Where does advertising go wrong?

Where does advertising go wrong?

Most of the points listed below are the opposite of the five key elements of advertising success I spoke about above. By under- standing the most common advertising mistakes you will be able to devise strong focus for your advertising needs. Advertisements and commercials go wrong mostly because they:

1. are done on impulse, i.e. not enough time is spent planning the advertising
2. are aimed at the wrong people
3. are cluttered and confusing
4. feature in the wrong medium
5. feature in only one advertising medium
6. are seen at the wrong time
7. don’t stand out from the crowd
8. don’t give the customer a reason to act immediately
9. don’t make the product or service appealing enough to interest the consumer
10. are stopped before the advertising can work, that is, a lack of repeat advertising. 

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5 most important things you need to know about successful advertising

5 most important things you need to know about successful advertising

1. Establishing the exact message you are trying to put forward

A lot of advertising sends a very confusing message to poten- tial customers. Advertising needs to be planned and it needs to be simple. Sit down and allow some time to think about the exact message you are trying to pass on to potential cus- tomers. Give them a reason to pick up the telephone or to drop into your business.

Often advertising becomes cluttered and confusing because there is simply too much information in the adver- tisement or commercial. If you can’t summarise what you want your message to say in one short sentence, go back to the drawing board until you can. Once this magic sentence has been determined, build your advertisement to portray this message clearly. Your advertising will have far greater results if you repeat this message rather than try to introduce a number of other messages.
Take a few minutes to flick through today’s newspaper and pay close attention to the advertisements that really stand out. They are often the least cluttered. They will have a clear message. They may promote a lot of products but there is no doubt about what they are selling and what the message they are trying to get across is.

For advertising to work for any business, deciding the specific message you want to pass on to potential customers is critical. 

2. Being clear about your target audience

If you are advertising parachuting courses it is unlikely you will get the best results from a commercial on television during daytime soap operas (apart from some adventurous retirees perhaps). Likewise, if you are selling a new product to relieve the pain of arthritis it is unlikely to produce excel- lent results if it is advertised during coverage of some world extreme sport (although many participants will definitely need the product in a few years).
Knowing exactly the type of person you want to see your advertisement is an essential component for planning your campaign. This is a question most advertising sales representatives will normally ask you (or at least they should ask you). The advertising lingo for it is the ‘demographic’ you are trying to reach. This can include such details as the age of the potential customers, their sex, their wealth status and their geographical location, to mention a few of the elements of a demographic breakdown.
Advertising should be planned to reach particular kinds of consumers in a specific manner. The clearer you are about your targeted customers the more effectively you can plan your advertising. Placing advertisements randomly in any medium is not an effective way to advertise. Different people watch television at different times (and of course they watch different shows). Different people read various sections of the paper, listen to particular radio stations and so on.
Whenever you are planning an advertising campaign take a few moments to stop and consider the exact type of person you want to see your advertisements. 

3. Making your advertisement stand out from millions of others

The main reason advertising doesn’t work for a lot of businesses is because the advertisement or commercial fails to catch the attention of the targeted customers. It is very important to remember that consumers are bombarded with advertising from the minute they wake up until the minute they go to bed. Some statistics have noted that on average we can be exposed to over 30 000 advertising messages a day. This may sound ridiculous, but think about what you are exposed to during your typical day.

You are woken by a radio alarm and the station you are listening to is the start of the day’s selling process. As you shower and get ready for work a multitude of products fight for your attention. Then you might sit down to watch the morning news while having some breakfast and you are bombarded by the advertisements on the television as well as on the products you have for breakfast, such as the cereal box. If you read the paper in the morning you are also going to be exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of advertising messages. Then it’s time to go to work and in the car you might listen to the radio, which exposes you to the obliga- tory radio commercials. During a 30-minute drive it is likely you will see thousands of signs along the roadside advertis- ing businesses. If you travel by public transport there are signs inside the trains and buses. Once you are at work and you check your mail you see even more advertising. Check your email and there is advertising. By now it is about 9 a.m., you have been up for only a couple of hours and you have already seen thousands of advertisements.
It is easy to see why it is important your advertising stands out from the crowd. 

4. Ensuring people see your advertising often

‘Frequency’ is the advertising lingo used to describe how often an advertisement will appear and, as a result, how often people will see it. This is really the most simple aspect of advertising—get as many people as possible to see your advertisement as often as possible and your advertising will bring much greater results.

The downside to this is that the more frequency you want for your advertising the more it will cost. A simple example of this is that of television advertising. To air a commercial at 3 a.m., a time when few people are watching television, will cost a fraction of a commercial aired during the nightly news (generally the most viewed program).

The aim is to look at your whole campaign and make certain you are going to reach as many people as often as possible. Advertising in more than one area is a key to this, so it is wise to consider this strategy. We always recommend to our clients that they consider at least two mediums, such as television and radio, or radio and newspaper for their campaigns. 

5. Giving your advertising time to work

An interesting phenomenon of advertising is that you have to give your advertising time to work. It is very rare for a potential customer to see your advertisement once, then race off to pick up the phone or jump in the car. It takes seeing an advertisement a number of times (often in a number of different places) before consumers are convinced they need your product or service. One example of this is selling through Internet sites.
It will generally take a person seven visits to a website before they will make a specific purchase. Each of these visits will have a different reason behind the visit, most occurring subconsciously, but they are all equally important visits and most of the time they are to do with establishing the credi- bility of the company the customer is looking to make the purchase from. So placing one advertisement and expecting to be inundated with responses is generally not realistic.
On the upside, though, the response to an advertisement will generally increase the longer it is out there because more people will see the advertising more often. I have monitored a lot of advertising campaigns where we have done the same

amount of advertising for a specific product over a six-month period. Each month the response increased, with the last month being the most successful, illustrating the long-term benefits of advertising. Likewise it takes a while for advertis- ing to stop working once the momentum is gained. For those campaigns we ran for six months and then stopped, new customers continued to flow for up to two months before finally slowing to a trickle or stopping. Hence, I often hear business owners say that when they stopped advertising there was no impact on the number of new customers for the business. A few months later, however, they often come back saying that new customers have dried up and they need to start advertising again (and quickly).
I like to use the analogy that advertising is similar to pushing a broken-down car (something most of us have had the joy of experiencing). Getting the car moving is tough, but once it is moving it takes less energy to keep it going. If you stop pushing the car it will take a while to stop as it moves under its own momentum (see the ‘Old bomb principle’ in tip #19). 

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