Submitted by: Travis Robinson, President, G1 Marketing Agency, LLC
Yes, it’s true…there are certain phrases that, if used in your advertising, will guarantee that your advertising results will be terrible, and yes—I do guarantee that you are using them in your ads right now. As a quick peek into our Power Marketing Program™, I’m going to give you 3 evaluations to use on your marketing material so you can see for yourself if you’re using one of these forbidden phrases. But, before I give you the evaluations, let me ask you a simple but important question. Do you always feel forced into a price competitive situation in your industry? Do you feel like your customers only care about price? Are you always cutting your profits so that you can match a competitor’s price? If so, pay close attention to what I’m about to show you because I’m about to explain the biggest reason for that problem.
So here’s the deal, the 3 forbidden phrases that you should never use in advertising are phrases or statements that include platitudes. Now, let me give you the definition of a platitude. A platitude is defined as “words or phrases that are dull, obvious, or predictable that lack power to create interest because they are overused an unoriginal, that are nevertheless still commonly used as though they were unique or distinctive.”
These are words and phrases like: highest quality, biggest selection, largest inventory, best service, been in business since 1776 BC, family owned, gets the job done right the first time, fast, residential and commercial, free estimates, locally owned and operated, #1 in satisfaction, we’re better, why pay more, lowest prices, we care, conveniently located, professional, experienced, affordable, board certified, we’re different, advanced techniques, call today, dependable, etc. Do you get the point yet?
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t actually be these kinds of things, but I am saying that they are all platitudes. Every one of those statements and phrases are drearily commonplace and predictable, they lack power to evoke interest through overuse or repetition, and they were nevertheless stated as though they were original or significant.
They’re all platitudes, my friend. And, I’m going to make you two guarantees about these platitudes right now. These guarantees are:
1. I guarantee you are using platitudes just like these in all of your advertisements right now.
2. Using these platitudes in your advertisements has made your advertising results dismal for as long as you’ve used them. This means you’ve left an untold sum of money on the table—money that you could have had in the bank account already if you would have used a proven system like the Power Marketing Program™.
Now, I want you to get out a copy of the Yellow Pages because this is the easiest place to demonstrate what I’m talking about. Now I realize that you probably don’t advertise in the Yellow Pages, and we both know that the Yellow Pages is a dying medium. But, remember what you learned earlier—you need to think about messaging and not mediums because true and effective marketing works based on principles—so it doesn’t matter what medium we’re talking about right now. Just grab a copy of your local Yellow Pages and check it out for yourself. You’re going to see platitude filled ads everywhere!
In fact, I would bet that there is not ONE, SINGLE SOLITARY ad in the whole book that is free from platitudes. And the bad news is that ALL of your advertisements and marketing material, whether it’s a brochure, a TV ad, a website, or anything else—is filled with platitudes also!
Now, I understand that you may have been running ads like this for 10, 20, or 30 years—even longer than that—and have been getting what most people would consider pretty good results that whole time.
But, what if I could show you that you could have gotten even better results? It’s true — better results are possible and even inevitable when you eliminate platitudes. And that’s the first secret that I want to share with you. Eliminate platitudes from your ads forever, and you will get substantially better results!
