21 Things I Don’t Like About Marketing
October 25th, 2012 by Bob Bly
Here are 21 things I don’t like about modern marketing:
1—Telemarketing calls from a robot.
2—Telemarketing calls from a telemarketer.
3—A direct mailer that is a challenge just to open.
4—Freelance writers who call themselves “content strategists.”
5—Having to make a separate version of web sites and e-mails for smart phones.
6—Ads that allow you to respond only by scanning a QR code and have no phone number or other response mechanism.
7—People whom I don’t even know inviting me to be their Facebook friend.
8—Online videos or audios that start as soon as you open a web page without giving me the option of choosing whether I want to view or hear it.
9—TV commercials from local business owners with the production values of a bad elementary school play.
10—Hype-filled long-copy landing pages where the marketer brags endlessly about how rich and successful he is.
11—Marketers who offer free tapes or other freebies in their advertising and then don’t send them — because they are doing a bait and switch.
12—Print ads with type that is 10 point or smaller.
13—Print ads and web sites with type that is approximately the same color as the background.
14—Body copy in reverse type (white on a black or other dark background).
15—Dynamic web copy that rotates before you have a chance to read it.
16—Branding consultants who advise clients that long copy doesn’t work.
17—Social media consultants who act as if social networking is the most powerful marketing medium in the world.
18—Graphic designers who think the design is more important than the words.
19—Marketers who don’t have an offer in their marketing.
20—Marketers who don’t have a USP in their marketing.
21—Marketers who haven’t read Hopkins, Caples, Ogilvy, Collier, Schwab, Sackheim, or Reeves – and in fact have never heard of them. Yikes!
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