Today is article number ten in our series on Top 10 Advertising Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.
I really appreciate you going through these first nine articles with me.
Ideally, they have imparted some experience, knowledge, help, to avoid or eliminate some of the advertising, marketing, and media mishaps that many advertisers have had to deal with.
I limited this series to 10. That’s not to say there aren’t a lot of them. 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 been the highlights of my career across multiple agencies, clients, industries, and budgets of all sizes.
My hope is that these 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 recap
number one was a failure to test and measure your ad and
number two he wasn’t taking the time to schedule ads.
Number Three was failing to investigate who his target group really is
number four I was changing the look too often
Number five – remember that I suggested that you have to dance with whoever you brought. You take care of your existing customers
number six was to do your due diligence and not open your wallet to any ad sales rep
number seven it was getting overextended and not doing a good job in any medium to begin with
number eight you were coming into the campaign with unrealistic expectations of what your ad campaign can do to transform your business overnight
number nine he was giving up his campaign too soon
today for Number ten and this one hits the heart of creativity and that’s very simple, Terrible ad execution.
You’ve seen them, you can probably rhyme two or three off the top of your head just like that.
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 do not excite or hook the reader.
They do not arouse curiosity. They don’t tell the reader to pay attention.
They blend into the background and become invisible.
They are too boring.
Like I said, there’s no way to say this nicely.
But if your message isn’t compelling enough to grab someone’s attention, how on earth are you going to get it to the bottom 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 ad he wrote for the US School of Music correspondence where the headline read: … They laughed when I sat down to play the piano but when i started playing…
Then he went through a wonderful narration. That headline wowed people throughout the ad, directing 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.
Their the headline makes or breaks your ad And many seasoned copywriters will tell you how important those few words are in getting the reader into the rest of the story.
It can arouse curiosity.
Can be That is how.
Can be This is why.
Can be who else wants whatever,
but more than anything your headline has to draw attention away from everything else that person is going through at that 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 that it will take you to read my ad…
That’s what you have to do. To fix this, dear readers, honestly, you just have to create better ads.
It all starts with the 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 prospect eager to have more than East. whatever you are East 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 ad success. He has to stop you and draw you in. He has to have stopping power. Do you want to sell them?
You need to get their attention, and if you want to get their attention, stop them 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 contact information to reach me can be found in the resource box at the end of this article, which directs you to my website. You’ll find a lot of paid and free resources there to help you along the way and if I can help you further I’d be privileged.
This is Dennis Kelly. Thanks.