The #1 most costly mistake in marketing and advertising is WASTED CIRCULATION. That is, you end up paying for non-qualified eyeballs to receive your ad when there is zero chance of them converting.
That’s the case regardless of any medium that you use. Even the most skilled marketers running flawlessly crafted campaigns and advertisements have to overcome the cost of waste circulation.
It’s just unavoidable, you can’t possibly weed out every non-prospect from your pool of prospects. So you inevitably will waste money. The name of the game is to reduce that waste as much as possible, while converting the qualified eye-balls at the highest rates possible.
Now, if the “best of the best” can’t avoid it…
It gets far worse once you start talking about the “average” to “mid” level marketer.
Most people trying to run profitable advertising AGITATE their own problem of waste circulation by making one fatal mistake in their ads.
It’s what Dan Kennedy calls: “going a bridge too far.”
Or what Gary Halbert calls “asking the right question, but in the wrong sequence.”
The fatal problem is this: the advertisers in question err by assuming too much about their prospects motivation to buy their product. They imagine them as pre-sold to buy, they just need an excuse to pull the trigger. So they fashion their advertising to target someone eager and ready to buy, when the reality is, they’re no where near that level of readiness.
That’s a deadly assumption. Because only a VERY small percentage (like, low single digits), of your total audience is that willing to work with you.
So if you send out an ad that only targets the “ready and eager to buy,” you’re looking at probably 97%-99% wasted circulation.
And we can never forget that even with those “most ready” customers. Their conversion is STILL not guaranteed, because sales is inherently adversarial – which inevitably leads to some failure to convert even more qualified customers.
As good as your product is, the customer still has to LOSE something (usually money) in order to gain what you offer.
That triggers an inherent “fear of loss” response, which then leads to resistance and hesitation.
There are only 4 types of customers that are the exception to this rule:
- The Addict: someone who is practically forced to buy to satisfy a kind of addiction no matter the cost
- The Victim: someone who is facing a real or metaphorical life-or-death situation and the pain or fear that they feel is so great that they will buy no matter the cost.
- The Reborn: someone who goes through a MASSIVE transition in life and is embracing a new identity which triggers enormous, sometimes irresponsible spending (mid-life crisis, marriage, divorce, birth of children, newly retired, etc)
- The All-Star Super Fan: someone who is so all-in committed and devoted to you that they will buy something from you simply because you ask. They’re so bought-in on who you are and what you do, that they don’t even consider the cost, or even whether they will actually use the product they buy from you.
These types are customers are the exception NOT the norm. They represent a fraction of a fraction of your market.
So you must assume (unlike a vast majority of marketers and advertisers) that practically every prospect you approach has some sort of aversion and sales resistance. They’re not ready to buy from you. You need to help them see why it’s the best decision for them.
Don’t hit them with an ad that reads like a pitch.
Or half-assed “Big discount NOW” messaging which ASSUMES that they already want to buy, the only objection is price.
Write ads that act as a bridge to get your prospects from where they are to the next logical step to doing business with you. And that doesn’t always mean making a purchase right away.
Meet your prospects where they’re at.
And help them get to where they want to be.
But it has to be on their terms, in their way.
So speak to them in their language and avoid going a bridge too far.
Be well,
Mike
