Top 10 Advertising
Mistakes
By: Irin Eschupan
Where should you put your advertising
when there a limited number of dollars available?
It’s
the number one question of business owners as they consider all
things marketing. Every
media salesperson is going to tell you that you should advertise
with them.
Bottom line, it is you that must learn to read between the lines and determine
whether the ad space is one that will work for you and be an
effective place for your ad dollar.
Novice advertisers make several
huge advertising mistakes with regard to ad placement:
Advertising
mistake #1
Uncovering advertising
referral sources - The biggest advertising mistake that most
people make happens when people try to (or don't try) assess how
effective an ad was in developing new business. The big question of course is, how
do you know if your ad was effective? If you do not actively seek
this information, it is simply impossible to tell how effective
any ad is. Your customers are not going to run up to
you and tell you all about how they found your advertising.
It simply isn't going to happen.
Obviously, keeping track of this
information is also essential. Low cost ads might only bring
you a few customers per month. Yet it takes very few
referrals to pay for any ad. When it comes time to renew
your advertising, if you simply operate from
memory, you could very well be giving up your best sources of
leads.
Advertising
mistake #2
Diversification – There
is no ONE place for your ad.
A huge new business owner advertising mistake is to compare all
forms of advertising and only choose one based on one criteria or
another. Some will cost more or less and some will produce more or
less results. Some
venues attract certain customers while others may target a
completely different demographic.
What really matters is
effectiveness of the ad versus the cost, or in other words return
on investment (ROI). The effectiveness of
one ad placement should not be compared to another.
Each should stand on its own return on investment,
and be judged on that alone. If
an ad is bringing you any positive ROI at all, consider keeping
it.
In
the personal services industries, advertising costs can be
recovered very quickly because most clients continue to require
services. Any given client can be worth several hundred or
thousands of dollars. That means, if you only get one client
off an ad, it's probably more than paid for itself.
Advertising
mistake #3
Putting
the wrong person in charge is a huge advertising mistake - Don’t put an artist or a technical person in
charge of developing and designing an advertising campaign.
They may make wonderful graphics or be able to design world-class
software, but marketers they are not. Also keep it away from
the hands of your secretary, accountants, and general staff.
These people tend to try to get things off their desk and most
of the time, they are clueless with regard to advertising and what
it is supposed to accomplish.
To
sell your services or products, you need an experienced marketer
to head the project and work with the development staff. If
you cannot afford to hire an expert, work closely with the people
that you are purchasing from and let their designers do the
biggest share of the grunt work for you. You know your
business better than anyone else, and obviously, you have more at
stake than anyone. Nobody is going to have more concern over
how things are done than you.
Advertising
mistake #4
Inflating
or puffing your company - While it is important to present
your company in a good light, the “We are wonderful, perfect, marvelous... yada,
yada, yada (yawn)”, is an advertising mistake because it
provides no information. If you personally met up with an
acquaintance who bragged about how great they are without telling
you why, wouldn't you be suspicious? If
you are great, tell the customer why and let them make this
determination. It's a lot more powerful than if you tell
them.
Neither
does this kind of advertising differentiate you from your competition who ALSO
say the same things about themselves.
All
companies will tell you the exact same line, and it's the one
thing that you can do that will make customers tune out your ad.
Advertising
mistake #5
Failure to develop the call for action –
This is not only a huge advertising mistake, it is the number one
sales mistake. You’ve presented the benefits, now what do
you want them to do.? The
obvious answer is to call you and ask to do business with you.
Don’t let this be their idea.
Always
suggest what the customer should do next.
Advertising
mistake #6
Going where the customers are – There is a reason why restaurants often manage to
build close to each other. Each
does better when they are surrounded by their competitors.
If you are the only home care
company advertising in a random location, you're in front of an
audience that may be spontaneously interested in your
services. But most of the time and for most of the audience, there is no
interest. But when you
advertise in the same location that other services are found,
people that are looking for services will look in places where
they have multiple choices.
There
is a saying, "I'd rather be lucky than smart."
While that's quaint and there is a ring of reality, it does not
apply to the world of advertising. You may get lucky with an
ad sitting out all alone, but "lucky" can rarely be
repeated on a regular basis. "Smart" might come in
second on a given instance, but you can repeat Smart, time after
time and leave "Lucky" in the dust.
Continued
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