Gathering Information
So let's talk more about creating a spec ad. First, you need information. When you go into a business, you need to ask a lot of questions. These questions fall into three basic categories. What products or services do you sell? Who do you compete with? And who are you trying to sell to? You're on a mission and your goal is to find out anything and everything about the advertiser's business.

Business, Products, and Services
When gathering information about the business, it's important to find out what products or services they sell, what's special about their products or services, are they unique or hard to find, how much do they charge, what's the average sale when a customer buys, do they have any brochures or stories that have been written about them in the past, or any ads they've run in the past that have worked or haven'tÐanything and everything about their business.

Competition
You'll need to ask them who their competitors are and why should people come to them rather than the competition. What are their competitors charging for similar products? Where are they advertising? How successful are they? You should try to get your hands on any ads their successful competitors are running to see what they're doing. It's also important to make sure that you get the advertiser to tell you who their true competitors are. For example, a small furniture store might only list other small furniture stores as competition, and may forget the big chain stores. But if a lot of people in the market are going to the big chain furniture stores instead of his business, then they would be the main competitor.

Target customers
Ask the advertiser about his target customers. Questions such as: Why do your target customers buy the product from one place rather than another? Is it the prices? Is it the service? At what income level are your target customers? How old are they? Knowing as much as you can about who your ad is trying to attract will help when we come to the next step, designing the ad.