1. Sending a mailing to the wrong people. A free set of steak knifes won’t get a response from vegetarians.
2. Offering something nobody wants: free dog poop! Or, a bra dryer!
3. Making it hard to respond. Nobody can find the telephone number, see the buttons, or take the time to answer 23 questions.
4. Using the wrong medium. You’re using Twitter to reach senior citizens.
5. Writing boring copy: “We’ve been in business 25 years. We guarantee our work. Please buy from us.”
6. Trying to use every medium (direct mail, email, speaking, magazine ads, directory listings, articles, and banner ads) and spreading your message and resources too thinly.
7. No emotional selling point (not what your product does, but how it makes people feel).
8. Talking about yourself (see #5), instead of about your customers.
9. It’s indistinguishable from your competitors.
10. Great copy, but a poor headline, so nobody looks at the headline or reads the ad.
11. Being too vague; promising great results without specifying what they’ll be.
12. Failing to show how you solve a problem the customer cares about (maybe a way to quickly clean up all that dog poop?).
Tomorrow, 12 ways to turn your failed marketing into a winner.