8 Advertising Mistakes That Cost You Money

1. Shotgun Marketing: Confucius say, “Do not use a canon to kill a mosquito”. You may have heard the saying that advertising is a numbers game. At the core, there is some truth to that, but like any well oiled machine, its more about efficiency than it is brute strength. It may be best for a company owner to look at return on investment (ROI). Yes, sending 10,000 postcards will yield more leads than sending 500, but the person sending 500 well designed mailers with an attention grabbing headline and a good call to action will get a far greater ROI.

2. Poor Mailing Lists: Before starting a campaign, ask yourself about your preferred customer demographic. Who is most likely to buy your service? If your business is about servicing multiple commercial locations, target the right audience. The key is to match your company’s specialty to your market. In residential work, zip codes are not always an accurate indicator. Some zip codes will include variances in property value and income level. Work with a local mailing house that knows your service area. Lists will be a bit more expensive but will produce more viable leads.

3. No Attention Grabber: In everyone’s brain are what’s called reticular activators. These are subconscious sensors that less us know when something is worthy of our attention. A child’s scream, the screeching of a car’s tires just before an accident.. these are examples of events that make a person take notice. We’re the best, licensed and insured, In business since 1908, these are not attention grabbers and are easily ignored. A well thought out and properly written headline, an eye catching graphic, an unusual shape or color.. these simple tricks get far more mileage.

3. Too Much to Say In Too Little a Space: A postcard or a letter is not a brochure. Many contractors will water down their message by listing all of their services. Can you expect your prospective customer to sort through that list and find something that suits them? At that point, all impact is gone. Most often a laundry list has the opposite effect of parlaying, “jack of all trades, master of none”.

4. Not Getting Enough Exposure: This ties in with #1. If a contractor throws all of his money into a single mailer or advertisement, they have no budget left for future exposure. To react to advertising a person may need to be exposed to that company’s message several times in various media. If you are targeting 10,000 potential customers, you had better have a whopper budget. Using targeted lists with multiple exposure will allow you to stretch your budget.

5. Not Appealing To Emotion: Consumers buy what they want, not what they need. You will have an easier time convincing a potential customer that they want a great looking deck for their next barbecue, than you will telling them that their deck needs to be stained to protect it from the weather. Your marketing and your selling go hand in hand. It should always be about what benefits the consumer, not the contractor. Yes.. we all know our trades, but customers just want to know what’s in it for them.

6. Its Not About You: Truth be told, the customer does not care about you in the advertising stage of the game. Use words like “you” and “your” versus “we”, “our” and “us”. Always make your material all about the customer.

7. No Call To Action: If you have hand picked your list, written a killer headline, perfected a graphic design and wrote good benefit selling copy, there is one thing left to do.. make the customer act. Think of an infomercial you have watched. There are frequent calls to action.. act now.. call now and save.. order within the next ten minutes and receive.. Give the consumer a reason to react.

8. Not Sticking To A Budget: This is the biggest killer of a contractor’s marketing efforts. Set a budget percentage that you will continuously dump back into advertising. Try not to deviate from that. This is how you keep your lead generation machine rolling.

One final note that ties into your budget. Track your results and your return on investment. Marketing is a continuous cycle of fine tuning. The only way to know what works is to change things methodically and keep track of the results. Over time, doing these things will allow you to spend less and less money on advertising and grow your company faster than 99.99% of the companies out there.

Five Words To Never Use In An Ad

Words That Sell

Written By Ken Fenner

A Delaware County, PA Pressure Washing Service