We couldn’t help ourselves and had to jump on the viral trend blowing up TikTok feeds.
In this month’s podcast, Glintsters Craig and Erayne pool their 50-plus years of experience to share five things they would never do in marketing, advertising and PR. Let’s keep this viral trend catching.
Don’t clutter a page.
A clean design is a digestible design. Think about the user experience when advertising and visually conveying messages. Avoid bombarding the consumer with multiple calls to action, allow breathing room, embrace whitespace and consider eye flow in your designs for better readability and conversion.
Don’t assume readers read beyond the second sentence.
According to an article in Psychology Today, Microsoft commissioned a study that found that Americans spend eight seconds or less browsing websites, implying that you have that much time to capture their attention. And while some debate how you define attention span, the bottom line is that information overload is real. Americans’ ability to engage with new ideas is on a steady decline. It’s harder to get our attention. Write content with this limitation in mind, and keep reminding yourself that readers will not have the patience for you to build a story, paragraph after paragraph. Instead, write like a journalist and frontload your copy with important information or a clever hook–just in case the reader doesn’t go beyond the second sentence.
Steer clear from negative headlines.
While raw, gritty headlines can be compelling and often sell, Craig’s experience has taught him that headlines can dictate the tone of an advertising effort and ultimately determine lasting impressions of the products and services that you are trying to promote. Leading with negativity does no favors for brands. In like so many other instances, the Law of Attraction is relevant.
Don’t confuse marketing with public relations.
As a journalism major with a public relations emphasis, Erayne knows that PR pioneer Edward Bernays would roll over in his grave if he heard that the career that made him famous is often minimized and confused with marketing and advertising. PR gained popularity in the 1920s and centers around building and maintaining a brand’s reputation. This limitless, problem-solving and analytical discipline involves four steps: research, planning, implementation and evaluation. PR is central to ensuring sales and marketing techniques stick today, tomorrow and in the future. Commonly, media relations fall within the PR realm with so much more.
Don’t eat cereal with a knife.
You wouldn’t use a knife to eat cereal, so use the right tools for your marketing and advertising tasks. A tool does little without a skilled operator to manipulate and master it. Take applications included in the Adobe Creative Suite software, for example. Use Photoshop for photo editing, InDesign for publishing design and Illustrator for manipulating vector graphics. Knowing these basics will save time and money.
At Glint Advertising, we love a good trend and an opportunity to discuss our craft and what we love to do.
Let’s talk if you are as passionate as we are about exposing products and services to a broader audience.
