The mistake that costs business owners more money than bad headlines, bad images, or bad offers combined: running a genuinely good ad for too short a time.<\/p>\n
It happens constantly. Someone spends hours \u2014 sometimes weeks \u2014 agonizing over ad copy, headlines, and which image to use. They finally launch it. And if it doesn’t produce an immediate flood of new business, they pull the plug. Fast. Before they “lose any more money.”<\/p>\n
Here’s the problem with that: you probably did a good job.<\/p>\n
Most business owners are reasonably competent at marketing their own business. You built it. You know what it does, who it’s for, and how to talk to your customers. So when you sit down and write an ad, it’s usually decent. The issue isn’t the ad \u2014 it’s that you gave up on it after a week or a month and expected a Lamborghini in return.<\/p>\n
Think about a billboard. Most people don’t actually register<\/em> it until they’ve driven past it ten or fifteen times. They’ve technically “seen” it long before that, but seeing isn’t the same as noticing. Noticing takes repetition.<\/p>\n The same is true everywhere \u2014 social media, print, anywhere you’re trying to get attention. There’s too much noise out there for anyone to absorb a new message on the first, fifth, or even tenth exposure. Depending on the research you look at, people typically need somewhere between 10 and 30 exposures before a message actually sinks in enough to be consciously considered.<\/p>\n This is exactly why big companies run the same commercial for an entire year. It’s not because that one commercial is a masterpiece \u2014 it’s because repetition is what makes a message land. Run it long enough and you’ll see it: an ad performs okay at first, then keeps getting better simply because more people have seen it more times.<\/p>\n It’s not bad copy. It’s not the wrong image. It’s impatience.<\/p>\n It’s the fear that you’ve made a mistake, that money is bleeding out the door, and that you need to “stop the loss” right now. So you pull the ad \u2014 and then what? You already did your best work on the first version. What’s the second version going to be, built out of frustration and panic?<\/p>\n Do your best work, put it out, and then let it run. Don’t kill a campaign until plenty of people have seen it multiple times \u2014 call it 20, 30, maybe 40 exposures per person \u2014 before deciding it’s a failure.<\/p>\n Trust the work you already put in. Go run your business. Let the marketing cook in the background.<\/p>\n Be patient, be cool, and you’ll make a lot more money \u2014 and a lot more customers \u2014 than the guy who pulled his ad after two days.<\/p>\nThe Real Killer of Ad Campaigns<\/h2>\n