There is a simple and free way to improve your marketing effectiveness and that is to avoid making classic errors. Most of these are very obvious, but they refuse to go away.
Get your timing right. If any piece of marketing activity is time-sensitive, ensure all the elements can work together or your spend is wasted. For instance, a major computer company invited me to visit my local stockist after a given date to try its new product. When I went there, they had not yet received it and did not know when they would. Another famous instance achieved comments in parliament. A retail group advertised its back-to-school range nationally, including Scotland, where the school year began earlier and the kids were already in class when the campaign started.
Similar, but subtly different, is stock availability. In my view, this one beggars belief. Spending one penny publicising a product you cannot supply is madness, but it happens. In the run-up to Christmas 2006, stores ran out of a product from a major toy manufacturer - in November. The said product was being heavily advertised on TV. Moreover, because of licensing agreements, it was not going to be produced again. Then there was a certain kids’ must-have game system, shortages of which reputedly cost the manufacturer $1.3 billion (£886 million) in lost sales. How do you fancy explaining that to a shareholders’ meeting? Judging the right amount of stock to hold is something of an art form, but the above examples look like guesswork.
Typography is a potential minefield. A big cereal brand offered an on-pack kids’ toy, like a mini-frisbee, which you flicked and hence was called the little flicker. When the pack flash was artworked in upper case, the marketing manager was not happy to offer his sub-teen customers LITTLE FLICKERS. That was changed, but it highlights an issue: draft copy can go badly wrong when turned into artwork. In fact, it should never have happened because you should not use solid upper case - it is harder to read than upper and lower. The exceptions are few - new, win, free, save - all short words. Be conscious too of people’s eyesight. Small copy is unreadable to many, and white reversed out of black is the worst. A 25-year-old designer might be able to read it perfectly, but if your customers are over 50, they probably can’t.
Do you suffer from being over-stressed? Our computers enable all manner of stress - bold, capitals, italics, underlining or colour. But you do not have to use them all or, worse, all together. Stress should take the eye to key words or phrases, so use it sparingly. Do not use inverted commas for stress. “Free” does not highlight the benefit; it implies that it is not free.
Never use poor photography. The professional variety is expensive because the photographer is trained, understands lighting, shot composition and exposure, and has thousands of pounds worth of kit to show off the product to its best advantage. Your amateur version is just not good enough and will stand out like a sore thumb. Using amateur models often causes the same problem. Your niece or nephew may be drop-dead gorgeous in the flesh but, strangely, the camera will find out any flaws in 1/200th of a second.
A general point on photographs is that people make them interesting. A shot of a factory or warehouse or machinery is dull. However proud you may be of your premises and technology, most readers could not care less and they certainly could not distinguish between one factory shot and another. Show people working in them and it is a different story, and this also helps give a sense of scale. These comments are especially relevant to PR photographs. Editors with a choice will always choose people over plain bricks and mortar.
Spelling is a problem child. With spell check on every computer, this should be a thing of the past, but mistakes get a public airing every day. Does it matter? Quite simply, yes. How can customers trust you to get their product right if you cannot spell your own marketing materials correctly? Incidentally, spell check will not solve incorrect use of homophones (words that sound alike, but have different meanings). You might get away with mixing up ‘practise’ and ‘practice’, but confusing, say, ‘flair’ with ‘flare’ is a schoolboy error.
If you advertise on the radio, do not be tempted to force the proverbial quart into a pint pot. Three words per second is not the target; it is the maximum. The message gets lost if it is an incoherent gabble. A longer slot repeated less often works better, as does editing out secondary information. Take care not to commit the audio version of “little flickers”. A script may look fine on paper, but have it read to you, just in case there is a problem lurking. One major record company launching a country and western blockbuster experienced this, and that is why you don’t hear Dolly Parton’s Greatest Hits advertised on radio.
Special offers come first. Whether by advertising, direct mail or website, special offers should be up front. Obvious? Not to everybody. I have seen great offers relegated to a corner flash or buried in body copy. One high street bank offered a free RAC check on used-car loans but, instead of a big headline, the offer was in the third paragraph, after they had finished blithering about their wonderful loans.
Check, cheque and Czech again. We are all human and therefore make mistakes. More than that, we can get too close to the subject and miss the obvious. One agency I worked at came close to placing an ad with the headline: “Two for the price of three.” Get someone less involved to read your materials before production.
All the examples I have quoted come from major businesses with big marketing departments and big name agencies. If they can make such errors, FPJ readers can too. Most of the mistakes come from poor planning and giving yourself too little time to create the best result. Haste is the sister of regret.
No comments yet