5 Common Advertising Mistakes You Can Easily Avoid

copyright 2004 Bob Leduc

These 5 common advertising mistakes cause you to lose sales. But you can easily avoid these mistakes once you become aware of them.

1. Stop And Go Advertising

Many businesses reduce their advertising when they are getting plenty of sales. Then they increase their advertising when sales decline. This pattern of stop and go advertising creates a repeating cycle of high sales volume and low sales volume. It also prevents the business from growing.

Develop and follow a plan of regularly scheduled advertising regardless of your sales volume. Continuous advertising produces steady growth. It also reduces the time you have to spend on making advertising decisions.

2. One Shot Advertising

Businesses often devote all of their advertising efforts to attracting new customers. But they devote little or no effort to cultivating these prospects for future sales.

Most prospective customers will not buy the first time they hear or see your sales message. But many will buy later if you follow up with them. Your follow up can be as simple as contacting them periodically with a new offer.

Tip: Customers are prospects too. Stay in contact with them. Find or develop other products or services you can offer them. It's easier to make a sale to a previous customer than to someone who never bought from you.

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3. Copycat Advertising

Businesses often copy their competitors advertising ideas. This can be effective for a short time. But results quickly decline as more and more competitors copy the same idea.

Instead of copying your competitors advertising ideas, improve on them. Create something better - something your competitors cannot copy.

For example, give your customers a reason to buy from you instead of from a competitor. This can be as simple as including a unique bonus only you can offer - or providing the personal attention your competitors are not willing or able to provide.

4. Scatter Shot Advertising

Many businesses get poor results from their advertising because they reach too many prospects with little or no interest in what they are selling. This usually happens because they quickly decided on the cheapest advertising instead of looking for highly targeted advertising ...which is often available for a similar low-cost.

Take some time to research and plan your advertising efforts. Look for ways you can reach concentrations of prospects likely to be interested in your product or service. Then target your message to appeal specifically to their interests and needs.

Tip: Look for alternative media your competition probably overlooked. For example, direct mail postcards are highly effective for generating traffic to a web site. But most online marketers aren't using them - yet. It's a low-cost way to bypass the heavy competition online.

5. Self Focused Advertising

Advertisers often promote facts about themselves or their products in their advertising. But facts don't sell. Benefits sell. For example, which of the following has more impact?

1. "We provide complete marketing services for starting your own business"
2. "No more time clock. Work when you want. Take long vacations"

The first focuses on the company and describes the service it provides. It's boring and unattractive. The second focuses on the benefit provided by that service. It attracts attention and creates excitement - and generates more sales.

These 5 common advertising mistakes cause you to lose sales How many are you making? Apply the information revealed in this article to avoid these mistakes - and maximize the results you get from your advertising efforts.

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Bob Leduc is a Sales Consultant with 30 years experience in generating low-cost leads. He recently wrote a manual for small business owners, "How to Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards", and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more info: mailto:BobLeduc@aol.com