Bright Ideas # 68 - Are You Meeting Expectations?

I just got back in town from Montreal, Canada where I spent a week working a booth at the National Ski Industry Association trade show.

You see, every year my husband—a sales manager—travels to this show to exhibit his company’s line of snowshoes and other camping equipment.

Since I speak French, I get to go along to show products and answer questions for anyone who doesn’t speak English.

It’s a blast for me, because I don’t get to use my French much in Seattle. Plus, I can check out all the hot new gear.

I also spend a lot of time studying other company’s marketing and branding.

Some of it was really well done. Others, not so much…

This year, I couldn’t help noticing the company’s marketing materials in the booth across the aisle from ours. They were selling a new kind of customizable, sports-oriented footbed (also called an insole).

Footbeds are inserts that take the place of the stock insoles that come in your running shoes, hiking boots or ski/snowboard boots. What makes them special is they are heated and custom molded to your foot, then fit to the shoe or boot of your choice.

It’s as close as you can get to having a doctor make you custom orthotics—at half the price. I worked as a ski tech in my college days in Colorado, so I’ve always had custom footbeds in my ski boots.

All the footbeds I’ve ever seen are heated in a toaster oven then molded to your feet. So, when I saw the signs advertising “New footbeds can be custom molded in two easy ways”, I was intrigued. I immediately walked over to the read the small print in the paragraphs that followed.

And you know what? I still can’t tell you anything about the two easy ways to mold the footbeds.

Why? Because although the headline made an interesting promise, the copy that followed did not tell me what I needed to know.

Sure, if I was a store buyer looking for a new line of footbeds I might have cornered one of the sales reps and asked for more information. But if I was a busy buyer already satisfied with my current line of footbeds…I probably wouldn’t take the time.

I couldn’t help but wonder how many potential sales they had lost as a result.

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This isn’t the first time I’ve seen missing information ruin perfectly good marketing…
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As an avid skier, I subscribe to a couple of skiing magazines. And there are always advertisements for various ski resorts in the US and Canada.

Lately, I keep noticing a full-page ad for one area in particular—Sugar Bowl.

It’s got a really enticing shot of a skier on a powder-filled slope, sun shining, blue skies overhead. I get the impression it offers my favorite combination of low-key ambience, medium size, and terrific terrain and conditions.

So, I keep thinking, maybe it’s a resort I should add to my “life list”.

One problem though…

The ad never says where the resort is located. Could be Canada, California or Connecticut for all I know. And chances are I will never take the time to do research and find out—especially since they don’t even give me a Web address.

Which is a shame…

The same goes for the tasty-sounding restaurant I saw advertised in the airline magazine. I can tell you that it is in a Greek neighborhood, and even name the nearby intersection. But, I couldn’t tell you what city it is in if my life depended on it. So I will probably never eat there.

All three of these companies made the same basic yet costly mistake with their advertising…

They left out critical information.

The first company did not follow up on the promise made in their headline. The second two did not tell me where to go or how to take action.

In all three cases, the result is that they are not going to get much business.

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Is something missing from your marketing?
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Use this short checklist to make sure you’ve covered the basics…

> Do I have an attention-grabbing headline?

> Have I explained the promise I made in my headline?

> Did I include contact information in a prominent place?

> Is my address included, if necessary?

> Is there a call to action telling readers what to do next
(visit our Website, call for more info, use this coupon, etc.)

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