I’m going to kick off this week with a look at the world of bad marketing. A few weeks ago I posted an article called Marketing FAIL – 7 Newbie Landing Page Mistakes. Today’s post points the finger at some of the people who clearly didn’t heed those little pearls of marketing wisdom, courtesy of the Fail Blog, one of the funniest sites around.
Even bad press is good press
An adage probably as old as marketing itself. With the viral nature of today’s web, doing something so totally wrong that it’s funny could be construed as a backhanded marketing strategy in itself.
Here is our list of 13 of the bestest marketing blunders.
1. Overtly Truthful Fail
Transparency is a great thing in marketing, but sometimes you can be a little too honest.
2. Target Demographic Fail
Poor message match in this example. Imagine the effect of spending money on a Google AdWords campaign to drive people to your landing page targeted to women, and then showing a photo of a man. In online marketing this would easily lead to a 5-Second Rule fail – and hence an exiting customer.
3. Pricing Model Fail
Free is a powerful sales and marketing tool, but you have to mean it to be successful, and follow through on your promises.
4. Know Thy Customer Fail
You wouldn’t try to sell steak to a vegetarian. Would you?
5. Fine Print Fail
Trickery with fine print and bait and switch terms & conditions will result in your customers losing trust in your brand and abandoning you.
6. Color Palette Fail
Check your work before it goes to the manufacturer, printer or live on the web.
7. Expired Campaign Fail
When your promotional campaign ends, be sure to update your landing page with a message that makes it clear the special offer has expired. This is a good place to offer up a link to give the customer somewhere else to go instead of just leaving.
8. Coupon Tease Fail
If you have a great product or service, don’t tease your customers when they’ve expressed interest. Hey, get 50% off our latest product! Please break window with hammer provided to access coupon.
9. Trust Fail
If you don’t appear trustworthy – you’ll scare visitors away.
10. Employee Privacy Policy Fail
To maintain a professional operation, ensure adherence to your privacy policy at all times. If someone unsubscribes from your mailing list, don’t contact them. Thanks for visiting our site, we’re really sorry to see you go, and would like to offer you one more opportunity to be disappointed with our service…
11. Demographic Segmentation Fail
Even if you have a Mr/Mrs/Dr/Miss on your sign up form, sometimes people will lie about their gender.
12. Short Term Solution Fail
If you look up the word “irony” in the dictionary, it has a picture of this recipe book.
13. Message Match Fail
A classic underhand trick of online dating sites is to lie about your age or show a fake picture. This might get you lots of traffic, but when people see the real you, they’ll run for the hills. That photo is the landing page equivalent of a virus warning.
I can only imagine the tricks they are referring to:
- Sleight of mangled hand
- The disappearing neighbor’s cat illusion
- How to saw your number of friends in half by having a freakishly violent dog!
- And many other awesome benefits!
A big thanks to the Fail Blog for their inspiration and great content.
