Writing Evaluation - Cross Out Write In
There are many different ways to evaluate your advertising. Of them, this is one of the easiest evaluations to do, and possibly one of the most revealing. Pull out one of your advertisements and take a look at it. Now, grab a black marker and cross out your name Everywhere it appears in your ad and write in the name of one of your competitors.
Here's the important question:
With Your Competitor's Name In The Ad, Does The Ad Still Read Accurately? If it does, then you
Fail the evaluation.
Yellow Pages ads are notoriously bad for having identical-looking ads. Frequently, all of the Yellow Pages ads in a given section look very similar. Let's take a section for an example - how about attorneys. You would think an attorney would be fairly proficient at building a case for his or her services. After all, that's what attorneys do, right? In the Portland phone book, there are more than 1100 attorney advertisements. And they all look exactly the same. The only thing that differentiates them is their specialty in law. They all fail the Cross Out Write In Evaluation.
Let's look at a couple of ads: Okay, the first ad is for a law firm that specializes in Bankruptcy. The headline reads "Bankruptcy", and then there's a picture of a guy sitting with his face buried in his hands like he's really sad or something. Next to the sad picture is a red stop sign that says,
"Federal Law May Allow You To Stop Foreclosures, Bill collectors, Repossessions, IRS Seizures, Lawsuits, and Chapter 7 & 13" Then there's a picture of a nerdy looking attorney, a distinguished looking attorney, and a pretty female attorney. "Phone answered 24 hours, Habla Espanol" then the phone number and their name. That's it. A full-page ad at a cost of $71,160 a year! What do you think? Could you take out the name of this law firm and stick in the name of any other law firm and the ad still be accurate? Sure you could.
More Monday.
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Writing Evaluation - Cross Out Write In - Adult B2B Marketing Tip
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