The other day, I shared a piece of hate mail a client received through his website about our advertising.
A friend remarked, “You should totally turn that into an ad!”
Well, one time, we did. Every few weeks we get a nasty email about our advertising. This doesn’t bother us as we understand that ads constructed to attract consumers should, by their very nature, also repel a few.
The ads you don’t want to catch yourself writing are the ones that don’t make anyone feel anything.
Last year, our ads made Lowell reach for his keyboard and head over to our Contact Us Form:
Your radio commercials that I hear on KPAM are juvenile. Please tell us what me might find on our roofs – not “yukkies and nasties.” We’re adults for crying out loud.
Now, I usually let it go. But he emailed a couple more times with equally negative spew. And, in a way I thought Lowell had a point in his first email that would make for a fun radio ad and also give him what he wanted.
Listen to Roof Life: “Yukkies and Nasties”
I loved it. Client loved it. The station reps loved it. The client’s friends told the client how much they loved it.
We were getting tons of response.
Only problem was – we just weren’t getting tons of results. Our number of generated leads fell off dramatically.
Whoops.
We pulled it off the air and learned a cautionary lesson or two about feeding trolls.
Stick to your plan. Remember – the people who leave angry-at-the-world comments on your local paper’s website? It’s the same seven people day after day.
Never confuse response with results.
Respect the Law of Attraction.
Don’t feed the trolls.
Leave a Reply