fact that throwing money at more advertising isn't always the fix. The problem could be the messaging itself. And when you don't have a strong message, then throwing more money at it to amplify that is just like paying more people to ignore you, which kind of sucks, right?

Shawna: So let's dive into what will make your ads as strong as possible first, before you put more money toward any kind of advertising.

00:12 — Why More Advertising Is Not Always the Fix

Shawna: I have been studying consumer behavior for about 15 years. And what I have learned is that, first of all, we don't like to be interrupted. So if we have an ad come across our screen on like YouTube or anything that pauses whatever we're doing, and we have to watch it, that's annoying, right? So it better be valuable to me.

Shawna: And with targeted advertising, at least those algorithms have found their way into matching advertising that they think is going to be applicable to you. So step one is making sure you're targeting the right audiences whenever you launch an ad, instead of just being general and throwing it out there and hoping it sticks. Let's target that a little bit more. But your customer, what's your customer thinking?

Shawna: When I study consumer behavior, which has changed dramatically, by the way, over the years, number one, we don't like to be interrupted. Number two, we're thinking, why am I seeing this? What's the relevance? Why should I care?

Shawna: And should I trust this company? And do I have a need for what they're selling? And that all happens in milliseconds. So we have to start out the ad with something that's going to be compelling enough, and then follow that up with proof, and something that gives them a reason to trust that what you're saying is true, and show them that, really, whenever they have a need, they should think of nobody else but you.

Shawna: How cool would that be?

02:47 — The Cover-Your-Logo Test

Shawna: Have you gotten one of those advertising packs that come in the mail at your house, like a Valpak, I think is what it's called by me? Whenever I open those, I just I feel bad for all the wasted money, especially that small businesses are putting toward these ads. What I see is basically if you cover up the logo, they're interchangeable. And that's the sad reality.

Shawna: So do a logo check yourself or have somebody that will tell you the truth. Do a logo check. You can do this on web pages, you can do this in print ads, whatever. But have them basically say, what's different about this ad from my ad?

Shawna: And they might say, if it's not that obvious to them, well, the colors and the logo. But if you're saying the same things, if you have the same bullet points, the same money back guarantee, or we've won these awards, or we've been in business X number of years, and a list of everything that you do, your ad is unfortunately interchangeable. And that is what I see in most print ads that come in those things. And that's just a microcosm of the ads that appear everywhere.

Shawna: And news flash, this is a scary number. The average consumer today, the average human in North America sees 10,000 marketing messages a day. But we don't remember 10,000 because we are better than ever at filtering those out. So if I asked you how many advertisements do you think you saw today, you might say, oh, I don't know, 50, 100, right?

Shawna: Those are the ones that made it through our filter, our BS-o-meter also, to even register in our consciousness, the other 9,950 or whatever, are just noise. And they were immediately ignorable, immediately forgettable. That's what we don't want, obviously.

04:52 — Remove the Beige Phrases

Shawna: So avoid those generic phrases. In fact, do an audit of your top five competitors. Or if you don't feel like you have competitors, if you're like a brick and mortar local business, you don't feel like you have competitors locally, look at similar types of businesses in other similar sized cities or towns, and do an audit of the phrases that appear on their homepage of their websites. If they are all saying things like quality service, friendly professionals, fast professional, locally owned and operated, call today for a free estimate, whatever those repeating phrases are, that you also have, take those away, we have to rethink those, we have to, they're not bad things to say, we just have to get better at the way we say them so that it's completely different from the way they say them.

Shawna: Otherwise, it's just noise and you're not even getting remembered or noticed or trusted, certainly.

05:56 — Start With the Customer's Actual Problem

Shawna: The next step, once we have wiped away all those commonalities, all those things that lump us in with our competitors, and maybe you have a clean slate, great. Okay, let's start with our customer in mind. Now, you may have heard me say, if somebody wants to buy a pool, it's not because they want a pool. What do they want?

Shawna: They want relaxation, they want maybe time with family, they want exercise, what are the reasons? What makes them want to buy your product or hire you for your service? So that's what we focus on. What is the problem that they are looking to hire you or buy from you to fix and start your ad with that problem, rather than something like quality plumbing for 20 years.

Shawna: Start with a problem like, are you tired of waiting three days for your plumber to show up or that drip in the middle of the night keeping you awake? Start with something that is familiar and common and is a problem because immediately, we had a dripping spout in our shower. Oh my God, it drove me nuts. And finally, we did something about it.

Shawna: But if I were to see an ad that spoke right to that right away, I would stop the scroll and I'd be like, yeah. And most of the battle is getting the person to stop the scroll or to notice your ad if they're walking by and they're walking on the sidewalk or whatever. It is to stop their brain from thinking about the millions of things that they're thinking about and focus on you for a millisecond. Okay, great.

Shawna: Now you've gotten their attention. What do you do with it?

07:55 — One Problem, One Message, One Next Step

Shawna: Wherever you're advertising, each ad should convey just one thing. And a problem I see for lots of small business owners, you're putting a lot of money into these ads. And so you want to cram them full of all the things that you have to say, because maybe you only advertise once a quarter or once a year, maybe you've never advertised before. And this is a big investment and it can be a little overwhelming, right?

Shawna: So just one idea that takes a lot of discipline, believe me. But one idea is what works the best. So you do your problem statement first, and then you give the solution and then you have the call to action. So what problem do you solve and how do you solve it?

Shawna: And you say that how in a way that builds trust, and then you leave them with, okay, what do I do next? So your headline is your problem, then the proof or the solution, hopefully both, and then the call to action.

09:01 — Build Trust With Real People, Not Stock Photos

Shawna: Rather than saying HVAC, you can trust. I mean, that's on every, some form of that is on every van around town, every HVAC website, except for a lonely few. So rather than saying that, how about a headline? If your air conditioner breaks this weekend, this is who's going to answer the phone when you call us and then have a photo of a real person with their permission, of course, or here's the person that's going to show up to fix it and have a picture of the technician and not a perfect, polished, posed photo.

Shawna: That's not building trust, but a real photo of the technician with his family or with his dog or out, you know, having coffee. It doesn't have to be the technician carrying his HVAC toolkit and wearing his jumper, whatever you call that thing they wear. It is building trust through what's real, a real human face, never, never stock photos, never use stock photos again in your advertising. That is what big business does.

Shawna: And if you look at, it always makes me laugh when I see Ford or, you know, big, big car companies advertising their mechanic services, because there's usually a car up on a lift and there's a guy in a jumpsuit. That's what it's called, a jumpsuit that's perfectly clean. The jumpsuit is perfectly clean. He's got a perfectly clean, brand new looking tool and he's looking at a perfectly clean engine in a perfectly clean garage.

Shawna: That hinders trust because we know that's a bunch of BS that sets my BS meter off into high alert. So rather, if I saw this is Jim, Jim will work on your car or these three guys are the guys that solve your problem when your car breaks down on the side of the highway. One of these guys is going to make sure that you are safely on your way as quickly as possible. I mean, that's talking about the problem.

Shawna: First of all, you don't want your car to break down on the side of the highway and it's giving the solution that builds trust. These are the guys that will fix it for you as quickly as possible to get you safely on your way.

11:26 — Make the Message Emotional and Memorable

Shawna: As a woman, when I had infant children, my biggest fear was getting stuck on the side of the road, especially at night or if I'm on my way to something important. So you're speaking directly to the fear and that's anything that you've probably heard me say this before. If you've listened to my podcast or heard me speak on stages, anything that triggers emotion is going to be 22 times more memorable and therefore more impactful in your advertising. So rather than just say, here's Jim who will fix your car, that's great, but take it a step further who will make sure you don't miss your kid's kindergarten graduation or whatever is happening that time of year, something that triggers nostalgia.

Shawna: Even if I don't have kids that are kindergarten age, if I'm a grandparent or if I'm a parent, my kids are off and living their own best lives, but it's still going to trigger an emotion with me and make me stop and associate you with the trust because you mentioned that thing. So use a story in the form of a picture or something that you say and if it's a video that you're doing by all means, always tell a story if you can.

12:47 — Give Customers More Than One Way to Respond

Shawna: So one main idea, that's your headline or that's your opening if you're doing a video for example, the problem. Stuck on the side of the road at night, out of gas, what do you do or your car breaks down, whatever the problem is and then give your solution in a trustworthy way and then here's the QR code. Love a good QR code to make an appointment or give all the ways that they can contact you. This is super important because a Gen Z, my kids are both Gen Zs, they hate talking on the phone.

Shawna: Boomer loves to talk on the phone, does not want to use your chat bot, does not want to email you but will if they have to. So give all the ways and be sure today that you're giving an option where they can text you. Of course, your phone number, your email, a way to make an appointment online if it's for a service, a chat bot, those are super easy to set up these days. All the different ways that you can be reached so that they can make the appointment if you're service-based or a QR code that takes them to the website where they can make the purchase or get answers to how we do what we do here or find a different way than saying want more information or make your appointment here.

Shawna: Find a different way to say that that your competitors aren't saying and put all the ways they can contact you.

14:19 — Why Paid Social Has to Work Harder

Shawna: Now let's shift from print and website to talk about paid social advertising. As I mentioned, this is interruption advertising. They are scrolling through. Now, if they are on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok, they are scrolling through to be entertained.

Shawna: They are not looking for a solution to a problem. So your advertisement has to really stop the scroll, interrupt their entertainment or their mindless scrolling at bedtime. It's on double duty. It has to break through that noise and it has to catch them quickly so that they stop even for a millisecond and go, huh, okay, I have that problem.

Shawna: I relate to that. Now what? Same thing. Same now what?

Shawna: Now, why should I care? Why should I pay attention? Why should I trust you, et cetera? So you're interrupting them.

15:19 — Target a Smaller, More Relevant Audience

Shawna: You can't make it too general. Like, hey, homeowners, are you as a homeowner going to stop what you're doing to pay attention to that? Probably not. So how about, hey, homeowners with a furnace that's 15 years old or more?

Shawna: Okay, better. How can you get more specific than even that? And I know you feel like, oh, if I get too specific, I'm limiting my audience. Not if you're targeting properly in the audience that you're choosing to reach on those platforms.

Shawna: Okay. So, and plus, if you look at the number of people that Facebook, Instagram, Meta and TikTok says that you will reach the further you drill down into those specifics, like I want homeowners who are over 45 who live in this particular area, who have an income of this, who, you know, drill down and you'll still see you likely are reaching thousands, but to reach a hundred of the exact right type of customer is far more valuable per ad than a blanket ad that reaches a hundred thousand people. Because that blanket ad may be actually too generic for the person that you're trying to reach and the exact problem that they have.

Shawna: It's one problem per ad. So drill down, which is counterintuitive because we always think with advertising, because this is what we've been taught. More is better. No, not today.

Shawna: And you're talking about the challenges we face overcoming 10,000 ads, bombarding that particular prospect per day. And you have to break through that. You have to stop their entertainment. We have to be super targeted, right?

Shawna: And we have to have a message that addresses their exact problem. That is how we break through. That's how we build trust. That's how we get the most from every single advertising penny that we are spending.

Shawna: And as small businesses, we cannot afford to waste our advertising dollars trying to reach more people because more is just more. More is not your exact right audience.

17:37 — Send Each Ad to a Problem-Specific Landing Page

Shawna: And if you want to take your paid social ads even further, now this is a level 301 is have that click that they're clicking on, not just go to your homepage. Have it go to a landing page that is about that exact problem, which is also, by the way, good for SEO, search engine optimization (SEO), and GEO. Those are different podcast episodes. Look for those.

Shawna: If I can remember to do so because, hey, I'm no spring chicken. And the fact that I use that term spring chicken tells you that I'm not a spring chicken because nobody under 50 says that today. But have that ad click through to a landing page, which is also good for GEO, which is the way that AI is searching to look for you as hopefully the right solution to the exact problem that somebody's searching Google or whatever search engine for. So a lot of benefits to having a landing page.

Shawna: I know that's level 301, but if you have the capacity to do that, do that and try it and see if it works better for you than the last ad you did that checked a lot of those boxes that were not so great.

18:50 — How Google Ads Are Different

Shawna: Let's talk about Google ads. Now, Google ads are different because you're not interrupting their entertainment. You are addressing a very specific need that that customer has searched for. So maybe they've searched for, why is my coffee maker making that weird noise?

Shawna: And you either sell coffee makers or you repair coffee makers, whatever, but they're searching for a specific problem. And if you are the very specific solution to that, then it takes on a different meaning in Google.

19:28 — Advertising Tactics That Destroy Trust

Shawna: And there are a lot of shenanigans going on with Google advertising over the years. There are businesses that advertise in other businesses names. You see this a lot. Like if I search for American Airlines, up come three sponsored ads that try to fool me into thinking they're American Airlines.

Shawna: I hate that. Great way to absolutely bash trust right from the get-go. Great job company. That's smarmy.

Shawna: That's old-fashioned advertising and trust being the number one thing today with consumers. Don't start off on that foot. As a professional speaker, I have companies that have paid advertising with my name on it. So if you Google me as a speaker, companies will come up that are saying, are you looking to book Shawna Suckow for your next small business conference?

Shawna: And they try to fool that person who's searching for me. So don't do that either.

20:31 — Google Search, AI Answers and the Future of Ads

Shawna: What we need to do today, because if you've noticed, if you searched on Google lately at the top, you're getting answers in paragraph form. That is AI. That's Google's Gemini answering that very specific question. And so many customers today and more and more a month or a year or five years from now are going to, they're going to not scroll any further.

Shawna: They're going to get their information that they're searching for because they trust Gemini, at least for right now. They trust Gemini and Gemini searches Reddit. It searches Google, of course. It searches YouTube.

Shawna: It searches websites in general for the best possible two or three answers to that person's search query. So that also means Reddit is a great place to advertise, yes, but to have organic search. So to be involved on Reddit, talking about solutions is a great thing without overtly selling because Reddit users hate that. But your Google ad, it may very well be adjacent to the AI answer, or it may be a sponsored ad beneath that.

Shawna: And people still are seeing those, just, it's going to be less and less as time goes on. So again, check out my episode on SEO and GEO, because it's going to become more important if you want to get ahead of that, that you can be answered, you can be chosen in the top answers by Google Gemini. And it's not as hard as you think right now. It will get harder, but the more of a jump you get on it, the easier it's going to be for you down the road.

22:15 — Make Google Ads Less Generic

Shawna: So that aside, your Google ads, although they're becoming less significant by the day, they still are significant. So make sure that when you advertise, you do the same things that I've told you to do with print ads. And that is, don't just say, looking for HVAC in Minneapolis. We're open 24 seven, and we have, we're licensed and, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Shawna: In fact, search for your category on Google and see what comes up. If they're looking for a local solution, even if they're looking for a solution that's not brick and mortar or not a local service, look at the solutions that come up and you will see a lot of wasted advertising sadly. So we've got to have that problem that you're the solution for. And we have to have the solution that is in the form of a why they should choose you.

Shawna: It's in the form of a trust builder, and it's relevant. It's not, it's not generic. It's not beige. What I mean by beige is saying those same catch phrases and everybody else is saying like guaranteed workmanship or on time service or next day appointments or free estimates.

Shawna: Oh my gosh. When was the last time you paid for an estimate? Unless it was for like an antique or something. I've also done an episode on how to really drill down in your local community.

Shawna: If you are a local business, I will, again, if I remember to do so, I will tag that podcast below. Otherwise, search for it on my website, thebuyerinsider.com and you will see my resources section, which check out the vault while you're there. Tons of free resources for small businesses, but you'll see all of my podcasts and you can search for any topic. Hopefully I've covered it.

Shawna: If I haven't yet, please shoot me a message, shoot me an email, text me my phone numbers on my webpage, reach me through a DM on whatever social platform you're watching this on, whatever, but let me know if there's something I can cover for you. But look for that podcast on building your presence within your local community.

24:45 — Stop Wasting Sponsorship Space on a Logo

Shawna: But let's also talk about sponsorships. I'm not going to delve too deeply here. I'm going to do an entire episode on sponsorships of teams, of conferences, of events, of all the things. So sponsorships though, same thing.

Shawna: Go to a baseball stadium and look around. You'll see a lot of logos of multi-million dollar companies that just want to build brand recognition or remind you that Coca-Cola exists. But pay attention to the other types of ads you're seeing, and pay attention to what catches your eye among the 10,000 ads that have been bombarding your brain all day. What makes you stop and go, “Oh, I read that,” or, “I saw that”?

Shawna: And it may not just be flashy movement. It's probably, they're talking about something that's relevant to you specifically, everything else you're ignoring. But now go to the Little League ballpark and you'll see banners from companies that are sponsoring and you'll see your local realtor, your local insurance agency, maybe a restaurant in town. And they're all unfortunately likely not addressing a problem.

Shawna: They're just putting up their logo and some very beige catch phrase or fact or feature or benefits, not saying anything memorable. So do that and you'll start to see more and more of what I'm talking about.

26:20 — What Belongs on a Landing Page

Shawna: And lastly, if you try to do that 301 level thing with the landing page, I might not have, I know I didn't clarify what a landing page means. A landing page can be a part of your website. Great for GEO. It doesn't have to be, it can be a whole separate page if you have a landing page service that you subscribe to.

Shawna: And a landing page is basically like a mini ad in itself, a mini webpage that's just one page, mini website that answers all of their questions about that one problem. So maybe you've got an FAQ, you've got the problem written out in a couple different ways. You've got your, this is where you can put your credentials, this is where you can put all of those things that didn't belong in your ad, they can go on your landing page. Again, though, you want to find a different way to say it than what everybody else is saying, because if they make it all the way through to your landing page, you definitely want all the ways they can contact you.

Shawna: You want to reinforce why, you want to give testimonials before and afters, any type of reviews, trust pilot, if you have a trust pilot score, award winning, that award winning, your mom could have given you an award and you can call yourself award winning. And then the specific, very specific call to action, rather than just saying, call for more information, get something more memorable than that. My speaker colleague, Dr. Janelle Anderson has a book, a 16 minute discovery call.

Shawna: And people notice it because it's so different and people mention it to her all the time. And she has a 16 minute discovery call on her Calendly link that you can book with her. Very cool.

28:12 — Rethink the Campaign Before Spending More

Shawna: So I hope these ideas have given you fodder for rethinking your next ad campaign before you throw more money at something that just is not working the way that you think it should. Check out my vault, check out those other podcasts I mentioned, shoot me a message if there's anything that I can record as a future topic or be helpful, or hey, schedule maybe a 16 minute discovery call with me. Thanks for watching. Thanks for tuning in.

Shawna: This has been another episode of Underestimated. See you next time.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to Underestimated, hosted by Shawna Suckow. To connect with Shawna, go to TheBuyerInsider.com.