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Three Simple Ways to Make Your Classifieds
Sell
By, Dr K.
Nunley
Target your
best prospects.
While this might sound like marketing mumbo-jumbo,
it's by far the most important way to make ads work.
Every newspaper, newsletter, and website has its own
particular kind of audience. Your ad won't sell
unless your
product or service is
something that the publication's particular audience
would buy.
To figure out the audience a publication is
reaching, look at their articles and ads. What kinds
of businesses are advertising?
What sorts of things are they selling? What group of
people would buy these things?
Think about age, gender, lifestyle, income, &
education. It won't take long before you have a
pretty good idea of what kinds of
prospects the publication reaches.
The Wall Street Journal attracts a large
multi-national audience of well- paid business
people. Your local bargain shopper newspaper
probably focuses on working-class folks looking for
inexpensive bargains. The daily newspaper tends to
do best with home
owners. A mail order tabloid often goes to thousands
of individuals interested in making money through
the mail. Many of these readers live in small, rural
towns. The Internet, by its very nature, appeals to
up-scale, well-educated audiences that tend to be in
their 20s and 30s.
Write a good headline.
With classified ads, the headline makes or breaks
the ad. Think about how you read a page of
classifieds. You skim the first few words of each ad
(often printed in bold type) to get a split- second
idea of what the ad is about. Internet ads give you
a subject line of
four or more words. This means your headline has to
get the prospect's attention and tell them what your
ad is about.
Pack as much key information as you can into just a
few words.
For example, if I'm selling a computer, my headline
would vary depending on the audience. For a general
family audience I would write:
COMPUTER, POWERFUL, CHEAP.
In three words I've told prospects
1. What the item is,
(computer)
2. Something about its quality and benefit
(powerful),
3. A clue to the price of the product.
(cheap)
If I were advertising the same computer on an
Internet newsgroup used by computer enthusiasts, I
would change the headline to
reflect their more advanced understanding: PII333,
NEW, UNDER 2K
(a good deal at the time I'm writing this.)
Keep the body of your ad short.
Shorter ads cost less. Even if you can stretch out
with a 50 or
100 word ad, make your writing concise. There's no
need to write in complete sentences in classified
ads. Lay out the essential
information on your product or service, show the
prospect how it benefits them, and give your contact
info.
To write that same sentence in ad-blurb form:
Essential information,
incredible benefits,
call now 555-1212.
Here are some words that work best in
classified ads:
free, new, amazing, now,
how to, and easy.
Veteran copy writer Bob Bly
adds:
discover, method, plan,
reveals, simple,
advanced, and
improved.
I always try to use the
word "you,"
often in all capitals
"YOU."
Track your ads.
You're poking your money down the drain if you don't
know which
ads are working and which aren't. Key your ads when
you can. Good classified advertisers always code
their ads so they know which work and which
publications pull the best. If respondents are
writing to you to buy or get more information,
include a "DEPT-A"
in your address. The "A" is code for a
specific ad in a certain publication. When prospects
are responding by telephone, have your ad include an
extension number for them to ask for.
Web entrepreneur Kevin Needham advises a clever
tactic for coding on-line classified ads. He creates
a separate web page to correspond with each ad. Then
he counts the number of visitors to each page to see
which ads pulled the best.
By using these three simple techniques in your
classified ads, you'll reach more of your best
prospects, sell more, and reduce
the money you spend on classifieds.
Good Luck!
By, Dr K. Nunley
Kevin
Nunley provides marketing advice and copy writing
for businesses and organizations. Read all his
money-saving marketing tips at http://DrNunley.com/.
Reach him at kevin@drnunley.com
or (801)253-4536.
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