The Seven Deadly Marketing Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

February 20th, 2003 Tags: Advertising, Deadly Marketing Mistakes, Promotion
Posted in After Sale and Repeat Sales, Approaching, Business Monitoring and Reporting, Case Studies, Creating Sales Opportunities, General, Making Sale, Offline Marketing, Targeting Top Customers

The Seven Deadly
Marketing Mistakes
And How To Avoid Them

Your ‘Blueprint’ For Generating Huge Amounts Of Profitable Cash-flow For Any Business

Today I am going to talk about dumb. You’ve heard the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” Well. Let me tell you a true story.

There was once a bright young marketing hotshot who had many successes. He had created lots of very effective ads, letters and promotions for his clients and one of the best promotions he ever did was for …

… his best clients marketing manual.

Gosh, was it good. Every time the client mailed a few hundred letters, the phone started to ring hot and the cash was filling his pockets. In fact, for every $100 he spent on advertising he was getting up to $1,380 back in sales.

Flushed with success, our young marketing genius decided to “improve’ the promotion for his client (and his own glory). Wow! He spent days on it. He changed the headline, he added vital information. and he refined the layout.

Our marketing genius was really pleased.

However, the same couldn’t be said for his poor client. With each “improvement” and as months went by, he didn’t get nearly as many calls. Worse still, he even had to refund money to some of the people who had already bought.

When he told our young guru that his sales were going down the gurgler, our marketing genius went straight to work, ‘improving the improvements’ and creating an even greater masterpiece of a campaign than before.

Armed with the new ‘improved’ promotion, our trusting client decided to really get serious and started mailing 800 letters per week. He got people organized to hand-write the envelopes (this always helps to get extra response) and stuff the envelopes with this new promotion.

He mailed the first 800 letters and confidently started to write the envelopes for the next weeks 800 and the next weeks and the next. After all, this was the ‘improved’ version of his promotion. Confidently, he waited for his phones to start ringing, and he waited … and waited … and waited, until finally the phone did ring and he got …

One lousy order!!

Yes, my good friends, after all the “hard work”, all the ‘improvements’ and all the expense, the new mailing got a grand total of one order.

Rather sad, isn’t it? At least for the client, who by this time didn’t know what to do. How to get back to those ‘good old days’ when the orders were coming in thick and fast and the bank manager was smiling. Out of sheer frustration the client decided to take matters in his own hands and get to the bottom of all this. So he went back over all the promotions that his “marketing genius” created to analyse what had happened. Where it all went wrong and what he discovered was that ……

…… Every ‘improvement’ to the original promotion decreased the sales,
until the response was practically zero.

How silly was that. Should our poor client have suffered all that loss of sales because of the ‘marketing guru’ insisting on improving his original promotion? Was that fair? No, it wasn’t fair, was it? I don’t think so either, not unless the client and the ‘marketing guru’ are (as was the case in the above example) one and the same person. Yes my friend, the marketing goose who kept changing and improving what worked so well in the beginning, was none other than yours truly.

Enough said. Let’s get to the real purpose of this message and my promise to show you some really “hot” examples of what is working and getting results. But before I do that, I want to show you how to make sure you only create winners in all your marketing and advertising efforts. To do that, I’ve got to ask you …

Do you or your high priced Advertising Agency
make any of these Seven Deadly Marketing Mistakes?

Marketing Mistake #1: Not sticking with what’s working. The lesson I learnt from the above example (and you should too) is that if you have a winner already, don’t stop doing it until it stops working, or you find something better to replace it with.

In fact, when you’ve got a winning ad or promotion, the chances are you’ll get tired of it long before your market will. After all, you see it and hear it week in, week out. You are used to seeing the cash registers ring, watching the orders and customers streaming into your business. However, your potential customers are most likely noticing your ad for the first time when they come. This is because until they want what you are offering and are thinking of buying, they most likely don’t give your masterpiece a second glance.

So make sure you tell the same story, each time you run your ad or promotion.

Marketing Mistake #2: Cutting a new path when someone else has already built a highway!! Don’t re-invent the wheel. Do your homework.

Find out what’s worked in the past, or better still, what’s working now. This vital first step is usually overlooked by all those ‘creative’ minds in the marketing and advertising world.

That’s lazy and irresponsible. The first thing I do (now) when creating a new marketing strategy for myself or a client, is to review everything that’s already been done and the results it achieved. The second thing I do, is to get copies of the ads and direct mail campaigns from all the competitors and people in similar industries, to see what they are doing. To see what sales angles and marketing strategies are being repeated over and over. I have learned to be humble and appreciate that I don’t know everything, and that there may already be a proven promotional idea in existence that I can simply improve on.

Once I see what’s working, I will then look at ways to create a better, more compelling version of that promotion. For example, let’s say a jeweller already has a reasonably successful letter they send to their customers. What I may do is simply attach a fake diamond to the letter (you can get these for less than 35 cents) and say something like this:

Dear Friend,

As you can see, I’ve attached a fake diamond to the top of this letter. Why have I done this? Actually, there are two reasons.

#1  Firstly, I have something very important to tell you and I needed some way to attract your attention.

#2  Secondly, since what I have to tell you concerns diamonds I thought using a fake diamond as a little “eye-catcher” was especially appropriate.

Let me tell you what it is all about etc, etc, etc.

Do you want to know a neat little trick to make you look good? Of course you do. Listen:  Say you have to write a “dynamic” newspaper ad for a local car company. OK. What you could do is get all the big city and local newspapers from different areas. Look through them and cut out all the furniture and bicycle ads.

Then, maybe, in a furniture or bicycle ad from a far away city you’ll see a great new way to make your client’s car sales ad more effective. You see, most good marketing thrusts are transferable from one industry to another … and everyone will think you are an “advertising genius’.

Marketing Mistake #3: Writing jingles and clever slogans instead of giving lots of reasons why someone should buy your product. “We’ll do it right – for you”.

What a joke. This car dealer is now broke. Do you honestly believe that a used car dealer yelling that all over your TV screen is on the level? Are you going to rush down to him because you heard that jingle on the Radio? Pretty unlikely. But, what could you offer?

Well, how about offering free test rides? Or free trade-in appraisals. Or a 30 day money back guarantee if you are not happy with your new or used car. How about creating a report showing prospective car buyers how you check over each car you sell and why you can give them better value than the other ‘noisy’ bugger on TV? Why not have a few customers giving their story of why they like dealing with you?

Or how about running some ads for a FREE Report: Showing people how to buy a used car without getting ripped off? Would that work? You bet it would! And remember…

Don’t worry about saying too much in your ads ……………….. unless what you say is boring.

Also don’t give me that gobbledygook about people not “reading” long copy and lots of white space. It’s a myth spread by people too lazy or too incompetent to figure out how to write good selling ad copy. According to Gary Halbert (and me), the rule to follow in all your marketing is …

The more you tell, the more you’ll sell.
The more you tell, the more you’ll sell.
The more you tell, the more you’ll sell.

Disclaimer:  Unless you write dribble.

Marketing Mistake #4:  Not selling to those people who already bought the same thing from you. 

Let’s face it. People are basically greedy, most people are never happy with what they have.  They want something better, newer, bigger or simply more of the same.

Guess what? When a jeweller client of mine mailed a $50 cheque to all his past customers as a thank you for past business, the first guy to rush in to use his cheque on a bargain was the chairman of a major Australian bank. He loved the offer and the special deal my client offered on his jewellery.

I wonder if Hugh Heffner (the founder of Playboy Magazine) who dated over 1,000 (sometimes for just a very quick time) women would want to “date” yet another.

Do you think the Gold Coast doctor who has 10 cars, including four Rolls Royces, wants another one?? Or why all the rich Double Bay and Toorak ladies scramble at the designer label factory sales.

Look: People who buy once or twice, usually want more of the same. Offer amazing bargains. Offer unheard of service. Offer a free second-hand car to everyone who buys a new one. Offer guarantees. Make a more appealing offer in your marketing campaigns.

In other words, bribe people to buy from you.

Marketing Mistake #5: Thinking your customers are smarter than they really are.

95% of people have the reading skills and comprehension of a 6th grader. That’s the age at which most people stop as far as their reading skills go. When selling, explain things in baby talk because if what you say can be misunderstood, it will be. Use short words. Have short paragraphs, even if you are writing to scientists or lawyers. Infer nothing. Use simple English. Even if your customers can read sophisticated language, they love getting information that’s easy to read (really easy!) instead of the mumbo jumbo they normally get.

So make it easy, make it simple, and remember …

Your customers are probably not quite as smart as you think they are.

Marketing Mistake #6: Forgetting that most people have been ‘burned’ in the past. As a result they don’t trust all businesses and will probably be sceptical and cautious about your offer!

There are three main reasons why people (those that have the money) won’t buy what you’re selling:

Firstly, because they simply don’t want what you are selling.

Secondly, they want the money they have more than they want what you’re offering. In other words, they don’t see the value in what you’re selling.

And thirdly, they don’t buy what you’re selling because they don’t believe the product you’re selling will do what you say it will. In other words, they don’t trust you. They don’t believe you’ll honour your guarantee or that you’ll deliver on your promise.

The way to overcome this, is to give details. Details of how your 100% guarantee really means they can get their money back. Details of your overheads, of why you’re really selling at bargain prices. Give references, use testimonials of satisfied customers, offer free trials. Spell it all out for them. Tell them more.

Give them details, details and yet more details.

Marketing Mistake #7: Not asking for help. Especially other people in your industry.

Frequently ask the advice of other people. Successful people are almost always givers, who will lend a helping hand. Swallow your pride and call the people miming ads you like. Call someone successful in your industry, even in another city, and ask them how they would solve a particular problem you have. Remember … you are not alone, others have walked the path before you. Also ……………

almost every problem you face, has already been solved by someone else.

Below are some examples of very successful ads and marketing campaigns. Look and learn!!

Window Glazing Coupon:  This gift check idea is straight from the strategies revealed in my marketing manual called “How To Increase Your Profits In Any Economic Climate.”  If you haven’t read it, you should.  Bill makes $600 in profit from each 1,000 inserts in the local paper.  The authentic looking $25 cheque has a selling message on the back of it, written in a nice, friendly, folksy style.  Could this work for you?

Front of cheque

 Back of cheque

The jewellery letter: This letter worked brilliantly for a jeweller. It’s an example of the power of a FREE Gift or ‘bribe’. It was sent to existing customers and generated over $120,000 in extra sales over two months. These sales came on top of normal trading. This type of approach will work for almost every business if done right.

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