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Online Classified Advertising
Chances are, you won't make much money with online classified ads - they're a far cry from their offline equivalents - but as one branch of your marketing campaign, posting online classifieds can help to spread the word about your business. And they do have a few advantages over their print counterparts worth noting:
Perhaps the biggest benefit online classifieds offer is as a testing forum for your advertising copy and headlines. Classified ads work much the same way online as they do off. You pay a fee (or not) and write a short description of your product or service, including contact information and Website URL, and the e-publisher makes your ad available to potential customers online. I wouldn't devote too much time to this advertising method, however. There are a few huge classified ad sites (Yahoo and AOL) that you may want to post to yourself, but you're best off using ad posting software or a network service to submit to the rest. On top of this, a large percentage of the visitors to free ad sites are other online marketers like yourself, who are trying to advertise their own businesses. So, unless you're targeting other marketers, your ads probably won't be seen by many qualified prospects.
10 Points to Remember When Posting Classified Ads 1. Be sure to place your ad in the most appropriate category, section or subsection. This is the single most important factor in determining whether or not your ad is seen by a targeted or qualified audience. Select a category that best targets your prospective customers. 2. Post your ads consistently. In order for classified ads to be effective as a traffic generating tool, you must post them regularly, in many different venues as possible. 3. Use an attention grabbing headline. Your headline should stand out in bold or colored print. DON'T USE ALL CAPS or lots of exclamation marks(!!!). Most readers are put off by such obvious gimmickry, and it may actually interfere with your reader's ability to take your ad’s content seriously. 4. Write intriguing/compelling ad copy. Since classifieds usually lack graphics, it all comes down to the words you use and the way you use them. For help in writing traffic pulling ads, see the resources listed below.) 5. Curiosity is a powerful motivator. Cater to it. How many information product Websites have you come across with the word “secrets” in their headlines? Too many, granted, but they wouldn't keep using it if it didn't draw in traffic! 6. Don't try to actually sell your product or service in your ad. All you want to do is generate interest, so that the person reading your ad will visit your Website or email you for more information. 7. The content of your ad will determine which, if any, potential customers actually read and respond to it. Rather than focusing on the features of your product, your ad copy should tout its benefits. 8. In addition to reader stopping content, the body of your ad must appeal to your target audience. It helps to have a mental picture of your readers, to gauge which benefits of your product or service are likely to attract their interest. 9. Most actions people take are stimulated by desire and desire is sparked by feelings. You want to focus on the features of your product or service that will make potential customers feel good, excited, confident, secure, hopeful or powerful. 10. The point of the whole exercise is to get your readers to take action! Don't be afraid to use a directive, like “Act now!” or “Call this number” or “Go to this Website for details.” Don’t request. Command! TIP: The first thing you must do if you're even considering posting to Classified or FFA sites is to get and set up an autoresponder. Never post ads or links using your personal e-mail as the contact address as, along with a smattering of interested queries, you'll be deluged with junk mail or spam! And be forewarned, once the spam dam breaks, it is unstoppable. At least with an autoresponder you can fire back with your own promotional message!
Recommended Courses on Classified Ad Copywriting When it comes to writing your classified ads, your best bet, as always, is to learn from the masters. Here are some of the best courses on the subject... 1. Create Advertising That Sells An interactive advertising course featuring book, workbook, and video instruction (right on the web) in which Joe Vitale teaches you specific tricks you can use to literally triple the results of any ad you write - guaranteed! 2. How I Sold $400 Million Dollars Worth of Products and Services This monumental book by marketing legend Ted Nicholas shows you how to prepare profitable copy for your own business with Ted Nicholas' hard won marketing and advertising secrets. 3. Ad Magic: The Complete Guide To Creating Hot Ads & Sales Letters That Work! A complete step-by-step home study course that will teach you how to master the "art and science" of writing powerful sales letters, postcards, brochures, order forms, display ads, classified ads, web pages, and anything else you need to generate hot leads and new customers. It's written by Brian Keith Voiles, the man behind some of the biggest, most well known marketing guru's in the world. 4. How To Make Your Ads, Sales Letters, And Websites Sell Like Crazy This remarkable new book by Mark Hendricks reveals the jealously guarded secrets the best direct response marketers of all time, and how you can use these time-tested secrets right now to increase your marketing results exponentially! 5. Amazing Ad Copy Secrets - How to Write Killer Sales Information That Gets People To Buy From You - Automatically! In this course, Marlon Sanders has boiled everything he's learned about successful copywriting into a detailed, very specific, paint-by-number formula. He's even "templated" it, so it's as close to fill-in-the-blanks as you'll find. While it isn't a "magic bullet," it's pretty darn close. My top pick? 6. Dan Kennedy's Copywriting Seminar. The man is a marketing pro, has been around for years, has made millions and really knows his stuff. If you'd rather do than read or listen, there are several excellent template-based sales letter tools and tutorials that make professional copywriting easier than ever.
Best Classified Ad Services Where you post your ads is another very important factor in their effectiveness. There are over a million classified sites to choose from, some of greater, some of lesser merit. I've tried to narrow down the dizzying selection to some of the best. But even if you limit your posting to the ones I've listed, it would take hours of effort to do so consistently, and odds are the response you'd get would be less than overwhelming. Your best bet is to use a networked classified service that will enable you to target and submit your ads to a network of thousands of free ad sites with just one form or better yet, go with automated submission software that will blast out your ad to thousands of classified sites in minutes like: Becanada's New Power Submitter or Trellian's Classify Pro or Ad Blast 5000. This way you can re-submit your ads as often as you like and it won't cost you a cent! This said however, there are two stand-out, individual classified services - Yahoo and America Online - that you should hand submit to. If worked properly these two services will generate a fair amount of targeted traffic to your site. Here's the scoop on how you can get the most out of your ad placements with these services. Yahoo Free Classifieds - If you place your ad nowhere else, place it here.
You can place up to 10 ads under 10 categories. Yahoo lists ads in the order they are posted, so when your turn comes up for posting you are listed on the top of the list. This is when your ads have the most pull. Although they remain posted for 60 days, they lose their effectiveness after the first day they appear, as they gradually sink lower and lower on the pages and eventually get relegated to the bottom of the heap. One way to counter this and keep your ads productive is to follow a simple "delete and repeat" procedure. Since it takes Yahoo about 2 days to place your ads after you submit them, you should wait 3 days (2 day delay + 24 hours) and then go back, delete your original ads (under "edit ads") and re-submit them. This will insure that your ads remain at the top of the pack. You should repeat this process every three days if you want to remain on top. However, don't forget to vary the headline and ad slightly for each submission in each category . This gives you the opportunity to try out different headlines and ads with each posting to check their effectiveness, and it also insures that the "Powers that Be" at Yahoo accept your ads. AOL Classifieds AOL is by far the biggest gun after Yahoo. In several articles I've read by prominent online marketers, AOL classifieds have been singled out as surprisingly effective. To get to the AOL classified section from the main menu simply click on "keyword," type in "classifieds" and click "go." You can read all about their classified advertising by clicking on "Welcome to AOL Classifieds." They offer both free and premier (paid) classifieds. (The paid - not surprisingly - work much better). For more online classified ad resources, including Free & Fee-based Classified Networks (that offer you the opportunity to post you ads in your pick of popular categories and send your ad out to targeted millions for FREE) as well as Classified Ad Tracking Software, click here.
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