HOW TO CODE YOUR ADS WITHOUT ADDING WORDS TO YOUR CLASSIFIEDS
Coding advertising is not the big secret or the involved
process many would have you believe.
A great many firms sell reports on how to code your advertising
for $3 or more, when it's nothing you can't learn with a little
study of a few mail order publications.
Coding advertisements is simply a means of determining where
your orders come from, and in cases where you don't use
coupons or separate order forms for several different products, a
method of double checking on what the customer actually
requested.
For the purpose of demonstration, let's assume you have a
company called JONDO COMPANY, your name is JOHN DOE,
and you market publications by PRINTCO and PUB-GUYS. You
decide to run ads for different products in three publications and
teaser ads for your catalogs in two others, one for each
publisher's catalog. Coding the latter two is easy.
For simplicity, where you put the name and address of the
company when offering Printco's catalog, mark the name as PC
JONDO, ADDRESS, ZIP CODE. When the envelope arrives and
no indication is given of what was requested, you can tell at a
glance what was requested.
Now Printco and Pub-Guys sound and look alike, so for the
second ad, mark it JONDO-PG. If you're advertising the same
catalog in three different magazines, use different codes for each
to see which one gives you the best response, for example
JONDO-PG, JOHN DOE PG AND P.G. JOHN. You can easily
separate them as you receive them.
The permutations are endless: P.G. DOE, P. DOE, G. DOE,
DPG, JPG, JDPG, and if that's not enough, code the address,
perhaps BOX 99, DEPT. PG, BOX 99-PG, BOX 99 DESK PG,
BOX PG-99, and so on.
The person ordering wants to be sure you get his request and
almost always faithfully reproduces whatever is listed as the
correct address right down to the last comma. You can never run
out of ways to code. PG is the obvious code for PUB-GUYS, but
you could use an arbitrary number code chosen by you and in
fact, number codes are invaluable codes for making dates on the
ads, to see how many trickle-in orders you get long after the ad
stops running, and what months and season are most productive
for selling your products.
Date coding involves using numbers in sequence to indicate
magazine issue number, sequence number, or date published.
This coding is virtually essential in later campaigns. Once
you've got a fair-sized mailing list, it will be far easier to
use advertising codes to indicate their interests than to keep a
complete ledger of every person and what they purchased. It
also makes computer entry a snap, especially with a good filing
program.
One thing that scares people about coding is receiving checks or
money orders coded like the ads. People become somewhat
afraid that they won't be able to deposit them because their
account is registered to JONDO, not JDPG or whatever. Have no
fear. Your company will be registered to your mailing address.
By showing the clerk a copy of the advertisement with the
address, there will be little doubt as to who should rightfully
receive the money, and your checks or money orders will clear
like clockwork. If by chance you do encounter a bank that won't
accommodate this requirement, bank somewhere else where
they understand the workings of mail marketers.
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