You're probably wasting your ad money 💸

You're wasting your advertising money if you're only (or overly) focused on visual aesthetics and the cleverness of your copy.

Your goal isn't to win awards for design or eloquence.

Instead, your goal is to get the highest ROI on every single dollar you spend marketing your product to your target audience.

So don't try to get clever with Super Bowl-style ads. Leave that to the big corporate behemoths like Volkswagen, Dell, Budweiser and Amazon who have the money to spare.

For you, doing Super Bowl-style brand advertising is like loading up a wheelbarrow of cash and dumping that into your gas fireplace.

You wouldn't do that, right?

(I certainly wouldn't)

As an early-stage startup, you need to be laser focused on what works.

And what's been proven to work over and over again in advertising are ads that use plain language to build desire for your product and contain *relevant* visuals (ie. don't show pictures of Boeing 747s flying over the Atlantic if you're selling bike tours in Tuscany).

Just as important is a simple, clear and directive CTA (Call to Action).

Three examples:

• Click here to sign up for our free webinar on how to increase your sales by as much as 35% using our project management analytics API
• Join the lowest cost commodities trading platform with real-time updates of oil shipments throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East
• Press the Join button to save 5+ hours a week by joining our meal prep delivery service

Let your competitors be the ones haplessly and stupidly killing their cash runway with little to show for it.

For you, do what is most cost effective, cost efficient and which returns real-world results (ie. sales*)

*Ideally sales that are immediately cash flowing and not just sales on credit (ie. accounts receivable)

Originally published at https://www.richmondwong.com