Classified ads have been around as long as I can remember.
Whether you're reading a newspaper or perusing the back of
a magazine, you see classified ads. Before the advent of
online marketing, placing classified ads in print
publications was the method many people used to sell their
products or services.
What has worked for years in traditional marketing is also
quite effective in online marketing. Advertising in email
newsletters with ads is one of the greatest adverting
bargains available today. Moreover, it can be a very
effective strategy to help you grow your mailing list and
drive traffic to your website.
There are thousands of ezine publishers eagerly standing by
to take your money for a classified ad in their
publication. And, writing an ezine ad isn't quite as easy
as it looks. How do you know the ad will be effective, and
how do you create an ad that will result in a desired
action?
Here are 10 steps to help you write a profitable classified
ad for an ezine:
1. Choose your publication. Finding the right publication
that goes out to the right target market is the key first
step in this process. Optimally, you want an active list
of at least 10,000 double opt-in subscribers who are
accustomed to receiving regular ezines from the publisher
(publishes weekly). Unfortunately, not everyone opens
every email that they receive, so ask the publisher about
her "open rate," which is the number of subscribers who
actually open and read the ezine. A respectable and
reasonable open rate is 30-40%. A great place to look for
ezine publishers who sell ads in their email newsletters is
Charlie Page's Directory of Ezines,
http://www.directoryofezines.com.
2. Be one of few, not one of many. Check out the
publisher's sample email newsletter, as well as back
issues, before you decided to advertise. How many ads does
the publisher run in one issue? For maximum effectiveness,
choose one that runs 5 or less ads per issue. This gives
you a much better chance of being seen when your ad is
competing against a smaller number of ads.
3. Craft an attention-getting headline. Your headline is
the part of your ad that must grab your reader's attention
immediately. Otherwise, the reader scans right past your
ad to the next one. Use action words that emphasize a
solution to a problem that your target market has. Or, ask
a question that attracts the reader's interest. In order
for your ad to be read, your headline must effectively
answer the reader's most basic question, "What's in it for
me?"
4. Outline your benefits in the body. Don't use the body
of the ad to promote your products or service. You'll get
the best results when you offer readers something that they
can get immediately at no cost, like an ebook, audio,
special report, ecourse, etc. Readers never want to learn
more for the sake of learning. They want to get to the
benefits you promised, or what it will do for them, instead.
5. Create a call to action. Tell the reader what to do
next -- what action to take. Typically this means
directing them via your URL to a web page to take this
action. This step is even more effective if you create a
sense of urgency -- give them a reason to act immediately.
6. Keep it short. Most ezine ads vary between 25 and 50
words, including your URL. This means that you have
limited space to create maximum impact.
7. Design your landing page. Make sure your landing page
listed in your call to action speaks specifically to the
readers of that ezine. Don't send them to a generic page
of your site and expect them to be able to figure out where
to go on that page and what to do. Greet them by name,
i.e. Welcome subscribers to ABC Marketing Ezine, and
reiterate who you are, what you're offering, and how they
can receive your offer.
8. Track your results. Truly effective advertising is
only effective if it creates your desired result. Be sure
that you have a tracking mechanism in place, like ad
tracker software, so that you can see exactly how many
people took action on your ad and exactly where they came
from. If your ad tracking system is integrated with your
shopping cart, you'll also be able to track how many sales
resulted from your ad.
9. Test and change. You may actually come up with 10 or
20 variations as you design your. Don't discard any of
them, as you may find them useful in the future, especially
as you test which versions of your ad are effective. Test
different headlines or different calls to action over a
period of time in the same publication and see which
versions get the best results.
10. Run multiple times. A one-shot ad never works. Plan
to advertise at least 4 consecutive times in an ezine to
see how you do. The more the ad appears, the greater the
likelihood that the ezine reader will notice it. Over
time, you will begin to see which versions of your ad are
more effective with what kinds of target markets.
Ezine advertising is a proven, low-cost strategy to help
you market your online business, grow your lists, and
increase your profits. Start writing your classified ad
today!
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Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business
Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals
learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their
expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To
claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing
Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizU.com . Ask
Donna an Internet Marketing question at
http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com .
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