Are you a business owner that voices (or appears in) your own ads?

Do you introduce yourself in those ads? Especially at the beginning of the ads?

Stop.

Seriously. Stop doing that.

It might seem like “common-sense” to announce who’s talking so the listener can know, as if you were making a telephone call.

But it’s actually alienating your audience.

I’ll explain why in a bit, but first, understand that no one in the audience actually cares who’s talking until the speaker has said something worth caring about.

So even if you were to give your name and company, you wouldn’t want to do it until after you’ve said something interesting enough — or powerful or controversial enough — to create curiosity around who’s saying those things.

So if you must introduce yourself (say during the opening 2-3 months of your campaign) hold back until at least mid-way through the ad.

Now, about how you’re alienating the audience…

The goal of an owner-as-spokesperson campaign is to create what’s called a parasocial relationship with your audience — to make them feel as if they “know” you.

To make listeners or viewers feel like they’ve got a connection with you.

Ideally, your ads will cause the audience to like your style, value, and personality, such that they’d rather do business with you than your competitors.

As if they’ve got a buddy in the business.

So here’s the kicker: friends don’t re-introduce themselves every time they meet.

Introductions are done among strangers.

By the time you’ve been on the air for three months with any amount of effective frequency, your audience knows who you are.

You’ve “met” 36 times.

Constantly re-introducing yourself after that just tags you as a socially awkward stranger to the very people you’re trying to bond with.

Why in the wide, wide world of sports would you do that?

The short answer is because you didn’t know better at the time and it seemed like the common-sense thing to do.

Now you know better. And this little tip is on the house.

Just understand that there are A LOT of “common sense” mistakes like that in advertising.

And when you’re spending ad budget, it’s massively less expensive to hire an ad consultant than to make all those mistakes yourself.

That’s the best advertising tip I can possibly give you.

P.S. Hat Tip to inimitable Chris Maddock who helped crystalize these thoughts for me during a recent phone convo.

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