Call to action: What not to do

Here at My Practice Engine, we are always willing to admit a mistake.  Not only does it make us better as an organization, but it also hopefully helps you to avoid the mistakes that we made as you proceed on your quest for practice perfection.  

Today’s story asks the question: “What’s wrong with this picture?”  The below pictures are from an ad we placed on a bus to promote the opening of our new office in Cancun, Mexico.  

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Here’s picture #1: 

And #2

And finally, #3.  

For those who read our last post on calls to action, you know that this ad ignores a lot of the advice we offered in that piece.  Namely, a call to action should be concrete and meaningful.  The tag line of “Ask for our grand opening promotion packages” is neither of those.  A potential patient cannot make an assessment of whether or not we might be worth calling or if this is just another generic multispecialty practice.

Almost as significantly, look at the placement of the ad.  It is against a dark background in one line at the bottom of the bus.  One big mud puddle and any call to action would be completely invisible.  

Where should the CTA have gone?  Several candidates.  First, our logo on the bus did not need to be so prominent.  The call to action would have been much better there with the logo less prominent.  And we could have placed just one phone number on the bus.  I’m certain that those with a graphic design background could suggest other and better options.

I see another key takeaway from this.  You may put your marketing in the hands of someone else and they may be executing on the ads that you request.  But there is a major difference between just placing the ad and placing it in an effective way.  When you ask, “Are we running TV ads,” the answer may be technically “yes.”  But if things like calls to action are not included, you aren’t really executing or advertising.

In case you were curious, the call to action was for orthodontic patients to get treatment for no down payment and 690 pesos per month (about $53).  Fortunately, we signed a short term contract and we will get to do a redesign on the bus when the ad concludes its run in a couple of weeks.  If we do continue with this campaign, the call to action will be noted in stark, concrete detail.