The Top Ten Advertising Mistakes Business Owners in the Gulf Make

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Mistake # 1 No, or a very poor, headline!
The headline is the most important part of an advert. Whenever I write an advert or a sales letter I spend half of my time on the headline - it’s that important! Most adverts I see either have no headline, or really bad ones. The purpose of the headline is to grab the reader’s attention. Headlines that are self-serving or that have the business’s name as the headline are useless. Also
headlines that say “Biggest Sale Ever” are usually ineffective. One method of creating good headlines is by showing a benefit to the reader. For example, “Discover How You can Lose Weight
In Just 4 Weeks Without Starving Yourself or Going on a Diet.”

Mistake # 2 Self serving copy.
“Copy” means the words in an ad used to sell the product or service. How often have you seen businesses that praise themselves in their advertising? My guess is all the time, right? Open your
local yellow pages and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The advertisers talk about how they’re No. 1, how many years they’ve been in business, or their service, or their big selection. They focus on everything except their customers. Well, your customers only cares about one thing - WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?). When you focus on the customer and what’s in it for him, you’ll get much better results with your advertising.

Mistake # 3 No offer, or lousy offer.
It is extremely difficult and often expensive to get a new customer. What will make someone respond? One thing is for sure, there is no way that someone will respond to a lousy offer, or worse yet, no offer! Make the offer as generous as you can afford. Remember, the real money in getting a new customer is in making them a customer for life.

Mistake # 4 No deadline.
People are natural procrastinators and unless you motivate them to respond NOW, they never do. They might see your ad and want to take advantage of your offer, but unless they are motivated to do so with a deadline, they will often set it aside and never take action. The shorter the deadline period, the better.

Mistake # 5 Not using testimonials:
Did you know that what your customers say about you can be 1000% more effective and believable than what you say about yourself? Testimonials can be a great way to get instant credibility with prospects. How many testimonials should you use? As many as you can - and use them everywhere. In just one of my businesses I have over 40 testimonials!

Mistake # 6 No guts for a guarantee!
The idea of offering a guarantee scares many business owners to death. Studies have proven that the better the guarantee, the more people will buy. Of course some will take advantage of your guarantee, but they’re insignificant compared to the number who will buy more. And if you can’t guarantee your product or service, then find something else to sell. You see, having big, bold, GUARANTEE is just the right thing to do. In one of my businesses I offer “my personal, 30-day, 100%, unconditional, no questions asked, money back guarantee.”

Mistake # 7 Having too many objectives.
An advertisement should have one goal, and one goal only; to sell. Any branding or image building you get out of your advertisement should be a side effect of your advertising, not the main goal.
Another mistake I see business owners make is trying to reach too many people in one advert. Sell to just one type of customer. For example a clothing store should either try to sell to men, women or children, but not all three. If you try to target everyone you end up targeting no one.

Mistake # 8 Too creative and artistic.
Way too many adverts look like adverts. People have gotten used to resisting advertising messages. They try to avoid messages that look like adverts. The creative people that create adverts think that being more creative in their designs, and using more colours and more graphics will make more people read their adverts. The opposite is true. The most successful ads are those that do not have a “me-too appearance” and don’t look like adverts at all.

Mistake # 9 Being too vague.
Many business owners put out vague advertisements. I often wonder what the point of the ad was, because it talks about a product or service but it doesn't say how I can buy it. A lot of ads don’t even have a contact number. How am I supposed to buy a product if I don’t know how? All
advertisements should have a clear call to action, as well as a telephone number, a website, email address, opening times, street address etc. Your advert should be clear on 1) what you want your prospect to do, and 2) how he or she can buy your product.

Mistake # 10 Being ‘cute’or entertaining.
Many business owners copy the advertising that big corporations do. The big corporations have the massive budgets to waste money on being cute. They depend on studies that show customer ‘recall’, which means how well people remember adverts. The thing is people often remember the advert but not the product! The only measure of an advert’s success is sales. Being cute or entertaining in your advertisement is very dangerous for the average business owner.

Originally Posted by RadicalMarketing.com

There you have it, the top ten advertising mistakes business owners in the Gulf make. If you are interested in massively increasing your sales, profits and personal wealth then you can email Suhail at suhail@RadicalMarketing.com or fax him on (+973) 17 611 404 to book a consulting appointment.