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Home based business magazine | |||||
Writting Perfect ad copy:
What does a Classified Ad Contain Supposedly eye-catching lead word or phrase. The name of the item, product, service or company. A few words about the above, including claims about how great they are. An address or telephone number.
Have you asked yourself yet what the purpose of a classified ad is When you are writing a classified ad, you want to get who ever is reading your ad to take immediate action and respond to your ad so that you home based business magazine can have them as a customer or buyer in your business. Look at what is listed above.
Do they do that NO WAY! Everything that is listed above is all about "ME." Once again allow me to tell you, if you fail to focus on the needs of the customer you will just be another act of bad marketing.
If you have not done so yet, why don't you grab a news paper and start looking through some ads and see if from what you have learned so far if you can spot bad and good ad copy I think you may be surprised at the way you look at ads in the paper now.
Maybe your reaction will be the same as mine is at times, and contact the people that wrote some of those ads and offer to burn their money for them since that are what they are doing with some of the ads they are writing.
If you don't want to follow the rest of bad ad copy writers then you need to follow and read the rest of this lesson. You're doing a great job so lets continue into some of the secrets that will want to know to home based business magazine write an impressive ad.
You never want to forget why you are writing your ad. What do you want your ad to accomplish One of your main accomplishments should be to get your prospects that are reading your ad, to act immediately! If you cant do this with the ad that you have wrote then your are wasting your time and more importantly your money...unless you own a money tree! It all comes down to motivating your readers. Make them feel excited about reading your ad, and that its exactly what they have been looking for.
Don't try to be a salesman in your ads! Most of us know that a salesman is out to give you something in exchange for the money you have home based business magazine very hard for. He will do what ever it takes to try and sale you his product/service. He will try with words like, "leading," "superior," "excellent," "world-class," "cutting-edge," "state-of-the-art" and so many more that IM sure you have heard more than once.
You see we are not dumb, when we hear these words we think salesman and most of us know that salesman are just out to get a sale which comes back to "ME" "ME" "ME"! We get turned off by that and want to run or not answer the door! So why include these in your ad You are going to want to make sure that none of your ads include any of the "unproven assertion" words.
All the words that seem to boost you up and brag about you to no ending are all bunk when it comes to the reader. You must show and not tell. You want to show by using facts not by making general claims about your
Take a look at some of the ads in a paper and see how you can turn some of the features in it into facts about the product or service being sold in the ad that are a benefit to you, the reader. To help you locate some of these features in ads, you should be looking for words like color, size, weight, operating parameters, and so on.
This is very popular to find in most ads as you look through the paper. You will see almost all ads have a lot of feature words. So this is normal and correct ad copy right WRONG! Your ad should not tell about what the product/service is, but what it will get for the people that buy it. Features are self-centered facts about the advertiser. Benefits are about the person who is buying.
One of the big things that seem to through most people off are features. For example if you were selling your car and placed an ad in the paper that it was candy apple red. How does that benefit the buyer If you cant think of how it can then it shouldn't be in there.
Now its not just the way you word your ad that brings in business. No ad works without making an offer. An offer is what motivates the prospect to act NOW! Please make sure you see the importance in this, if you don't motivate the prospect to take immediate action your ad will fail even before you post it.
You cant afford this mistake so please don't leave it out of your ad. A very strong word that seems to motivate almost anyone in today's world is the word "FREE" use this word in your advertising and you cant go wrong. We are addicted to this word. Everyone is always trying to get something for nothing, so why not offer it There is so much that you can offer them, brochures, e-books, reports, sales literature, or maybe even an audio cassette.
I'M sure you have seen ads with the word FREE in them before right So go a step further to out do others ads and have yours noticed more. Rather than have an ad that says, "Act NOW, and receive a free tape." Go into a little bit more detail. "Act by (date), to receive your very own tape that teaches you step-by-step how to startup our very own business at very low cost."
Now think about it, which one do you think will motivate your prospect more The tape alone, or the one that goes more in detail about they will be getting. The second gives them a reason to act now and that's exactly what you want.
How you smack it all together Now you know what goes into writing classifieds or small ads so let me go into more detail what it takes to smash one of these thing together.
You have to motivate your prospects to respond by using 10 to 15 words. Why not more Unless you have money grows on trees most publications have a 10 word minimum, and the more words you use the more money it will cost you. So in that case you are going to want to get the strongest impact from your ad with as little words as possible. Yes, this is going to be very difficult but you must do it if you are at all concerned at making money and doing the job right.
Yes, you want to compound what you are trying to sale in the shortest words possible. So first just write out a sentence and don't worry about how long it is you can always compound it after that. For example:
"You will not only get free training but an income to follow! you@domain.com 555-555-5555 "You get FREE training while earning an income! you@domain.com 555-555-5555 "Your training is FREE to earn an income! you@domain.com 555-555-5555
That's not too bad. But you can see how you can take a simple sentence and compound it to not only be powerful for the reader but also cheaper for you.
Small Ads Your objective with a small ad is basically the same as the classified, to get a prospect to take immediate action. Your job in the small ads is to have just enough information in the ad to get the prospects attention so that they contact you somehow to receive a package of full information and more about what youre a selling. But you may be able to sale you product from your spot in the small ad advertised. In order to do so you will need:
An item that does not cost more than $20 or $30
Clear-cut benefits.
An offer stimulating immediate action.
Your name addresses and phone number.
If you are attempting to close a sale directly from your small ad, it would be wise to include in your advertisement a small sentence to motivate those that are not ready to buy yet, to contact you for more information. That way you have their info and can always change them into potential buyers later on.
To many times people post small ads and only give their prospects the option to buy or not buy. That is bad business and you would be losing a lot of business if you decide to do it that same way.
When you are writing your small ad you need to make certain that you have a message that smacks your prospects in the face. "YOURS FREE...YOURS FREE....YOURS FREE!" You want to give them a since of urgency. A reason to be acting now. Like the tape that you could give away for free. Give your readers a reason that they should act now after reading your ad.
NOTE: The offer in your small ad must be timed! It must also expire! Having a time that it expires is as important as the offer itself. When you do this it will bring a sense of urgency and also offers a compelling reason to act quickly! I want the reader to think that they may lose out if they don't act right away. Once you've done this you have them.
Getting a Response Of course this is something that we all want to happen, but when it does will you know how to deal with it If you work hard to et people to respond immediately and when you work conscientiously to reach this objective you can guarantee a response.
The more you are centered in on what your readers want to hear, and squeeze in those motivational offers people will respond. But this is where most marketers blow it. Believe it or not most marketing wannabes are never ready to receive a response and when or if they ever do they are never ready to handle what little they may bring in.
You must be prepared to receive responses before you even set your ads out. Always think positive. You are reading this lesson telling you exactly what to do to succeed so you will! There is no doubt about it.
Here are some inside secrets that will help you out to know.
1) CONCENTRATION - Advertising in one place again and again until the ad starts to get response, rather than placing or scattering several ads in a variety of different places.
Of course, if the ad that you are testing you your local newspaper does not seem to be working, try a new ad. Put your money into a new medium. Maybe even search out a whole new type of audience. Or maybe all three. But of course if you are producing something that can be an appeal to anyone world wide take the appropriate actions to get it out there, being sure to place your product to the right publication to match it correctly.
2) REACH - You want your ad to reach as many people as possible over the longest period of time.
3) FREQUENCY - It's not how much you do today that matters, it's how often you do it constantly that makes the difference. Most people will not respond to your advertisement home based business magazine the first time they see it. In fact it may take them more than 5 times of seeing it in the same spot till the finally get curious enough to respond. So sometimes keeping an ad in one place that hardly cost anything out wins that add that cost a fortune for one day.
4) PLAY THE COMPETITION - There are always bigger fish in the sea. If your just starting out in your advertising writing there is no way you will be able to complete with the big dogs. Wasting your money trying to do so will put you and your ad writing out of business faster than you can snap! Instead concentrate on a group of people hammering your advertising around them getting a few and turn that group into your customers to bring in profits. The big companies all had to start this same way as well so you can still think big!
5) TEST, TEST, TEST - A smart advertiser never stops testing his ads. You may have several different ads in different publications to see which one works best. You can even go as far as asking your prospect when they call, which publication they found you in to keep track of your results. Keep records of all this, it will help you to know what works for that area and what doesn't. That sooner you learn to do this the faster you will save and make money.
Follow these steps to writing ads and soon you will have created the PERFECT AD!
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