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Before you start on any advertising campaign, whether that be the copy, creative, targeting, analytics or optimisation you first need to define the ideas that your ads will be based upon.
These ideas cannot be mainstream if they’re going to break through the noise and get attention. Our prospects can turn on the TV or surf around the web and find an endless supply of mainstream, ordinary ideas. And no one values or pays good money for a mainstream idea because it’s a commoditised thing. If I can avoid it, I don’t ever build campaigns around mainstream ideas.
It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.David Ogilvy
This quote from advertising legend David Ogilvy is truer today than ever. People are exposed to thousands of advertising messages a day. It’s why so many marketing campaigns convert at less than 2%. If you’re running ads then you’re in the business of big ideas.
Why a Big Idea?
You can no longer get away with simply stating a benefit in your headline. Every experienced marketer does that. It’s very common. Most markets have reached a level of sophistication where they have seen plenty of big benefit headlines.
A big idea helps you cut through the noise and grab the prospect’s attention with something that seems new and interesting. It jars them out of complacency
What a Big Idea is Not
Before we get started it’s really important to understand just what a big idea is. It’s not about the typical marketing “hook,” “promise,” “premise,” “theme,” or “benefit-driven headline…” Nor is it about the “idea” behind your product, your Unique Selling Proposition, your positioning statement, or your string of marketing claims.
No. Those are all valuable. And those are all taught by most marketing experts. Absolutely. As they should be.
But, they are not what makes an advertising promotion successful. They are not the reason why some campaigns produce millions a year while most others don’t even come close. The Big Idea is.
How to know you have a Big Idea
A big idea can be defined as something that is:
- Emotionally captivating It’s so easy to fall back into the trap of logical ideas. You should be playing on the emotional triggers that will drive a purchase. Your ads engage the prospect emotionally and then your marketing funnel motivates them to do what you want them to do.
- Intellectually interesting This means it piques your prospect’s curiosity, gives them a feeling of discovery, and makes them feel as if they’ve just stumbled on something newsworthy.
- Articulate. Offers an opportunity to the reader This is where you tell prospects what they stand to gain by engaging with your marketing message. It tells them how their life will be transformed for the better by reading, watching, or listening. to your marketing message.
- Desirable. Get’s them to act right now. This is best achieved by making your big idea feel like it addresses a situation that is happening right now or impending with a key trigger date. And nothing beats the power of a big idea backed by a compelling story.
Make Your Big Idea Compelling
Compel is an interesting word.
Your advertising needs to be compelling. Compelling like when you’re driving by an accident, and all the people in front of you are slowing down and people are screaming, “Idiots! Morons!”
They have to gawk at the car accident, to see if anyone’s hurt, dead, maimed, whatever. And it’s kind of morbid curiosity, and people get angry because there’s a big, huge line. Then, the moment you drive by it, you slow down, and you become one of those same people that you’re complaining about!
Make your Big Idea so compelling that people can’t ignore it.
Big Idea Examples
Once you have a big idea you want to express it clearly and simply. Don’t complicate it with obscure words or references. Our brains are hardwired to trust simpler and familiar things.
Here are a few promos that have hit the nail on the head:
It’s not a book about “How to outsource”
Its… “The 4 Hour Work Week”
It’s not about “how to invest in gold”
It’s… “The End of America”
It’s not about a “New Fitness Workout”
It’s… “P90X Muscle Confusion”
It’s not about “Eating right to avoid cancer”
It’s… “Read This Or Die”
It’s not about a “New type of coffee”
It’s… “Bullet-Proof Coffee”
It’s not just a “New Diet”
It’s… “The Paleo Diet”,
Example: Burn (Weight Loss)
Market:
Women and men between the ages of 25 and 50 who want to lose weight
fast.
Pain Point:
They can’t lose weight, or keep weight off, no matter how what they do or
how hard they try.
Big Idea:
Harvard has discovered a loophole that lets your body burn all of your stored fat at the same time. “Simultaneous Fat Release.”
Example: Biz Opp
Market:
Generally lower income, straddling the poverty line, and 45+. Believe that just like young people are making millions on the Internet, or even billions, they could too. Maybe they’ve had some business idea in the past that their friends have said are good, but they either don’t have the money to act, or have never acted.
Others may just be semi-retired, or retired, and looking for something productive to do with their time.
Pain Point:
Struggling to pay the bills. Worried about retirement. Hate their job. Worried about being broke, or struggling for the rest of their lives.
Big Idea:
You can make money by acting as the “middle man” between retail stores and liquidators, and you don’t need any formal education or training to do it.
All big ideas exist within a certain context and time. A big idea a year ago is likely no longer a big idea today.
How to come up with your Big Idea
- Take some time to think. This is not a copywriting process. It’s about deeply understanding your marketplace and prospects and thinking about an idea that will resonate with them.
- If you know your marketplace and you understand your audience, then your one step closer to finding that golden nugget of a big idea.
- Review your competitor’s promotions. Are they breezing over something that you think has the makings for a big idea?
- Deeply understand your products USP. What is that unique aspect of your product that delivers a unique benefit to the prospect?
- Follow current events. Often there are nuggets that you will hear in news reports that can be utilised for the makings of a big idea. Look for something that you can tie in with your product.
- Be patient. A big idea is not easy to create. It most likely won’t come overnight.
Once you have a Big Idea
- Think of a story to show it in action
- Take your big idea and turn it into a headline. This headline will serve as the main hook for your marketing funnel.
How does this translate into an ad campaign?
Once you have your big idea you can then figure out what the best images, ads and targeting should be. The big idea will guide the emotional triggers.
Good ads should engage your audience emotionally. Your ads should not be written with a rational appeal. You want to focus on strong emotional appeals.
The rational mind is willing to listen to reason only after the emotional mind has said okay.Mark Ford
The question you need to answer when constructing your ads is “why would someone be emotionally driven to purchase this product. Of all the emotional drivers, which one will have the strongest impact on your audience, based on what you know about them.
Use Ad testing to Expand on your Big Idea
As you get really good at finding advertising ideas, it becomes fun to test them.
Don’t be afraid to test ideas that are loosely connected to the ideas behind the main campaign message.
If the ad idea gets clicks, but has low sales conversions, write an advertorial and put an interstitial page in-between the ad and your main marketing funnel.
If that works, test the ideas as a new lead for the main marketing campaign.
You’ll be surprised at how often your advertising ideas turn into a major sales conversion boost, or even breakthrough, for your main funnels.
Don’t be afraid to test different targeting for your promotion. You may have a control group based on your ideal buyer but you should constantly be testing and trying new things based on your research, brainstorming, and digging into whatever your big idea is.
One Big Idea can Revolutionize your Entire Business
You now understand the truth about what’s at the core of every high-converting marketing campaign.
One Big Idea can give you the foundation of a single marketing campaign that grows your business bigger and faster than anything you’ve ever imagined.
The idea behind what you’re sharing in your marketing campaign could be plain vanilla, an average idea which rolls off the back of your prospects as something they’ve seen or heard before. Or, it could be an idea that strikes your prospects as new, unique, and different. As something, they find compelling. Something they have to stop and hear more about… It’s up to you.