As the leaves begin to turn and the wind becomes crisp, the coming of fall means Halloween is right around the corner! In between apple cider and pumpkin carvings, Halloween brings wonderful memories and makes its mark on the marketing landscape from spooky products to frightful commercials. But some things in marketing can be a little too spooky.
While many businesses have good intentions, some bad marketing habits can scare your audience. Everything from old websites to a difficult-to-read font can make your audience frightful and slowly back away. This October, I asked the 5Points Creative team what they see in marketing today that gives them the marketing scaries. Much like the Sunday Scaries, the marketing scaries can lower your company’s credibility and brand messaging, so much that they may not want to return. 5Points wants you to beware of these bad marketing habits that may spook your audience.
1. Distorted Logos and Fonts
Nothing is scarier than a distorted logo! Ensure your logos and typography are all consistent and in the right specs. Stretching any font can make your logo appear warped and reduce its quality. Maintaining a clean and aesthetic font type can make any website or logo easier on the eyes. Your logo is also one of the main faces of your company. Distorting it can lower your logo’s visual quality and may affect its easy readability. You wouldn’t go to a haunted house if rules were written in blood! It’s hard to read and a red flag! Graphic Guru, Hannah Escobedo, recommends keeping a clean and simple font and expanding the image proportionally instead of stretching it to your desired size.
2. Help! Your Audience is Lost!
Having a call to action in your advertisements helps keep your audience and prospective customers informed on next steps. Not including a call to action can leave your audience not knowing what to do! Beth Kolnok, Marketing Therapist, wants organizations to keep their audiences in the loop while making their advertisements eye-catching yet informational. Don’t leave your audience in the dark! Some rival monster company may snatch them up!
3. Do you hold the reins to website / social media channels? Or does a local Headless Horseman?
One thing that spooks Advertising Czar and founder, Bruce Bryan, is when companies don’t know who controls their social media or websites. There are cases where big organizations no longer have access to their social media channels or website accounts. Whether accounts were made by a former employee or have a hands-off approach for their external channel, it’s important to be knowledgeable about who is controlling your accounts and if those sites are growing in the direction you want. Constantly check and review your website / media channels, or you may never see them again!
4. Haunted Websites from the Past!
A website is often a consumer’s first impression of a business. Operations Captain, Dan Bryan, encourages businesses to have a website refresh every few years to ensure your brand messaging is coming through, and that it continues to turn heads. Learn more from our team below!
Is Your Website Helping Your Business?
How Do You Know a Brand Refresh is Overdue?
5. Zombie Content
Communication Compass, Mike Dame, fears companies that repeatedly push out dull, lifeless content offer no real value. It’s just a “zombie” version of the same old message but recycled. You can also find Zombie Content on company websites where content is not reviewed and revised on a regular basis or is just self-serving. Companies can fix this by focusing messaging on the customer’s pain points and needs. Make your content solve a problem, bringing it back to life (see what I did there?) and making people want to engage.
6. Creepy Feedback
Emissary, Bryan Ryberg’s personal fear is getting mysterious feedback in the form of a photo with handwritten scrawl across the page. Providing feedback is always helpful for both parties to ensure everyone gets the product or outcome they want. But feedback in this format can cause a little confusion. When providing written feedback, make sure your ideas are clear, concise, and purposeful!
7. Frightening Formatting Faux Pas
Marketers are here to help you with all your marketing needs. If you want to stay on your marketer’s good side, stay far away from these faux pas! One way to send your graphic designer into orbit is by sending your logo via Word doc. When this happens, your designer has to carefully and tediously recreate every nook and cranny to have a clear image of your logo. They will do it because they’re lovely, but don’t make this a habit. Another faux pas is commenting “It’s a great start!” after your designer turned into a ghost making the final version of your design. Creative Alchemist, Kym Ricketts, implores you to be nice to your designers and not downplay all their hard work. When giving criticism, be clear and purposeful. Remember, clear is kind!
8. Marketing Funnel Terrors
Digital Detective, Grayson Odham sees a lot of people focusing on the bottom of the marketing funnel and neglecting the top. The bottom of the funnel focuses on turning your audience into customers, while the top is focused on broad brand awareness! While focusing only on potential customers can lead to short-term success, it ultimately does not support your business’s long-term growth. Think about vampires. Vampires don’t only seek out people who WANT to become vampires. That’s less food for them! They seek out whoever they can feast on!
9. Jump Scare Video Cuts
Visual Linguist, Alice Steffler, gets scared when marketing videos have too many jump cuts. With social media on the rise and attention spans shrinking, marketers are having to fit a lot of content in a short span of time. We get that your business may have a lot of content to show but stuffing 50 clips into a 20-second video like a bunch of scary clowns in a toy car can be very disorienting! Ensure your video sticks to one theme, and its transitions are smooth instead of overstimulating. If you must incorporate multiple clips, make sure the video is well-organized and easy to understand. But remember...the clock is ticking!