25 Advertising Dont's!

Don’t do these things - unless you like wasting money on advertising!

1. DON’T! Do any more advertising until you’ve taken these TWO MOST IMPORTANT STEPS:

Figure out what messages sell best for you when you’re talking to just one customer at a time.

Find a way to write those messages into your ads. BECAUSE WHAT WORKS FOR YOU WHEN YOU’RE TALKING TO ONE CUSTOMER IS THE MESSAGE THAT WILL WORK BEST IN YOUR ADS.

2. DON’T! Even think about improving the look of your ads until you’ve got the message in your ads sorted out. What you say in your ads is four-five times more important than how your ad looks.

3. DON’T! Use too many words in white type on a black background. It’s harder to read!

4. DON’T! Think that if your ad looks like others it won’t work. MANY of our client’s ads look similar, YET they all work!

5. DON’T! Forget to mention your company name and phone number AT LEAST THREE TIMES in radio advertising.

6. DON’T! Expect people to respond to your ads if you don’t tell them how. Give people at least three different ways to respond. E.g. Order by phone. Shop with us on our website. Come in and visit us. Phone for a free test drive (at your home).

7. DON’T! Run a photo or illustration in your ad or brochure UNLESS you give it a caption. People ALWAYS look under photos and illustrations to see what they’re about.

8. DON’T! Believe people who tell you that they don’t read long copy in ads and brochures. They do. The fourth most important rule in all advertising is THE MORE YOU TELL THE MORE YOU SELL!!!

9. DON’T! Forget to give your brochure a selling headline. If you don’t it won’t work nearly as well.

10. DON’T! Use too many capital letters in a headline, they’re harder to read.

11. DON’T! Forget to ‘qualify’ your prospects in your ads. Too many responses from ‘tyre kickers’ just waste your time.

12. DON’T! Change your ad if it’s working. Monitor the results and you’ll soon get an accurate idea of how long an ad will work before it needs replacing.

13. DON’T! Completely change the ad when results start dropping off. Try changing your headline and photos, but keep the same copy.

14. DON’T! Ever forget that 80% of people only read the headline in your newspaper ad or brochure.

15. DON’T! Forget that the above principle also applies to your radio and TV ads. Most people stop paying attention after the first few seconds.

16. DON’T! Keep reinventing the wheel with your advertising! Find out what works, and keep with it! What works in your newspaper ads will also work in your brochures. And it will ALSO work in your radio and TV advertising. You’ll just need to use your smarts to rewrite the message so it works in electronic mediums. Rewrite it, but DON’T CHANGE IT! Until it stops working.

17. DON’T! Copy what others are doing in their ads. There’s an 80% chance it’s not working for them, so why should it work for you?

18. DON’T! Expect the new idea your ad rep gives you to increase the results of your ads, unless their new idea comes as the result of new training on how to improve advertising results.

19. DON’T! Be fooled into thinking company newsletters don’t work. If yours isn’t working, it’s because you’re not doing it right.

20. DON’T! Ignore direct mail. Direct mail is one of the most potent forms of advertising.

21. DON’T! Believe anyone who tells you direct mail won’t work because there is so much ‘junk’ in people’s mailboxes. The reason there is so much is that more and more businesses are finding that it works.

22. DON’T! Make these common mistakes with advertising in your bills. The first mistake is not putting ENOUGH advertising in with your bill – if you have an offer, your customers deserve to know about it. The second mistake is to put TOO MUCH advertising in your bill – too much and the novelty wears off and your customer stops reading it.

23. DON’T! Run any advertising or promotion without a
comprehensive advertising plan. You’ll be amazed how easy it is to squander $10,000 to $20,000 in a year on ads and promotion that doesn’t work.

24. DON’T! Think that our tips will be as effective as they can be, UNTIL YOU HAVE THE CORRECT FOUNDATION. The correct foundation is a comprehensive marketing plan and a new creative approach, without which our tips WILL improve your results, but WON’T reach their full potential. Holloway clients that use our strategic approach get by far the best increase in results.

25. DON’T! Keep trying to reduce the amount you pay your advertising people. Screwing down the price will NOT make the ads work any better. If you’re not happy, give your advertising people a chance to improve results. If that still doesn’t work, you’re better off going elsewhere and pay MORE for MORE results!

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Why advertising is getting less and less effective

Everything goes in cycles. We all know that. The problem is that none of us can think of what might come next in the ‘advertising cycle’. So we stick our heads in the sand and carry on advertising even though we know it is bringing us less and less results.

Ads used to work gangbusters!

30 years ago when I was selling ads for newspapers, you could at least hope for a result from both newspaper and radio ads – no matter how bad the ad was. Although the advent of lots of start up newspapers and local radio stations made it harder to get a result, 20 years ago it was still worth concentrating most of your marketing spend in local newspapers or radio stations – but you needed to use the Holloway Approach if you wanted a result.

But that’s all changed. Sorry!

There’s just no way you’re going to effectively market your business if you don’t find other ways to market. Advertising just can’t cut it anymore on its own. In fact there are times when you shouldn’t advertise at all.

We still run lots of ads for our clients, but we do LOTS of other things for them too. Those other ‘things’ tend to be harder work, more fussy, but they bring better results.

The simple reason that advertising is becoming less effective and will continue to do so is the ENORMOUS amount of competition the good old local newspaper and radio station now receive.

For a start there’s too many newspapers and radio stations to choose from.

Not just for you, but for your customers too. They can’t read or listen to them all! But worse still (for anyone focusing all their marketing dollars in radio or newspaper) your customers just aren’t as interested in those media anymore.

Now there’s much more interesting stuff coming at us all the time.
Your customers are getting bombarded with Youtube. Trademe. Emails from businesses (and friends). Faxes. Telemarketers. Infomercials. Books. Magazines. Letterbox flyers. Letters from businesses. DVDs, hundreds of TV channels (that you can’t advertise on even if you want to). All of them are worth a look, some much more interesting than the newspaper or radio.

And the answer is NO! You can’t afford to do all those things and be in all those places. That’s the other horrid thing that’s happened. Businesses are making the mistake of thinking they’ll need to spend money on all those things. They don’t! You don’t.

Remember Michael Hill’s ads? Boy were they effective. These days you’ll see Michael’s stores focusing a huge amount of time on sales training – much more effective, and possibly cheaper than ads in the long run.

Michael Hill is just one of hundreds, actually thousands of businesses who now have to find other ways to market than advertising.

The key is not to focus all your marketing money on ads. And not to try and divide it up among all the opportunities because they won’t all work for you.

The best way to get results from your marketing is quite simple. Work out which of all those harder work, but better result ways to market (emails, letters, phone calls, sales training etc) work best for you and then focus your attention on just those things.

Yes but how on earth do we work out what’s most likely to work for our business – letters, emails, customer evenings etc etc?

You ask Holloways 3 Magic Marketing Questions™. The answers will tell you what to do.

1. Why is my business making sales right now? Why did it make sales in the past?

2. How could I use that (the reason my business is already making sales) …but organise it better so it will drive up sales (even further)?

3. Should I spend more on that and less on ads?

No, I’m not joking and no it’s not as complicated as it sounds. Just read the three questions again, and again and see what comes to mind.

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