What is it like to be a real advertiser in the business?

How do advertisements with referrals work business-wise?

• On the radio I heard an advertisement for laser eye surgery and they said "tell them we sent you and get an additional 10% off your final price" or something of that nature. 1. Is there a specific name for this kind of advertisement? (note that this is not a celebrity endorsement or testimonial. it's just like a coupon code) 2. How do the deals on these types of advertisements work? (business-wise for the advertiser and product owner aka the radio station and the surgery facility) 3. How does this type of advertisement compare to other types of advertisements in all aspects of advertising? (effectiveness to draw in advertising the product, cost of advertisement, etc)

• Answer:

  1. Technically, this is a "direct response" ad. But not really. A direct response ad usually is a lot harder sell ... buy this, and you'll also get this ... and this ... and this! Call now! 2. Go to the business, get a firm quote, negotiate it down a little more, then bring up the radio ad. You get an extra 10% off. If they don't give you the extra 10% off, report them to the Better Business Bureau. (Unfortunately, there is no law against lying in your advertising. Talking to the Prosecuting Attorney will be a waste of time.) As far as the radio station, they run the ad and get paid for it. Some stations accept PI ads ... per inquiry, where they are paid based on how many units are sold. This is not that type of ad. 3. It is never, ever, never (with extremely rare exceptions), but I repeat, never effective. I've seen businesses run this type of offer thousands of times, and it works once out of a thousand times. (If you are selling $100 bills for only $105, and you briefly mention a 10% discount, I doubt you would get many takers unless you ran hundreds of ads.) A better way to do it is to simply focus the entire ad on the discount ... if you talk for 55 seconds about yourself, and mention a discount, no one will hear it. If you talk about yourself for 10 seconds, and about the discount for 50 seconds, you have a better chance at selling the discount.