Layout and copy are creative aspects of advertising. Offer and audience targeting are strategic aspects. This sums up the problem with most small business advertising, it has little or no strategy driving it. Advertising is a combination of science and art. Strategy and creativity.
Creativity can make the crucial difference if all other things are equal.
They rarely are. Success is in the details, in advertising as much as in anything else in life. Invest your time and effort in getting the strategy right first, then use the abundant help available to get the creative aspects working for you. Don't take everything you read or hear about 'Killer' copy and and 'Dynamite' layouts, as gospel. A former lecturer, marketing director and advertising creative director, he now specializes in small business and the direct selling industry.