Today is article number ten in our series The Top 10 Advertising Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.
I really appreciate you spending these first nine articles with me.
Ideally, they have provided you with some experience, knowledge, help to avoid or eliminate some of the advertising, marketing and media setbacks that too many advertisers have had to deal with.
This series I limited to 10. That does not mean that there is not one more host. I’m sure everyone can add to the list or maybe change the order as they see fit and I fully respect that.
But these are the ones that have stood out in my career across multiple agencies, clients, industries, and budgets of all sizes.
My hope is that they are some guides for you on how to navigate your future activity.
So as a quick review before we get to the end of our series, a quick rundown
Number one it was a mistake when testing and measuring your ad and
Number two he didn’t take the time to schedule ads.
Number Three he wasn’t researching who his target group really is
Number four I was changing appearance too often
Number five – Remember that I suggested that you should dance with whoever you brought. Take care of your existing customers
Number six was to do due diligence and not just open your wallet to any ad sales rep
Number seven it was spreading too much and was not doing a good job in any medium to begin with
Number eight you entered the campaign with unrealistic expectations of what your ad campaign can do to transform your business overnight
Number nine he was quitting his campaign too soon
Today for Number ten and this one hits at the heart of creativity and that’s pretty simple, Running lousy ads.
You’ve seen them, you can probably rhyme two or three on the top of your head like this.
There’s no way to put it delicately, but most advertising fails, up to 90% according to some reports, but most advertising fails.
Hey? Ninety break through! Yes, and why do you ask?
Well, because they don’t excite or attract the reader.
They do not arouse curiosity. They don’t tell the reader to pay attention.
They blend in with the background and become invisible.
They are too boring.
Like I said, there is no way to say this delicately.
But if your message isn’t that engaging to get someone’s attention, how the heck are you going to get it to the end of the ad when you can’t even get their interest at the top of the ad?
I mentioned Mr. John Caples earlier in this series. He was a prolific ad tester. He was also a very good ad writer and possibly the most famous was an advertisement he wrote for the correspondence of the US School of Music where the headline read: … They laughed when I sat down to play the piano but when I started playing …
Then it went through a wonderful storytelling. That headline wowed people through the entire ad and directed them to the cut-out coupon to order some music lessons by mail.
It was a resounding success and was repeated for decades because it continued to arouse the curiosity of readers.
You the title makes or breaks your ad And many seasoned copywriters will tell you how important those few words are to engaging the reader in the rest of the story.
It can arouse curiosity.
Can be That’s how.
Can be This is why.
Can be Who else wants what,
But more than anything else, your headline has to divert attention from everything else by what that person is going through at the moment and say …
… you really need to read this and you need to see what it is. I have to say that nothing else is as important as these 95 seconds it will take you to read my ad …
That is what you have to do. To fix this, dear readers, well honestly, you just have to create better ads.
It all starts with words. Those 26 letters of the alphabet are the key to sales. Whether you write it yourself or have an agency or professional do it for you, you want ads that are informative, that make the potential client eager to have more than is. Whatever your is happens to be.
To include them in your ads, you need to create a great headline.
And a great headline is responsible for more than 80% of the success of the ad. He has to stop you and pull you. You must have a power of arrest. You want to sell them, right?
You need to get their attention, and if you want to get their attention, stop it with a headline that says … you have to read this now.
Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, it has been my privilege.
I hope this series has been helpful to you.
I await your comments electronically or by mail if you wish.
All the contact information for reaching me can be found in the resource box at the end of this article, directing you to my website. There you will find a host of free and paid resources to help you along the way, and if I can be of further assistance, it will be a privilege.
This is Dennis Kelly. Thanks.