Advertising and Marketing Myth

“You've just got to run ads, get top placement in search engines, and get your name out in the marketplace!”

This has cost companies thousands and thousands of dollars. Advertising and marketing are crucial ingredients, yet they actually work against many companies. But when they work in your favor, amazing things can happen.

All advertising and marketing MUST do one or both of the following: generate sales or generate sales leads.

It must be done in a measurable, quantifiable way. If either of the above things happen, your name will be out there and you'll also make be making money in the process.

Just to get your name out there will not generate sales OR sales leads.

Worse yet, if you hire an agency, your advertising copy will usually be written by some assistant or recent grad whose never had a sales job in their lives. Remember, advertising and selling are two different sides of the same coin. Don’t be fooled when the agency account rep will try to win you over with the fact they have won many awards.

Here's an ugly truth: Advertising that wins awards or are creative rarely generate sales. In contrast, ads that sell rarely win awards.

Business people don't tend to expect nearly enough from their advertising, and worst of all they don't hold it accountable for results. Thus, thousands of dollars are wasted on untracked and monitored online and offline ad spending!

Most companies also try to make their advertising do too much. You must remember that all you're really trying to do is find people who have problems and need help, and then identify themselves. Anything beyond that dilutes the effectiveness of your advertising and marketing efforts. Don't make the mistake of telling too much. The purpose of pure lead generation advertising is NOT for you to tell them everything you can about your product or service. The main goal is for them to tell you who they are and what they need.

When advertising and marketing are done correctly, it's simple and very effective. Everything you say in your copy should be very, very specific, including what you do, who you do it for and what separates you from the competition. Then target your market by not being all things to all people--if you've got a huge list of things that you can do, you're probably not going to sell anything to anybody. Define a niche for yourself that's reasonably unique. Even if you don't have a niche, you need to invent one where it did not exist before. Create a unique selling proposition. Most importantly, don’t make your prospective customers feel like you're chasing them.