Every day in every newspaper I see many examples of why most ads don’t work ... in the sense of getting customers to come in or call. Far too many ads fail because they had no chance to begin with. Avoid these 11 mistakes and improve your ads immediately:

1. Using the name of your company as the headline of your ad. The name of your company is about as exciting as watching paint dry. You have less than three seconds to engage the reader. No engagement, no chance.

2. Running only a percentage off as your headline. When is the last time you deposited a percentage in your bank account? 25 percent off of what? Fine to show a percentage savings, but only if you show comparative pricing along with it: Regular $8-$200, SAVE 25 percent, Sale $6-$150.

3. Reversing out small type in a color or black background. Anyone who does this simply does not understand that newsprint (the paper used to print newspapers) is porous, and when the ink is transferred to the paper it automatically “explodes.” Far too often advertisements that looked like absolute winners on the print proof produced on an ink-jet or laser printer turn out to be unreadable on a newspaper page.

Newspapers may claim the poor reproduction is from the early part of the print run and that the register “improved” later in the printing process. Bunk! Someone should have raised a “red flag” from the beginning that running skinny and/or tiny type in reverse rarely reproduces well on newsprint.

Ad agencies that produce these ads should know better. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. In all cases, the newspaper will be blamed for “murdering” our “perfectly good art.” Without exception, the crime is always committed at the original production level.

4. Using photos (color or black and white) as a background over which you print your advertising message. Doing this is dicey at best. Some newspaper presses can pull it off; most cannot. If the publication is being printed on a web press employing heat to set the ink, the chances of satisfactory reproduction improve. Note: Heat set is used mostly on special upgraded newsprint not on regular run of press newspapers.

5. Failing to take ownership of your own advertising specifications. Translation: You allow each publication do its own thing with your ad. Ad “A” does not look like ad “B.” Small businesses should specify border, typestyle, illustration style, logo, etc., and insist that every publication follow YOUR specs. More brand for your buck.

6. Lazy copy! “Call for details.” “Stop in for more information.” Get real! When is the last time YOU responded to this kind of hazy offer? State details in plain coffee-shop English. Not doing so amounts to lazy copy ... relegating your offer to the trash heap of ineffective ads.

7. Five pounds of widgets in a one-pound sack. If your budget allows only a certain size space, use that space to make an impression. Jamming what should be a quarter-page ad into an eighth-page space NEVER works. Most people don’t read publications with a magnifying glass in one hand.

8. Ridiculous come-ons: “priced under cost.” If a widget costs $25 and you sell it for $19, say WHY. No one is dumb enough to believe that anyone does business below their real costs!

9. Wrong kind of photos. Print publications have different standards for photos — measured in “dots per inch” (DPI). Web site photos require the least dots per inch; high gloss publications the most. Newspapers usually require 150 to 300 DPI. Running a 1,200 DPI or an 80 DPI photo in a newspaper is shooting craps with the reproduction of your photo.

Avoid cutting photos out of brochures or catalogs and expecting the newspaper to reproduce them dot for dot. It will not and cannot happen.

10. NO copy ... prices only. Even high fashion merchandise — clothing or vehicles — needs copy to support the price. You might expect that everyone knows why a Gucci handbag is $250. They don’t. You need to tell them — in terms of what is in it for them to carry a Gucci bag.

11. Not building ad to correct mechanical sizes. Anyone who does business with more than one newspaper already knows that each publication may require a different mechanical size for a given advertisement. A two-column wide ad will vary in width depending on the newspaper’s column sizes. Build your ad to the proper size. Don’t allow your ad to be shrunk or expanded.

Cut this column out and use it. The effectiveness of your ads will improve. As the man from Men’s Wearhouse exclaims, “I guarantee it!”

<i>Bob Schumacher has a wide range of experience gathered in over four decades as an individual entrepreneur, chain retail national sales manager and media marketing director. E-mail your questions or comments to Bob at marketingemporium@bresnan.net. He’ll reply to you directly. Visit his Web site http://www.20do80.com for a ton of free and nearly free info on small business marketing. </i>