By Raymond Schoeman.
Advertising can be the best investment you can make or it can be a major expense for your business. For most small businesses the latter seems to hold most truth. But it can be different. In this post we look at six very common mistakes that make an ad ineffective.
Ask someone else to test your ads against these six common mistakes. And listen to their remarks with a clear mind. If you feel at any point that you have to defend or explain; you have a problem.
1. You do not identify and qualify your potential client in your advertising.
Ads are by their very nature invasive. What I mean with this is that nobody waits for your ad to appears before her. It appears in front of somebody busy doing something else. Either it be paging through a magazine or scrolling a social media wall. Your ad is at that moment not a welcome guest.
Your ad needs to tell the viewer in one view that it is there to deliver an important message to her. And why she should not ignore it.
2. Your potential client doesn’t see in one second what your ad is about.
Generic does not get attention. We all have a long list of things requiring our attention and we are always looking for a possible solution. When an ad address a specific problem and offers a solution for a problem on our lists, it gets our attention. One more laser clinic doesn’t address any problem or offer any solution. A laser clinic that specialize in the removal of hair caused by hormonal change after a pregnancy, addresses a specific problem. And offers a solution.
3. You don’t proof to your potential client that you know more and provide a superior service.
Nobody likes to be a ‘lab mouse’. Your ad needs to tell the viewer that she is not the first and that this solution has benefited many before her. Once the viewer knows that she is not the first, she wants to know that you are a specialist in your field.
4. Your ad doesn’t invite your client to learn more about you and your services if she is not ready to buy at this very moment.
Between 1% and 2% of people who view your ad, and are convinced by it to choose you as the best solution, are ready to buy. It is expensive to run ads only catering for this small group of people. You need to provide the viewer that is not ready to buy today, but will be soon, a way to bond with you.
5. Your ad doesn’t provide the viewer with clear instructions on what to do next and a reason to do it without delay.
We are all conditioned throughout our lives to follow instructions. Do you provide clear instructions in your ad for the viewer to follow? And do you give the viewer a compelling reason to do it without delay.
6. Your potential client doesn’t know how to make contact with you.
As brainless as this may sound. It is unbelievable how many ads run without visible contact details. Or it only has one contact method not compatible with your typical client.
