"Effective Internet Advertising Techniques"
by Jim DanielsAlthough the medium is new, some of the rules have NOT changed. To effectively market your products or services on the internet, you should seriously consider the BIG 3! (1)TARGET AUDIENCE (2)GOOD AD COPY and (3) KEY EVALUATION.
The first and foremost thing to consider in advertising is selecting the proper location for your ads. You must concentrate your efforts on your target audience. Once you have decided who you are trying to reach, find out what types of publications they are most likely to read.
Instead of focusing solely on large sources with their very high advertising rates, look into smaller publications like specialized online newsletters and magazines. There are many very specialized publications available pertaining to just about every business, occupation, sport and hobby. The advertising rates are substantially lower and even though the circulations are not as large, the readers of the smaller publications consist almost exclusively of your target audience.
Here’s an example...
I ran the same exact ad for a business opportunity in two online newsletters, or ezines. The ad ran for one issue in each publication. The first one had a subscription base of over 250,000. The other had roughly 8,000. The results are below.
Newsletter one: 151 inquiries. 2 sales. Newsletter two: 49 inquiries. 7 sales.
Why were the results so different? Easy. The first newsletter went to a large number of people. Obviously, not many were interested in business opportunities. Of the 151 that were, many were just curious and not serious enough to spend money. The second newsletter, however, had a subscription base made up solely of people interested in business opportunities. Therefore, a good percentage of inquiries turned into actual sales. This is an extremely important example of why you need to reach your target audience.
Once you've found your target audience, it's time to sit down and concentrate on your ad copy. Here are a few tips on developing good classified ad writing skills.
First of all, you should develop a wide variety of classified ads. Since an important part of successful advertising is trial and error, you need to run different ads to find the ones that work best. Although this trial and error is necessary, there are some good guidelines to follow when writing classifieds. Here are some of them...
-Attract your reader with a catchy word or phrase right up front.
-Study other classifieds. If you see them repeatedly it’s because they work.
-Keep your classifieds brief and to the point, using phrases, not complete sentences.
-Use simple words, not long ones. Don’t confuse the reader.
-Tell the reader exactly what they are getting.
-Don’t try to sell the product in a classified. Simply try to get interested people to respond.
-Use energetic punctuation, such as exclamation points instead of periods.
The last important factor in classified advertising is the "key". Keying an ad is a simple yet powerful way to determine which ads and publications are working best for you. An easy way to do this with email, is to ask people to enter something in the subject box. When you receive a response to an ad, you will know exactly where the prospective customer saw it. This information will be invaluable to you. This is the type of information that you must focus on to hone your marketing skills.
There you have it. The three most important factors in advertising. Reaching your target audience, good ad copy and ad key evaluation. They all hold an importance place in traditional advertising, and they have certainly carried their importance over to the internet! Once you master these three skills you’ll be on your way to bigger profits!
* Article courtesy of JDD Publishing, Home of "The BizWeb E-Gazette!" For a free subscription, Mailto:Subscribe@JDD-Publishing.com today! Get the details on their book about low cost effective internet marketing, Mailto:InfoFree@infoback.net. Want some FREE online marketing help? Visit JDD Publishing on the web at http://www.BIZWEB2000.com.
Return to: Internet Marketing Articles