The following are six outdated advertising practices that you should consider booting from your marketing mix in 2016, if you haven’t already.
- Phonebook Ads. When was the last time you opened a phonebook? Or even saw a phonebook on someone’s desk or in their kitchen? Looking for a good or service or even just a phone number has shifted from these outdated publications to the internet. Just think about it. If you need something, you Google it! If you don’t want to remove phonebooks from your mix completely, consider downsizing the amount of the budget allocated to this medium.
- Keyword Stuffing. Search engines continually get smarter and smarter when they review and rate content on websites. In fact, Google updates it’s ranking logarithms every 6 months. Years ago, you could have a particular keyword written over and over on your website, and get graded well based on the number of times that keyword was written. For example, if you owned a tree farm, and had a page on your website with the words ‘tree’ and ‘trees’ written over and over to score points with the search engine to be listed high when a consumer searched for ‘trees’ locally. This is no longer the case, as search engines will actually punish your site’s ranking if you have poor content like this. Search engines now look for and reward websites with quality written content that is updated frequently.
- Pop-up Banner Ads. Shortly after pop-up banner ads started taking over every website, consumers made sure to turn their pop-up blockers on their internet browsers to ‘on’. Pop-up banner ads are almost never seen. Consumers no longer want to be bombarded with advertising, especially if it is not relating to their particular needs at that particular time. Digital advertising should focus more on the behavior of potential consumers. They will respond better to an advertisement if it relates to what they happen to be researching.
- Promo and Sales-Focused Social Posts. We know consumers don’t want to be ‘sold’ anything, they want to discover it on their own. If your social media posts are all about your product or service and have nothing to do with relationship building with the consumer, you will be un-followed faster than you can click ‘like’. Remember to keep a good balance of human interest and relationship building, and a small percentage of promoting your business.
- Vanity Ads. If you put your face on all of your ads, go ahead and stop right now. Your face, no matter how big your smile, is not going to be the reason someone hires you. Focus more on what the consumer’s end goal is, and how you can get them there. Not your photo-shopped twinkling eyes.
- Using Annoying Buzzwords. Jargon will mask the real meaning of what you are trying to accomplish. Words that are overused are pointless to the end user and makes you sound like a complete moron, not an industry leader. So make it your ‘best practice’ to ‘think outside the box’ and create ‘robust’ content to create ‘synergy’ with your customers. Be sure to ‘give it 110%’.
Just a few things to remember as you pull together your marketing plans for the future. One tactic that is never outdated is consulting with a marketing professional to reach your business’ objectives. Happy updating!
