June 21, 2010

7 Ways to KILL Your Advertising Campaign

As easy as marketing and advertising appears on the surface, we often see executives making the same mistakes over and over when it comes to planning, implementing and managing a successful advertising campaign. So without further a due, here are the Top 7 ways to kill your advertising campaign.

1. Give your campaign a chance. Knee jerk changes and cancellations to a campaign is dangerous. It takes time for a campaign to build. A consumer usually needs to see your ad several times before they will act.

2. If your campaign is successful - don't mess with it. Many times people see something going well, and they want to change it, "just because". The old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" fits here.

3. Don't get sold. Advertising sales people will often come to you with packages that better benefit their company's financial goals than yours.

4. Don't mix advertising messages. Keep each message simple so you're not bombarding the customer with too many calls to action or overwhelming laundry lists.

5. Don't overcrowd your ads. Too many small words on a page or billboard causes the reader to gloss over the ad, thus ignoring it.

6. Don't spread yourself too thin. Unless you have a bottomless advertising budget, it doesn't make sense to advertise in every single small publication. As long as you're using a mixture of media outlets (TV, radio, web, print, outdoor) and targeting your audience, your message will get to the people you want it to get to.

7. Don't think your sales reps are all your friends. Some actually are friends, but at the end of the day everyone is working for their own paycheck and often times sales reps have monthly goals or contests they must participate in. Never lose sight of your own goals and needs.