Lack of Tracking (a.k.a., The Blind Leading the Blind). If you are not tracking the response rate of your advertisements whether click throughs or sorcing customers, you might as well as take your advertising dollars, crumple them up and flush them down the toilet. Blindingly throwing money at a publication is like deliberately giving Anne Hathaway’s former boyfriend Raffaello Follieri all your money. Know what works for you and measure results from response/leads to actual revenue. When you look at the big picture and the bottom line, you can easily focus on making better advertising decisions that generate real results.Casting a Big Net Hoping for a Catch (a.k.a., “The Most Dangerous Catch”). Not knowing the difference between media outlets and what they can do is a big way to dump your cash overboard. I have heard over and over again people automatically thinking that they should spend thousands on a direct-mail campaign without truly understanding that their response is going to be two to five percent. Is it worth it? Most of the time … no. Blindingly advertising across the board and hoping you reach “everyone” wastes money – especially when you are talking about television, radio, etc. You hurt yourself by not researching the demographic target of each media and how that relates to your business.
They know me approach (or I’m so popular!). Unless you have the black-and-gold (yet ugly) branding of the Trump towers, please do not be ignorant and leave all of your contact (a.k.a., the “call to action” … action being the imperative word here) information off of your ad. Seriously, I have seen more lack of phone numbers, websites, etc., all under the guise of a really bad pellet-gun approach, “They know me advertising.” For gosh sakes, at least a website people … I know we have Google and all but this is a marketing 101 item.
Bonus Round: Here is my personal favorite: Companies that use completely unrelated photos to illustrate the capability of their product or service. This massive communication error ultimately begs a series of questions that go like this: “Are you a doctor’s office?” “An organic sheep dung farmer?” “A veterinarian that specializes in cow manure?” “The Elephant Man?” What?! OH! “You’re a high-end chocolate shop owner with a “sweet” (excuse the awful pun) storefront downtown. And that buffoon mistake gets made in THIS market. I swear I could really do pro-bono work full time.
