Over nearly 21 years of publishing in this niche I have heard many advertising success stories – and failures too. There are often practical reasons why an ad works or doesn’t – to do with the copy used, especially headlines, the size, colour, placement, repetition, etc. However, my observations are that being in tune with the Universe has more to do with it than these and more than we might realise. I’ll list a few examples further down. Pardon that I couch them in negative terms, but they are easier to see that way.

Here’s what I cover below:

     The internet hampers synchronicity
     A man publishes a new paper just because the net hinders synchronicity!
     My observations of advertising failures when out of step with universal laws
     The internet and your results
     Cheap online presence about to get cheaper or free with LivingNow
     The déjà vu effect

The internet hampers synchronicity

Weird eh? Not really when you think about it. I observed a little while ago when an organisation took a very large ad to promote the visit of their famous teacher to Australia that the first month they had no actual details of the tour, even though they had buckets of room on their ad. They relied instead on people going to their website. Now, in this day and age readers certainly do (more of that below), but, apart from the proportion of people who do not use the internet, they were missing out on synchronicity. How? Imagine two friends having a coffee and they flick through the magazine together. Their eyes light upon the event, they see it is on the 23^rd, say, and in a venue accessible to them, and they decide right there and then that they will go together. Individually they would not necessarily have gone.

A man publishes a new newspaper just because the internet hinders synchronicity!

My daughter Emma heard an interview on radio the other day with a guy, Ross Floate, who is starting a new free newspaper in Melbourne, "And Now It's In Print", based on finding what’s good on the internet and publishing it in print. The interviewer was puzzled about this – why would he do it when the internet is free and so readily available?

Ross and his business partners believe that print allows synchronicity to work seeing that, when we surf the net, we THINK we know what we are looking for. When we see things in print, if something catches our eye, it can be more of an ‘aha’ experience. Many people tell me they saw something three times* and just knew they were meant to do it. I’ve even heard a few people say they stick pins into the pages to see what they should do ;-)

My observations of advertising failures when out of step with universal laws

• If you have ‘stuff’ happening in your life, the Universe protects you from overwhelm and stops your phone ringing and emails popping in until such time as you can cope with the extra work.

• If you are unsure of your product, path or service, or you don’t have the premises organised yet, then you don’t put out the proper intention to be fulfilled.

• Even not having a date specified in your ad can put out a wobbly intention, e.g., you think, “I’ll just put out that I will offer this workshop and if I get people then I will make a date”.

• Belief that the ad will not work for some reason, e.g., you don’t like the colour it printed, or the page it was on, or your friend said something negative. Once you get it into your mind that the ad will not work, that’s what you get. I know that sounds too simplistic, but I have seen that happen so many times over the years that I actually had a section about this in my book, Seven Angels Helped Me, as an example of how powerful our thoughts are. So it is a good idea to look at your ad on the page in a loving way, send loving vibrations to it – reiki if you have that ability.

The internet and your results

We all love the internet and could not do without it. However, it has largely removed your opportunity to speak with prospective clients personally.

When people see your ad in print, they will google you rather than ring you. Even if you don’t list a website, they will still see what they can do to find out about you on the net. If what they find does not suit them for one reason or another, then you will likely never know that they were looking at you. If they buy from you, they will tell you that they found you on line. They do not tell you, unless you dig it out of them, that your magazine ad prompted them to look for you on line.

(A 2007 American survey showed that 46% of people who went to a search engine to look someone up did so as a result of seeing a magazine ad. I imagine that is even bigger these days, don’t you?)

So just beware of that phenomenon when advertising in print. You can no longer judge the efficacy of the ad by the phone ringing.

Cheap online presence about to get cheaper or free

Also, of course, it means that you need a good presence on line. We have cheap websites combined with premium listings on livingnow.com.au, and they are about to get even cheaper. Also, coming by the end of June, we have significant online freebies to give away on our site which will, by then, have a revamp. So you can email Justine, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and ask her to let you know when the renovations and extensions are finished.

Warm wishes
Elizabeth Jewell (previously Stephens)

* The déjà vu effect
You can aid this process by taking advantage of our permanent offer of ‘buy two and get the third free’ in our People Pages. We call it the déjà vu effect. It certainly works, especially if you use a photo or logo in your ad, as people see your picture bobbing up everywhere. Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you want the ad rates.