Thumb through your favorite local or trade print publication. You’re bound to spot these common errors. Most are easy to fix.
- Putting the logo on top.
- Failing to say something meaningful to the customer right away.
- Competing headlines (the eye doesn’t know where to go first).
- Throwing too much stuff in there.
- Including your photo and/or not including a visual of interest to your audience.
- Multiple designs thrown together within a space.
- Poor design flow (the eye doesn’t know how to flow through the ad).
- Insufficient relief space (reading this ad looks like work) and sloppy margins.
- No clear call to action and/or Web site for an intermediate step.
- Amateurish logo design.
