Subject line:  fwd: question

Are you copying the copycats?  Before you answer, read this…

“Traditional” advertising copies the copy cats

This is part three in a series called, “5 Reasons Why Traditional Advertising Sucks.”

Someone new to the floor covering business hasn’t got a clue how to market their services, so they look around at how everyone ELSE in floor covering is advertising, and copies them.  Marketing genius, Dan Kennedy, calls this “marketing incest,” and just like real incest, after awhile everyone gets stupid.

It’s the blind-and-dumb leading the blind-and-dumb

This kind of thing happens in virtually every industry.  Here’s proof: open the yellow pages and turn to any industry category.  All the ads say the same thing.  Business name, bullet-points of what they do, and a phone number.  Basically just blown up business cards.  I call these name, rank and serial number ads.  NONE of the businesses give a compelling reason why the person shopping in the yellow pages should use THEM verses everyone else.  You could cut the ads up with scissors, toss the pieces in the air, then tape them back together again at random and it wouldn’t make any difference.  Because ALL the ads say virtually the same thing.  See for yourself…

Turn to YOUR yellow page ad and ask yourself this question: “Why should my prospect choose my business/product/service versus any/every other competitive option available to them?  Or is my ad just a re-worked version of everyone else’s…store name, what we do, and a phone number…maybe with fancier color and graphics?”

I’m sure you’ve had this happen…You sit down with the yellow page rep and the first thing he does is turn to the section on floor covering.  He then begins pointing like a rabid monkey to all of your competitor’s ads and says things like….“You could do an ad like his!!  Or one like his…or his…or his!”   

Well hello!  That’s the entire problem in a nutshell!!!  (This kind of thinking infects newspaper, websites, radio and TV ads, too.)

In the next installment, I discuss a major problem with most direct mail campaigns.

 

To Tons Of Customers!
Jim Augustus Armstrong is The “Coach”

Jim Augustus Armstrong is the President of Flooring Success Systems, a program that equips dealers to double their profits, cut their work hours in half and beat the boxes! Many dealers have totally transformed their businesses and their lives for the better after joining Flooring Success Systems.
See what real, live dealers are saying!