I Hate to See Reputable Businesses Floundering
Moving forward with the wrong help doesn’t help!
This morning I woke up to find a message in my inbox from friends asking me to improve the response to a question someone posed about how and where they advertise their events.
I did so while shaking my head the entire time. I know what’s wrong with how, where, and with whom they’re entrusting their advertising dollars and have conveyed this to them on multiple occasions, but they feel a particular fondness for their (self-proclaimed) advertiser, who doesn’t appear to know much more about today’s advertising than the average person. (He was a salesman for years, decades ago, and did well because of his lovely personality, but he wasn’t writing as a salesman–he was a person-to-person/door-to-door sales rep.) And when he does write, there are glaring grammatical and spelling errors, to boot!
Rules for Finding a Reputable Advertiser
If someone offers to help you advertise your company and you like them immensely, immediately check your “gut instinct” at the door and take time to google their name and business. If they have no customer reviews and next to zero Internet presence, that’s a huge red flag! Why? Because if a self-proclaimed advertiser hasn’t even established their own presence on the Internet, including a slew of great reviews from the people they’ve served, they aren’t very good at doing what they say they’ll do for you! Make sense?
Find out where and how they plan to advertise for you. If they’re using Patch, the events section in the local newspaper, Facebook, their podcast and personal blog, check out circulation numbers and the reputation of the publications. These are free advertising outlets (unless you agree to pay for more prominent posting/paid ads), and you get what you pay for when you rely on them to get the word out for you. Look for reviews from people who advertise on those platforms, too; if there are none, or if the reviews are anemic, the venue isn’t going to do much good for you, so don’t waste any advertising dollars on them!
Get the candidate to write something specific for you for a small fee and then read it to see if it’s grammatically correct, spelled properly, and riveting. If it isn’t, steer clear.
If you don’t know whether the piece is good because you’re no writer/advertiser yourself, ask someone you know who is a reputable writer/advertiser to review the copy or content for you. (I’ll do that for you, even if you don’t know me…)
Don’t let your fondness for a fellow shoot you in the foot. There are far too many personable people out there who should not be positioning themselves as copywriters or advertisers.
Alas, my friends have settled resolutely on a fellow who isn’t truly helping them because they love him as a person. I’ve told them he’s a sub-par communicator time and time again and sent them specific examples of his egregious bumbling, and they know they are, too (in writing), so they have me look over everything they write to make sure it’s the best it can be before they send it out.
Meanwhile, their “advertising arm” is out and about posting to publications no one reads, likes or trusts.
And his podcast, although as personable as he is, isn’t of “must follow” quality or significant value. He boasts it’s on iHeart Radio, a mostly-music station, as if that’s a huge perk or seal of approval. (It isn’t. The station’s ratings are just so-so.)
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. I’m at a loss to divert my friends from using this particular friend as their advertising mouthpiece, so I’m turning the situation into a cautionary tale so you won’t fall victim to the same sad fate.
Love all the people you love. Just don’t trust all the people you love to do right by you when they aren’t up to snuff in the area you need them to shine. You wouldn’t let a loved one operate on your brain if s/he wasn’t a brain surgeon, would you?
Don’t let a non-writer do your marketing for you!
That’s all I’m saying, as your personal Mother Hen!
