Top Advertising Mistakes and How to Avoid Them: Part 9 of 10: Quitting Too Soon

Through the first eight articles, we have talked about the opportunities of how to invest your advertising funds. Strategies you can implement to ensure you get the most out of your media placement.

Track your messages. Making sure you’re in front of the right audiences and spending smarter is all powerful advice. I think they will do you some good. I know they have worked for me for countless applications and clients for three decades, so that’s the best barometer I can offer.

One thing that I have encountered from several clients is their reluctance to revisit a previous medium. Because they have not done the necessary tests and because they have been rescued too early to really see if a campaign is working.

That’s why I implore you to take the time to test and measure, because your campaign doesn’t have to drag on for months and months to see if you’re hitting the mark.

You should be able to tell, regardless of the media mix, fairly quickly how well or not your campaign is working. Measure that to get empirical data. Something in the form of a coupon or a URL that measures visits, or the number of phone calls you are receiving, or something secondary other than your own hunch, feeling, or expectation. Because that doesn’t work. Intuition is not enough and there has been too much guesswork, and there is too much money at stake to guess.

I don’t care how much you spend, it’s too much to be well maybe we could try this. I want to know, I want to be able to defend the recommendation. I have to defend the recommendation with historical data and evidence.

Not just because I say so, or I think so, or because I’ve been doing this for so long.

No, I have to bring all that experience and I also bring a lot of research to each campaign that says this is what has worked and that is why we should try this component.

That does not suggest that we cannot introduce something new. In fact, I try to do that every time. However, I will hedge my bets on history and work with the campaign that integrates the traditional and the new. Work on a campaign in which the selected media have proven to be efficient and effective in obtaining results.

Too many times, advertisers have simply given up too soon.

Yes, I know, but we tried using Radio last year and it didn’t work.

Really? How long did you advertise and how many stations?

We use a station for a week!

Okay, I think I can see why it underperformed yours. You see, all media should have a chance to show their strengths and, as I mentioned, that doesn’t mean it goes on forever.

But this expectation of an overnight cure, a panacea for just buying a little more

Targeted online ads, radio, newspaper or magazine or whatever the vehicle is, they don’t work.

You need to give it time to do its magic. That is why it is so important to test it, measure all the time so you can see how long that magic takes.

It may be a little longer on the radio, in the newspaper, or in the magazine than in other media, depending on what your message is and who you are looking for, so give yourself a little time to find out which outlets are working.

That is why it is so important that when you evaluate your campaign you have made sure that the message has been there long enough and with enough impact and with the call to action to really give you the opportunity to show you how well you are doing.

What it is capable of. Expecting a sudden change just because you’ve posted a few announcements is more than a little optimistic.

I have some wonderfully creative writers and artists at my disposal and they’ve run tremendous campaigns for me. But some of them have withdrawn too quickly because the customer got tired of them.

Not because there was something wrong with creativity, but the client got impatient waiting for faster results. There is a lot to be said for giving the media, all the media, the opportunity to do their job, and they all work to different measures, at different rates and against different audiences.

This is why having multiple media in your campaign is so helpful.

He has taken the time to build his media base with one at a time and two at a time and then three and four instead. Once you have multiple media in place, you’ll want to make sure you continue to monitor your performance so you know exactly where the sales are coming from and what works for you.

When I gave instructions earlier on planning for the year, I discussed the importance of the timing and layout of the season, and the measurement of your announcements.

But also make sure that whatever medium you choose, you do the tracking, testing and coding, but also give the campaign enough time to do its job.

We are a forgetful bunch and need constant reminders about everything.

Please invest enough money in your media, even if it is only media. Especially if it’s just a means of getting started. Because it’s the only thing you can

measure against. It is the only barometer you have to see how well your campaign is performing.

If you dropped one, two or five or ten thousand dollars from the door and see that it is working, good! Keep reinvesting there. If you see that it is not, make some changes. But give your means a chance and don’t give it up so quickly.

Remember that you are competing with 200 to 1,000 messages or more every day, so you want a chance to be heard and acted upon.

Whatever the measure of the action, you want to be able to know that you’ve done the job you were meant to do, and that’s raising awareness, spurring sales, making the phone ring.

Whatever your performance appraisal metric is, give the media plenty of time to do that.

One line that I will leave you and that I think is quite appropriate, is that Advertising is usually effective or cheap, rarely both.

I am Dennis Kelly. I think it’s your publicity. Well planned and well spent. Guaranteed. Hope to see you in Article Ten.