Here’s a test regarding the effectiveness of your advertising: WSAC?

What’s a WSAC, you ask? It stands for Why Should Anyone Care?

WSAC is a stronger, more cynical way of asking WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?), the unspoken question we all subconsciously inquire when looking at commercial messages. You have to be cynical because, sure as shooting, your audience is.

So much advertising fails in one of two ways. Either it’s all about the product (or service) and not the buyer, or it’s way too clever for its own good. In either case, the question left at the end of the commercial or as the eyes are turning away is WSAC.

How many times have you seen a funeral home ad in which the headline is nothing more than the name of the funeral home. WSAC?

Or “Serving Families For Generations.” WSAC?

Or “The Caring People to Turn To.” WSAC?

Or even the vaunted “Celebrate A Life.” So what? What’s in it for me? Who gives a $%#@? Why should anyone care?

An audience overwhelmed by thousands of commercial messages every day isn’t going to take the time to contemplate an ad that doesn’t speak to their own needs quickly, honestly, clearly and compellingly.

So the first step in building your marketing is to give serious thought about what kind of message would a disinterested audience CARE about, that affects them personally and expresses how their lives are made better by reading further…particularly when it comes to marketing funeral services that by nature no one really wants even if it’s something everybody needs. And then, once you’ve crafted that message, the next step is to come up with a compelling, eye-stopping – I might even say disruptive – way of communicating that message within the headline and art.

You can say it funny. You can say it emotionally. You can even say it simply. But the result has to be that the audience has a near-instant reason to care, or you’ve just flushed more of your precious marketing dollars down the proverbial toilet.

It pays to be cynical in analyzing your own advertising. Or at least, put yourself in the mindset of a disinterested reader and don’t assume that just because you advertise they will come. You must understand WHY they should care if they’ve never heard of you before and they have so many other choices, including not to act at all. This is what should drive your advertising message, whether it’s in a magazine, on the web or on a bus bench.

And to better hone your skills at this, look at ads from other advertisers and see if they tell the story compellingly, or do they prompt you to ask WSAC. If you have to ask, they’ve missed the mark.

Just be sure others don’t ask that when looking at your ads.