Across the media today, you see slick advertising companies trying to outdo the other building commercial after commercial, with each trying to outdo the other in terms of style and wow factor. The truth is, advertising is a science. Advertising is the science of triggering consumer's emotions and finding ways to get a response from a target audience. It encompasses lots of psychological factors and taps into the area of acceptance, self improvement, and power. The following techniques will help increase your response rate tenfold to boost your business, promote your service, or sell your products:

1) Unique selling proposition in the headline - the headline draws the most attention of any space in the ad (including body). It can come in the form of a question, an offer, a news tidbit (i.e. 40% of all Americans are making the switch to Geico), and including details to get in touch with the advertiser. There is a huge difference between the attention paid on the headline and the body copy. According to statistics, 5X more people read the headlines than the actual copy. That's why adding an explosive, attention grabbing headline is so crucial - to get consumers reading further down the page and learning about your product. Bona fide headlines may include those that offer "exclusive" information, like "How to Increase Your Libido" (always a favorite.) According to the Starch Readership Service, short headlines are read more often than headlines with 10+ words.

2) Headline placement - now that you've come up with an eye catching headline, where will you place it within the advertisement? Good typography like using sub-heads, making your opening paragraph smaller, and highlight key areas in bold or italics is a good place to start. Suppose you have an advertisement promoting kangaroo food. There is a funny cartoonish illustration of a hopping kangaroo on the page. Where should the headline rest - above or below it? Believe it or not, more people read headlines below the illustration than above it (10%). That 10% could mean the difference between meeting your bottom line and having to hold an emergency meeting with your marketing representatives.

Using the above mechanics for crafting your print ads, watch your response rate grow and your bottom line approached one step at a time.