What Is The Single Worst Mistake Most People Make

What Is The Single Worst Mistake Most People Make When Writing Classified Ads?

by: Kim Thomas

All sales begin with some form of advertising whether it’s word of mouth or printed media or even electronic. To build sales, this advertising must be seen or heard by potential buyers. It must cause them to also react to the advertising in a positive some way. Your success or failure reverts back to the ad itself. Generally, you want your classified ad to do one of the following:

Persuade the person reading your classified ad to immediately go to your website or store with the intention of buying your product or service.

Persuade the person reading your classified ad to write or send for more information about your product or service thus leaning to a future sale.

However, the bottom line in any ad is quite simple:

Do not try to sell anything when you write a classified ad.

Do not try to sell anything when you write a classified ad.

Do not try to sell anything when you write a classified ad.

Why? In the 3 or 4 little lines classified ads allowed you to write, you don’t have enough time or space to actually sell your products or services sufficiently.

What you need is to write a cliff hanger or encripted messages to entice your prospects to call or to click on so they can be sent to somewhere else where you will do the proper selling later on.

Usually an offer of free report works best.

Any ad that causes the reader to only pause in their thinking, and does not persuade the reader to act immediately, is not a highly successful ad.

The กad writerก must know exactly what he/she wants the reader to do, and if the ad does not elicit an immediate action, it is an absolute waste of time and money.

Respond to the readers subconsious mind by using strong emotional words in your headlines such as;

Discover Secret Private Sex Money Love Breakthrough Home New Free Power Revealed Magic Fear

Research reveals that these types of words in a headline instantly attract the attention because they are strongly connected to our emotions. I have tested many of those above with astounding success. A personกs unconscious mind can *SEE* and *RESPOND* to these keywords passing by fast on a screen or in a newsletter.

The secret is to target your classified ad to the audience interested in your product or service. You will be wasting your time and money if you don’t know who your target audience is.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of classified ad sites and ezine directories which are categorized by subjects and/or interests. Define your target audience and then submit your classified ad.

How fast do you scan a list of links? Watch closely and youกll see the same thing happening within yourself. Our minds somehow magically see what we are most interested in and weกll back up and say ก I thought I saw that ก and we proceed to click on that link! Our inner minds are tuned to instantly spot what we desire most at the time.

Using emotional words along with targeted keywords will make your headlines and ads pull the maximum response possible!.

Here are some more of the emotional trigger phrases for you to use in your classified ads

STOP Act now!

Send your name

All sent free to introduce

Amazing literature

FREE

Ask for free folder

Bargain lists sent free

Be first to qualify

Booklet free!

Catalog included free

Complete details free

Current list free

Dealers write for prices

Description sent free

Details free!

Extra for promptness

Act now! Don’t hesitate to discover how you too can make your sales skyrocket by exposing yourself to our high quality free or low cost advertising resources on the Internet and at the same time get your hands on this amazing formula for writing classified ads by going to http://www.salaciads.com.

About The Author

Kim Thomas is the site owner and webmaster for http://www.advertisingexposure.com. Here youกll find free or low cost advertising resources.

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 21, 2003

by Kim Thomas

What Internet Marketers Can Learn From Obvious Ada

What Internet Marketers Can Learn From Obvious Adams

by: Jo Han Mok

A very long time ago, 1916 to be exact, The Saturday Evening Post began publishing a column about a young man named ขObvious Adamsข. Adams was a fictional caricature of a wouldbe advertising man who was so simple, and so guileless, in his thinking that he was brilliant in spite of himself.

The column gained popularity in business circles for its plain wisdom and straightforward advice. The Adams narrative wasn’t merely a ขgood storyข, it was a source of actionable information. Each installment found young Adams facing a new marketing challenge bestowed upon him by his employer. His knack for finding the solutions which hid in plain site earned him his namesake.

The story of Adams was finally published in book form by Robert Updegraff and used as a primer for new advertising executives. Although the text is somewhat quaint, it is a quick, pleasant read and I highly recommend locating a copy for your library.

So, what can you learn from Mr. ขObvious Adamsข? A lot! We will examine and discuss a few choice excerpts from the work, and reveal their application to your every day marketing challenges.

The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Oil

ขI want to get into the advertising business and I want to work for you, and I thought the obvious thing to do was to come and tell you so.ข

What is the lesson here? If you want something: ask! Likewise, if you want results, take immediate action.

Let me ask you this: how many opportunities have you let slip past simply because you were afraid to go direct to the source of profit? For example, how long have you had a super joint venture idea sitting on the backburner because you’re afraid to contact potential partners?

In the quoted material, Adams is addressing a fictional advertising big wig named James B.Oswald. Adams had promptly awoken in the morning to pay a visit to the man and ask him for a job. Do you find that a bit gutsy? After all, he’s a no name kid. Oswald runs a huge, profitable corporation.

Similarly, do you ever say to yourself: ขWho do I think I am? These big internet marketing gurus won’t give me the time of dayข? Well, guess what? They’re human just like you are. They got where they are by asking for what they wanted and needed and by taking action.

When you have a desire and a plan of action, don’t sit around hemming and hawing about it or doubting yourself. Follow Adams’ lead and shut out all other thoughts except the most logical. You want X, do Y. You need to make contacts, go make the contacts.

You can’t know what the possibilities are until you reach for them, and you can’t get what you want unless you ask for it.

Live and Breathe Your Market

ขAdams proceeded to study up on the subject of peaches. He though, studied, dreamed and ate peaches, fresh, canned, and pickled. He sent for government bulletins. He spent his evenings studying canning.ข

Do you really want to be more competitive? Would you like to know the absolute best price point for your products? Would you like write absolutely killer copy that pulls in sales and outperforms your current control? If you do, then you need to live and breathe in your market.

This is an obvious business principle that often gets overlooked by new home business owners. You jump into a niche and maybe you have some experience – maybe it’s one of your hobbies – but do you really know the industry? Do you know which trade publications to read? Do you know what the current wholesale price is for your product, or what the demand is for your information?

It is very difficult to sell something you don’t know much about. Pick a subject you aren’t familiar with, invent an imaginary product and try writing copy for it. Not very easy, is it?

Now, pick something you do know a lot about, and try to write out everything you know. You’ve probably got a sizeable list, but I ‘ll wager that you’ve left off more than you realize.

Adams went to great lengths to read up on peaches. Peaches! What more can be said about a peach than its piece of fruit, grows on trees and tastes good? Well, as Adams revealed, there’s a lot more to be said.

Don’t ever assume that you know all there is to know about your market, your customers or your product. There is always another feature or benefit hidden somewhere in the fine print, in those daytoday facts that we are so used to we become immune from them.

Are You ‘Selling’ Enough?

ขWe have been doing wonderful cake advertising, but we have overlooked the very things you have pointed out in your plan. We have been doing too much advertising and not enough selling.ข

Read that last sentence again. It reveals a very important distinction. Advertising and selling are not mirror images of each other.

In fact, the best way to discern the difference between the two is in the following definition: Advertising focuses on features and facts. Selling focuses on benefits.

AD

We offer the very best in leather jackets. Our spring sale features 50% discounts and free shipping!

Sales Pitch

The soft, supple skin of our topofthe line bomber jacket will make everyone envious of you! The woollined interior will keep you warm in the winter so you can brave the harshest elements. The zip out feature lets you use the jacket in cool weather, too – so you won’t be too hot or too cold but you’ll still look stylish!

An advertisement says: ขHere is our product. Here’s what it can do. Here’s how much it costs.ข On the other hand, a powerful piece of sales copy says: ขYou’ll feel 10 years younger and rekindle your love with our product: Here, touch it, feel it, test it, have a sample of it.ข

An advertising campaign creates brand awareness and creates general interest. A sales campaign captures that interest and converts it into desire.

So, if your conversion rates aren’t what you’d like them to be, the first thing to do is check your copy. Does your sales letter read like one big advertisement? You’re spending money on traffic, but what are the customers seeing once they arrive at your site? Are they being sold effectively?

There is always a reason for the customer’s decision not to buy, and failure to execute good salesmanship is one of them. It doesn’t matter how good your product is or what it costs. It doesn’t matter if you’re giving away millions of dollar worth of value for pennies on the dollar. If the customer can’t see the benefits of owning the product himself, he won’t buy.

The Path of Least Resistance: Common Sense

ขIt’s that everlasting obviousness in Adams that I banked on. He doesn’t get carried away from the facts; he just looks them squarely in the face and then proceeds to analyze, and that is half the battle.

Indeed, many of the answers to your most pressing marketing challenges are hidden within common sense. The problem is that many people just don’t enjoy thinking. They’re lazy and thought takes up too much energy. Imagine how much expense you could save yourself if only you were to put in the hard work of an honest analysis of your business – and that means sitting down and analyzing:

Your overhead

Your prices

Your copy

Your traffic stats and logs

Customer feedback

Keyword performance

Email campaign data on open rates and conversions

The answers you find can sometimes be as simple as having a server crash or a nonworking order link, or as tricky as a design element on your page which looks fine to you but confuses prospects and drives them away.

You should test and track every element of your sales chain. This means you need to pay attention to your traffic sources, to the copy on the links from those sources, to the landing page which gives visitors their first impression, to the follow up material you send. Each element plays an important role in finetuning the prospect’s mind and opening it up for your ultimate pitch.

Any weak link in the chain can cost you sales. Imagine one day that you send out an offer to your list without first double checking that the link works? Then, you have to send out a second message to apologize and provide the correct link. The odds are good that a significant percentage of your list won’t bother opening the second email. If you’d reached them the first time, though, there would be money in your pocket.

Some of the other ‘gotchas’ that can ruin a campaign: click fraud on the pay per click engines, product theft, missed customer support emails and wasted money on underperforming keywords and other forms of advertising.

There’s no real excuse for being lazy on these things! Yes, you can try to cut corners, but you’ll pay for it at some point. It’s like a brick and mortar merchant leaving the doors unlocked at night. You’re practically guaranteed to experience a wipe out sooner or later.

In Conclusion

There’s an old classic from the same era as ขObvious Adamsข called How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. The wisdom one can glean from Adams’ straightforward and common sense approach to business could be called How to Market on 24 Hours a Day. Too often we overcomplicate things when the simple answer is staring us right in the face. Learn to step back and execute a ‘horsesense’ analysis of the facts at hand. The time you save, and the profits you keep, will be immeasurable.

Copyright 2005 Jo Han Mok

About The Author

Jo Han Mok is a frequent guest and featured speaker at Internet Marketing bootcamps and conferences on subjects such as copywriting and Joint Venture Marketing. Discover his hardcore sixfigure pulling secrets of กsalesmanship in printก at: http://www.MasterWordsmith.com.

This article was posted on January 23, 2005

by Jo Han Mok

RSS FEEDS: Whither Thou Goกest?

RSS FEEDS: Whither Thou Goกest?

by: Tony Dean

I open up the กFeed Readerก every day on my laptop and cruise the กnews feedsก I กsubscribeก to. The amount of information is now overwhelming, I need to just กsubscribeก to only the กfeedsก that are of immediate interest, else I would be reading กfeedsก twenty four hours every day.

When I click on a link to find out more about a news item, I am taken to a web page with the article of news on it, also there are banner ads, advertising icons to click on, and other side news items to click to take me elsewhere.

The potential for advertising on those web pages for interested marketers is great, not withstanding the change in the news article each day on that web page. One day it might be about Amazon and the กoutageกsก they kept getting, or the next it could be a pending court case about กcybersquattingก a brand name. Whatever article is shown the advertisers get their message across. It may not be part of the advertising ploy to sell goods and services from that advert, but to กbrandก their products, or name, for future sales.

One research company predicts internet advertising revenues will rise by 19% next year, they also predict that newspaper advertising will drop considerably.

Future habits of net cruisers will be to immediately open up the กfeedsก and cruise all the latest news, in contrast to going for Google and Yahoo, inputting search terms, and then cruising only those web sites that come up. Please! Don’t laugh, most of us still do this!

If a web site has not got itกs own กnews feedก, it will not get any กeyeballsก.

Those interested in marketing to the masses should think about trying to get adverts placed on pages of those sites with a กnews feedก, with their name, or web address written prominently, for cruisers to come and visit, but the main objective is to create กbrandingก.

The usage of search engineกs for locating web sites will decline, unthinkable at the moment for most internet users, but their rss feeds directories will be the most sought after to be able to access more กfeedsก. So search engineกs will still survive, but usage habits will change.

The กbigdogsก in rss feeds update news on their กfeedsก every fifteen minutes or so, they know that to keep a captive readership that they have to update frequently, or they will lose กeyeballsก to some other service thatกs giving out more frequent news. This is critical from an advertisers point of view who wants his ads showing on web pages with updated news as frequently as possible.

I can feel the nudging elbowกs already as advertisers are trying to get the best กspotsก.

The most money to be gained from rss feeds is by the person who owns one, the advertising revenue from กspotsก on the web pages the กfeedก points to will be flooding in, and with the decline in effectiveness of newspaper advertising, the rss feeds are the only place most advertisers are going to spend their money. The younger techsavvy 1824 year oldกs don’t buy newspapers, they also don’t switch on the television as much anymore, so television advertisers are looking at rss feeds, especially the big media companies who have millions of ad dollars to spend.

Remember this, anybody, even you, can put up a rss feed.

About The Author

Tony Dean is a published author and runs a website at: http://www.ebooksales.com. He is author of the ebook:’really Simple RSSก available from his web site.

This article was posted on December 10, 2004

by Tony Dean

Marketing Tips Advertising

Marketing Tips Advertising

by: Sue and Chuck DeFiore

Typical methods of advertisingnewspapers, radio and television are effective if used properly, but there are other, less expensive ways to get your companyกs name out.

Local or cable television is an inexpensive alternative to the traditional forms of advertising. Even if you have no experience advertising in this medium, there are companies who specialize in lending a helping hand. Even if finances are a concern (as they are for most of us), youกll be surprised to discover a 30 second spot television ad can cost as little as a few hundred dollars.

Many areas have public auctions on local stations that will advertise your product, if you donate up to a certain dollar amount. The number of advertising spots will depend on how much you donate.

Remember also to send press releases to your local television and radio stations. Many times they will come out and do a story on you, if it is of interest to the public.

We volunteered to do resumes for people out of work and sent releases to all the radio and television stations. One of the three major networks in our area, sent someone out to interview us, and we were on the 6 and 11 oกclock news.

As for radio advertising, check your local stations for rates. Youกll be surprised at how low some of them are. Again, if you send press releases to the stations, sometimes they will call you as an expert in your area, or for an interview. We sent releases to all the stations in our area when we started our support group, and this generated three times the number of people we expected for our first meeting.

Since most major newspapers are expensive to advertise in, check with the smaller local papers. You can advertise in many of these for as little as $25 a month. You could also offer to write a column for these publications, as an expert in the area, if appropriate.

We all need to advertise in one way or another. Which medium you choose will depend on your particular business.

Copyright DeFiore Enterprises 2000

About The Author

Interested in having your own successful, home based creative real estate investing business? Chuck and Sue have been helping folks start successful home based businesses for over 19 years, and we can help you too! To see how, visit http://www.homebusinesssolutions.com for the latest FREE tips and tricks, educational products and coaching in creative real estate investing and home based businesses. No time to visit the site? Subscribe to our กhow toก Home Business Solutions Digest, itกs like having your own personal coach: mailto:[email protected]

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 17, 2004

by Sue and Chuck DeFiore

Resource Allocation

Resource Allocation

by: Michele Borowsky

So here you are…a business owner. Bravo!

You’ve got a catchy name, you’re equipped with all the right tools, your website is up, and now you’re ready to do business. So you start to network online, join the right groups, check out search engine adwords, subscribe to applicable newsletters for insight, and buy some of the better known marketing gurus books.

Hmmmm, not much is happening.

Okay, so now you begin to check out local networking groups in your community. You may join the Chamber of Commerce, the Elks, the Friars, various business networking groups….. and a little more is happening.

Then you look into trade shows in your area. You need collateral materials to hand out so you create an attractive flyer, perhaps start to mail out some postcards, let all your networking associates know about your trade show booth. Then you work the show…… and a little more begins to happen.

Now you start in earnest a referral program for your existing clientele. You know, if you send me a new client I will give you ____% off your next order.

Hmmm….didn’t get much from that.

So you then conclude that you have to start the process all over again. Work harder. Put in more time. Network more and better.

Okay, all good. But what’s missing? The fact is that regardless of your category of business, you will actually, on average, do business with less than 10% of all those who are aware of your company. That’s it????? Yup.

So what can a business owner do? There’s only so much time in the day. I’m doing all I can.

Yes, you are. But how about using your time to do what it is that you actually do, rather than trying to find people to do it with.

It’s now time to let media start working for you.

The next step for you is to start budgeting all of your resources. Up until now you’ve been using time, the one resource which cannot be created or renewed. Once it’s been used, it’s gone forever.

How about starting to use another resource…..money!

Do you have an advertising budget? Have you ever even thought about it? Invariably an advertising budget is the one thing which new business owners don’t allocate for, don’t consider, and just can’t bring themselves to spend. And I ask, Why Not??!!??!!

One of the reasons is that you’ve been indoctrinated to believe that successful marketing is a function of mindset, positive, proactive, enthusiastic, etc. All true. And all marketing. Your results to date have been less than explosive. Coming in dribbles rather than a downpour, and, as previously mentioned, your conclusion is to work harder.

What happened to paid for advertising?

How about working wiser for a change? Start to allocate a percent of each sale that you make to your advertising budget. Just like you have a household budget, you need to have a business budget.

And what will an advertising budget do for you? It will enable you to reach thousands of people with your business message, instead of just dozens. Can you imagine??? Thousands of people being aware of your company, thousands of people considering your products or services, thousands of people that you can market your message to. Wow. What a concept.

About The Author

(c) Michele Borowsky

Michele Borowsky is a 20+ year executive veteran in a Media Exposure Management firm and the author of The Mother of All Marketing for Business Owners.

http://motherofallmarketing.com

She can be reached at 6024042657 or by emailing: [email protected]

This article was posted on September 25, 2004

by Michele Borowsky

PayPerClick Advertising & Search Engine Optimiza

PayPerClick Advertising & Search Engine Optimization

by: Carrie Reeder

There are proกs & conกs to both PayPerClick advertising and optimizing for natural search engine traffic.

PPC advertising has many great benefits. First of all, you get your traffic going quickly. I have used this advantage many times. I test new products and even new websites through PPC advertising before making a decision to promote or scrap my new website or product idea.

I am a firm believer in testing new products before throwing large amounts of money into advertising. PPC advertising is a great way to do this. For example, with Googleกs Adwords program, you can post your ad, pay a $5 signup fee and have highly targeted traffic to your website within an hour. How is that for efficiency?

Also, you can moniter your click charges and stop them before they get too expensive. By the time you have spent your budget on clicks, you should have a pretty good idea of how successful your product is going to be.

I think of PPC advertising as being the most useful when starting a new business or product. WIth PPC advertising, you can quickly and efficiently find out which keywords you need to target and which products are the most popular.

Once that testing period is over, however, itกs time to look into Search Engine Optimization. PPC advertising can be very expensive, costing hundreds, even thousands a month in advertising costs. Once you know what keywords to target, itกs time to put together a plan on how you are going to optimize your website. The drawbacks to search engine optimization is that it requires a lengthy amount of time to get your site to rank high with your keywords. That is why I suggest using this method after the testing period is over, when you already know your business will be profitable.

Search Engine Optimization is definately a slow way to get your website traffic if you plan on not using PPC traffic. It could be a long, expensive road before you even begin selling your product. Search engines can take months, even years to start pulling up high with the search engines. But, natural search engine traffic is definately the best long term way to get the majority of your traffic.

When getting your site to start pulling up in SE natural listings there are 2 main things that need to be done:

Add Content

Add Backlinks

Search engine traffic requires you to submit your site to many different search engines and wait, maybe even months for them to spider your website.

I have had much better luck with another route. You can pay a fee to have your website listed in a very high ranking directory like www.dmoz.com (free), www.yahoo.comกs directory ($299), sbd.bcentral.com (only $50), or another website where your link is on a page that has a page ranking of 4,5,6 or higher. The sites I mentioned above have rankings of 8 or 9. When you have your link on a site with that high of a ranking, the search engines are spidering those sites constantly and will find your website and spider it very quickly. Not only will they find it quickly but because you are linked to a high ranking site, you will also rank higher with the SE.

When looking for backlinks, focus on sites with content related to yours and high page rankings of 4 or higher.

As for content on your site, try to include about 200500 words of content or text on most of the pages of your site. Text makes your site bulkier. Make sure to integrate all of the keywords you want to target within the content of your site. Don’t worry about cramming the same keywords in over and over. Search engines may possibly even blacklist your site for keyword stuffing, if you try to do that.

There is a lot to know about Search Engine Optimization but, those are the 2 main factors when getting started.

In summary, when starting out, I suggest using PPC advertising for testing products and keywords. Spend time optimizing your site for search engine traffic after you have tested your products and keywords.

About The Author

Carrie Reeder has been a web marketer for 3 years and has various websites where she sells a variety of products from software to clothing accessories.

www.thelevelcollection.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on November 02, 2004

by Carrie Reeder

8 Common Marketing Mistakes

8 Common Marketing Mistakes

by: Charlie Cook

Advertising can be one of the fastest ways to market and grow your business or it can be one of the quickest ways to go out of business. With the right ad you can attract clients to your business and increase your profits. With the wrong ad you can spend your way into bankruptcy.

To grow your business you need to attract the attention of your prospects, advertising can help you do so if used correctly. Unfortunately, many small businesses owners waste thousands of dollars on advertising efforts that only achieve minimal results.

If you want to get the most from the money you spend to promote your products and services, make sure to avoid these common mistakes.

Focusing on Your Products and Services

If you want to get the attention of your prospects, speak to their needs and wants. Your prospectsก primary concern isn’t that youกve been in business for 25 years; it is do you know the problem they want to solve. Use your ad to identify at least one common problem of your prospects and the benefit of using your product or service.

Having a Weak Marketing Message

All to often you hear ads and it takes some thought to figure out what they are even promoting. Make sure your advertisement includes a 710 word description of whom you serve and the problems you solve so people who read or hear your ad know how you can help them.

Using the Wrong Words

A word here, a phrase there can change your response rate by hundreds of percent. When you spend money on advertising, first test a number of versions of your copy to identify the one that works best. Just by revising her ad copy so it was client and problem centered, I helped one small business owner achieve her best month in sales ever.

Missing Motivation

Most ads miss the mark in moving prospects to action. If you want to prompt prospects to visit your web site or your store or to contact you, include an offer that motivates them to do so.

Lacking in Frequency

Some people make spur of the moment buying decisions, but most need to become familiar with your services and products, and this takes time. If you want your advertising to work, you need to ensure that your prospects see or hear it regularly.

Web Sites that Don’t Move Prospects to Action

Many small business owners direct prospects to a web site where they have more extensive content covering available services and products. I constantly get calls from people who have been successful at attracting prospects to their web site, but generate few sales.

Once prospects get to your web site make sure the content and visual organization moves them to take the action you want them to. Whether it is providing them with ample opportunities to fill in your service inquiry form, or including a subset of your product catalog in your web page navigation bars, help prospects move to client and customer status.

Lack of Follow Up

Sometimes making a sale requires sending a note or picking up the phone and calling your prospects. If you have an effective lead generation strategy, prospects will provide you with their contact information and the problem they want solved. Use the web, email, and the phone to follow up and close the sale.

Lack of Tracking

If you are making more from your advertising than you are spending, you’re ahead. Frequently small business owners can’t tell you which of their efforts helped bring in the business. Track each of your ad campaigns and youกll know where to spend your money in the future, what to modify and what to eliminate.

Do you know how many sales and how much money you made as a result of each of your advertising campaigns?

Are you making any of the above common marketing mistakes?

What elements of your marketing should you change?

Put your marketing house in order. Fix your strategy and your materials. If you don’t know what to change or how to change it, use experts to help you with strategy, copyrighting, design, PR, and media placement.

Avoid these common marketing mistakes and youกll find ore people contacting you about your products and services and that your making more than your spending on your advertising.

2004 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

About The Author

The author, Charlie Cook, helps independent professionals and small business owners attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the F*ree Marketing Guide and the กMore Businessก newsletter, full of practical tips you can use at http://www.charliecook.net

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 24, 2004

by Charlie Cook

Advertising for the perplexed part II

Advertising for the perplexed part II

by: Dave Collins

The previous article examined some of the basic ideas involved in advertising. We looked at why a company may want to advertise, the factors involved in choosing a suitable venue and the costs and time involved. We also explored some of the practicalities to consider and how to research your potential venue.

Once youกve chosen where you’re going to advertise, the next critical factor will be how well you know the target audience. The more information that you have to hand, the better you can tailor your content around their needs and expectations.

You need to make sure that you speak in their language, try to give them what they’re already used to, or grab their attention with something new. But be warned, these are pushy and innovative times. Whatever gimmick or spin you use to stand out may well have been tried many times before, so don’t overrely on it.

Like a good informative web page, the ad needs to first of all catch their attention, and compel them to click on it.

There should be more focus on the benefits of the software than the features, and the ad should really push the download or sale. It should also be as compelling and striking as possible not easy when you’re limited by a number of characters, file size or space to work with!

Bear in mind that like any strategy, your advertising will only be as strong as its weakest link. Don’t spend thousands of dollars on good placement, only to use some awful homecreated banner that you knocked together with Paint Shop Pro 4 three years ago.

If graphic design is not your strong point, then get a firm to design some decent graphics for you. The same goes with writing the ad copy. Most people can write, but few are writers. Try to make sure that someone with more than a thesaurusdictionary gift set writes your copy for you.

Aside from the wording, the basic market principles apply. Grab their attention, tempt them, and compel them to act. ก50% discountก is eye catching, as is some form of กonly valid todayก type of offer.

But when the potential customer clicks on your ad, you’re only half way there. You now need to make sure that the page they land on carries on the good work. Realistically, many will click on the ad out of idle curiosity, and very few (if any) will have made up their minds to purchase already.

You should therefore use a separate landing page, as opposed to your regular main website page. It should contain the same information and use the same language, tone and focus of the ad, but now you’re not restricted as to what you can do, or how much space you have to work with. Here, you have all the space you need to go allout with the sales drive.

On a technical level, make sure that your landing page is not linked from anywhere in your website, so as to ensure that everyone coming to this page has been driven there by the ad.

If you’re sharing a landing page, then at least make sure that you use a unique referral string. To be able to evaluate the success of the ad, itกs critical that you can distinguish these visitors from the regular site visitors.

This brings us neatly onto the subject of tracking, without which you are effectively deaf, dumb and blind to the effects of the ad. A unique landing page on your website is ideal, and if possible, make this point to a separate payment page as well. You can also use cookies or referral strings in order to sharpen the accuracy of the tracking.

Usage of decent web log analysis software should let you see how many people came to the landing page, how long they spent there, which links they then clicked on, who downloaded from there, who purchased, and perhaps even who came back to the website later.

The analysis and followup of the campaign is surprisingly often completely overlooked. This is a great loss, as in some respects this is one of the most important stages of the whole process.

When it comes to gauging the level of generated sales and registrations, you need to take into account the final date of the ad, plus the full length of the trial version and then add a little extra time. Some may view the ad, click, download the software, but may not install it for a few days or even longer.

As an example, a company may choose to run a series of ads in a newsletter that is sent out from Monday to Friday of a given week.

Some people may not respond to the ad until the following weekend (or later), and only then download your thirty day trial. So we’re already looking at 35 days after the ad was first run, and thatกs assuming that they install the software as soon as they download it. Some people may even register after the trial has elapsed. So don’t go writing it off as a failure on day two of your advertising campaign.

To accurately evaluate the success of the campaign, you need to go back to your original goals.

If your primary goal was to achieve a higher level of sales, then it should be reasonably easy to see how many were generated by the ad. As with everything related to advertising, your data won’t be 100% accurate, but it should give you a good idea.

If the primary goal was increased exposure, then you should be looking at how many people were exposed to the ad, how many viewed the landing page content and website, and perhaps even downloaded and purchased the software.

At this point, there are four possible scenarios.

(1) The ad appears to be successful.

Your goals have been achieved as a direct result of the ad, and more advertising with this vendor may be considered for the future. Even with this success, don’t rule out the fact that your figures can be further improved, but don’t forget that they can worsen too.

You should also be careful not to immediately engage in a longterm contract with this vendor. Not only because there are other advertising options out there, but also because any ad has a certain lifespan until it reaches its saturation point. At the very least consider trying different products, wording (or graphics) or even a different type of offer or discount.

(2) The ad doesn’t appear to be successful.

There has been little generated in terms of exposure or sales, and you can’t help but feel that the venture has been a failure.

The first thing you have to do is to try to determine the reason for this.

It may be the product itself, the ad copy, the ad, or perhaps the targeting was off. It may even be as a result of the ad placement, or the offer or discount not being generous enough.

If the ad failed, it is very important to ascertain exactly why. Don’t just dismiss it as a failure, or a กbadก place to advertise, and don’t be afraid to go back to the vendor for feedback. If you explain that you’re interested in making this work, as opposed to complaining that they didn’t deliver the results you expected, youกll usually get a positive response. See what they can do to help, after all, itกs in their interests that you walk away satisfied by your experience.

(3) The ad appears to breakeven, but little more than this.

Go back and read number (2). Not being a success counts as a failure.

(4) You’re not sure whether the ad was worthwhile or not.

There has been some response, but itกs difficult to see whether it was a worthwhile experience or not.

Itกs very important that you get to the bottom of this. Go through your statistics again, and filter through your logs to see exactly what the visitors did, where they clicked, and why they behaved as they did.

It is extremely important that at the end of the process, you know whether it was worthwhile or not. Failure to do so will result either in a wastage of money or a wastage of opportunities.

Itกs all too easy to throw money away on bad advertising. Itกs just as easy to be scaredoff by risks, or for that matter throw potential opportunities away. Like any form of marketing, there are no guarantees that youกll achieve the results you hope for. But by failing to try, you’re absolutely guaranteed never to reach them. The best you can do is to prepare the ground and cover all options as thoroughly as possible, take a deep breath and then take the plunge. Be seen, be sold.

Copyright 2005 Dave Collins

About The Author

Dave Collins is the CEO of SharewarePromotions Ltd., a well established UKbased company working with software and shareware marketing activities, utilising all aspects of the internet. http://www.sharewarepromotions.com and http://www.davetalks.com

This article was posted on February 03, 2005

by Dave Collins

Internet Advertising Options

Internet Advertising Options

by: Nial Robbins

Your online business will likely require more advertising than a contemporary business downtown, yet some new to the world of online business do not spend the time and money to advertise their business appropriately and are, in turn, loosing money. Your online business is crammed into the world wide web along with thousands of others selling the same product or service as yourself. Consider this scenario: In your hometown you want to open an art supply store. In that same town there are thousands of art supply stores. In order for your business to be successful, it will have to stand out in some way from the others. This is exactly what is happening when a business is opened online. There is so much competition, that you must take drastic measures to ensure that you are getting noticed. Advertising can be done in so many ways online. These are some of the most successful ways that you can promote your online business.

Advertising in ezines is a popular way to promote your online business. Ezines are the magazines of the internet; they written on a particular subject and read by those interested in that subject. Therefore, ezine readers are already potential customers and advertising your site in ezines that are related to your business is almost guaranteed to help drive traffic to your site and increase sales for your product. You should be sure when advertising in ezines that you are not advertising along side competitors. Ask the ezine producer if there is a policy concerning posting competing ads. It is also a good idea to subscribe to the ezine before making a decision about whether or not to advertise in it. An ezine that runs fewer ads is a better choice than one that runs many ads. You can look at the online Directory of Ezines to find publications that are relevant to your company.

Payperclick programs are an excellent way to advertise your business without taking a risk that you have advertised in the wrong place. With payperclick, you can advertise you site and only pay for those who click the link and go to your site. Another popular payper program is the payperlead program that allows you to only pay for leads. Usually this means that you pay for only those who download a trail, fill out a form or enter a sweepstakes; whatever you choose. Lastly you can display payperclick banner ads in which your company would be allowed to place a banner on their site and you will be charged for every click that your banner receives.

OptIn email is a great way to advertise your business, however it is expensive and it can be misused very easily. Using optin emails, you would submit your sales copy to the company that will in turn email it to those on their mailing list. You should be very careful since some of the companies that advertise their mailing lists as optin email service is sometimes really SPAM. It is essential that you have a perfect and effective sales letter when using optin mailing lists. Without and effective sales copy your money and time have been wasted.

About The Author

Nial Robbins can help YOU start your own profitable business on the Internet within the next 24 hours… To learn more, visit: http://www.NDRHomeBiz.com/pips.html.

This article was posted on September 08

by Nial Robbins

Can I Advertise My Site with a $150 Monthly Budget

Can I Advertise My Site with a $150 Monthly Budget?

by: Brian Roe

Assuming all other bills are covered; web hosting, list building, affiliate programs, your own ezine, etc., you only have $150 a month to spend specifically on advertising. What are the best ways to stretch that dollar to its fullest potential? Glad you asked.
You will find article after article endlessly covering six free ways (except for one) to advertise. They include: Submitting articles to directories, submitting your ezine (which you need to have) to directories, exchanging links, posting in forums, announcement lists, and pay per clicks. This is not another one of those articles. To read one, go here http://www.cerebuswebmaster.com/ onsite/newsletter/issue4.html (Scroll down to ขA Crash Course in Website Promotionข).
Some of these ideas listed below are free, while some require an investment. With a limited monthly budget (and even without one), research before you spend anything, to make sure your money will be doing exactly what you want it to. Keep track of all expenses in real time, and when the funds run out, stop until next month.
The best way to compensate for lack of money is a lot of time. Think of time as your reserves. Since you do not a have a lot of money to spend, you need lots of time to research, plan, and execute. Until you have made enough money to use other forms of promotion, time is your greatest asset.
Free Ads
There are numerous websites that have free advertising (of course, they want you to upgrade for a fee, but the free version works just fine), and each has their own way to advertise to others. Most of them use some sort of credit system. Five are listed here.

www.trafficswarm.com
www.BannersgoMLM.com
www.MyViralAds.com
www.donttouchmyads.com
www.webdawg.com

Paid Ads
The problem with the free advertising sites is that they promise visibility, but not necessarily traffic to your site. At www.trafficaccount.com, you pay between $1.99 and $3.99 per one thousand visitors.
Classifieds
If classifieds are more your forte, www.qualitybooks.com/tenad.htm lists the best websites to place your classifieds for free. However, usually they are not as popular as the paid ad sites.
If you are going to spend money at a classified site, do your homework before you pay. Many free foralls are only visited by people placing ads and not seeking them. When researching, find out how many hits it gets, make sure your ad stays on the page and will not be pushed off when other ads come in, and that there is some worth to the site and not just inundated with ads. Visitors quickly leave websites with nothing offer.
You can always post classifieds offline, too. Some newspapers will not charge for the ad if the item you are selling is under $100.
Signatures
Including signatures in everything is an often overlooked tool to promote your website to your network of friends and contacts. On every e mail you send, forum you post in, sheet you fax, or article you write, at the very least always include your business name and website, and maybe a promotional tagline. Giving your address and phone numbers makes you look more legitimate to potential customers. The trust factor between business owners and consumers can make or break your online business.
Writing and Branding eBooks
Depending on your business, this may take some adapting to fit your personal business mold, but many people have made a lot of money by writing an ebook that promotes the heck out of your service, and giving it away to as many people as possible. Befriend other online capitalists that can promote and your book to their list. Submit your ebook to websites with free ebook directories.
You could also find ebooks with subjects or information that is very close to your niche or product. Read them, and if you can find a way that your product would benefit the reader of that book, pitch your product to the author, and if he agrees to include your product in an updated version of the book, split the profits of the traffic that came through the book.
WalkThru Tool
If designing your business model or even promoting your business lacks structure and coherence, the Marketing Dashboard ($59.95) at www.Getitgoing.com organizes everything for you. From your marketing vision to your profit plan, stats tracking and task organizing, it keeps your business plan focused.
Web Toolbar
This is more for the traffic you have already achieved. Give away a web toolbar (which can be made at www.webtoolbars.com) that is tailor made to promote your business. It allows you to inform anyone that downloads the toolbar of updates to your website, new products you have to sell, forum topics, etc. This will keep people from forgetting about your website and makes them much more likely to visit again. The Basic is $5 and the Pro is $45.
Advertising Offline
Many online entrepreneurs forget that advertising offline can be just as powerful as online. Never miss an opportunity to plug your business. You never know who you might bump in to. Definitely invest in some business cards. You can also purchase magnetic signs to place on your car, fliers to pass out at high traffic areas (be it people or cars), rubber stamps for all your letters. The possibilities are endless. You can buy all of these products at www.iprint.com.
As you can see, there are still many avenues to promote your site very cheaply. Most of these are free, and none of the above have residual costs. As your business slowly makes more money, you can eventually start placing welltested ads in extremely hightraffic sites. Until then, use these ways to get your feet off the ground.

About The Author

Brian Roe publishes Profitable Net Marketing, an innovative and informative newsletter full of helpful hints, opportunities, and time saving tools to help support YOUR home business. For a FREE subscription, check out http://www.profitablenetmarketing.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on June 23, 2004

by Brian Roe

Monitoring Website Availability

Monitoring Website Availability

by: Pete Prestipino

Monitoring Server Uptime to Avoid Revenue Reduction

Monitoring your websiteกs uptime is imperative to the success of your online endeavors. Why? While itกs important to know if your website is running and your host is providing a good service (so you can receive money back or a credit if there is a guarantee), it’s even better to be proactive about getting it back online faster so you don’t lose search engine positions, miss out on possible revenue or blow your advertising budget. There is no other way to ensure a high percentage of server uptime than to monitor website availability.

Monitor Up to Three Websites Free at InternetSupervision.com

http://www.InternetSupervision.com

Most web based businesses do not operate their own servers, they outsource that function to professional web hosts, and for good reason – if your website (or your web server) goes down, i.e. becomes inactive, your business and your revenue can suffer greatly. Whether it’s the inability to gather information from surfers through forms or the ability to generate revenue through clicks on affiliate banners or contextual advertising, it is essential that your website be available for surfers to visit.

Monitoring Website Uptime for Search Engines

The main reason to monitor your website is that when search engine spiders visit your web pages, if those pages are down, you may lose the search engine positions that you have worked so hard to develop. If your website stays down for too long, you may be dropped from the search engine databases altogether. Whether your website receives ten or ten thousand visitors a day, you will not last long on the Internet if surfers and prospects can not access your web pages through search engines.

Monitoring Downtime for Advertising Budgets

Another important reason to monitor the uptime of your web pages is to make sure that your advertising is doing what it should – bring visitors to your website. While most pay per click search engines do not charge you if your site is down, many still do. If your site is down for any length of time, you run the risk of draining your account very quickly. In addition, if you purchase any sort of cost per lead or cost per impression advertising (i.e. banners) you again run the risk of losing valuable visits from surfers.

About The Author

As an advocate for webmasters, Pete Prestipino suggests one way to avoid server downtime is to be proactive about monitoring website availability. Monitor Up to Three Websites Free at InternetSupervision.com http://www.InternetSupervision.com

This article was posted on February 22

by Pete Prestipino

How to Sell Your Product on the Forums?

How to Sell Your Product on the Forums?

by: Radhika Venkata

1. Your signature file:

Most of the forums allow you to carry a 4 6 lines of signature files with your name. So these files appears below your name when you answer a forum thread.

Most people advertise about their product. Don’t do that. Always offer some free ecourse or trial product. Personally I prefer to offer free ecourse than an ezine because, we feel that we gain more in short course of 7 days rather than a chain of endless ezines.

Second you can offer free product or free trial software or free membership.

Always hyperlink the email or web page link, so simple click will take the reader to the destination page.

2. Use the section กSpecial offers to Forum Membersก Forum:

You may see a seperate forum like กSpecial discount to Forum membersก. Here you can advertise your product or offer special discounts to forum members.

Tips while posting in these type of forums

Add an image of your product.

Use the html code to highlight the benefits.

Hyperlink the web page or product link.

State your discount in bold letters.

3. Seek partners for joint ventures:

Choose a forum appropriate for your product or business. For example if you are selling reseller hosting service then choose web designers forums.

Most web designers prefer to host their clients on own servers, so there will be more chances for you to get partners here.

Tips on seeking joint ventures

Let your partner get equal benefits from your proposal.

Be polite in asking partnership.

Leave the selection or decision making to the person whom you are going to ask a joint venture.

1 or 2 emails. If you didn’t get any response, no more emails. May be he/she doesn’t like these type of ventures.

4. Banner advertising or sponsoring:

Some forums sell advertising space and look for sponsors to sponsor the forum categories. If you want to act as a sponsor, you pay them like monthly or yearly and they put your web site or product link on the forum index, at the sub forum you choose.

This sponsoring is very cost effective way of advertising than banner advertising.

For example, you are selling search engine ebook. You can sponsor the sub forum กSearch engine promotionก in the list of forums. Your ebook link will be placed on that category of forums.

About The Author

Radhika Venkata

Webmaster Resource Directory: List Your product, ezine or web site free!

http://www.webmasterscentral.com/

Subscribe to กiNet Marketing Ezineก to receive solid articles, tips and real facts on Internet Marketing. Get Ebooks with Resale rights Free!

http://www.webmasterscentral.com/subscribe.shtml

This article was posted on January 21, 2004

by Radhika Venkata