Quick and Instant Marketing Soup
Everything happens Quickly and Instantly on the Internet. In the blink of an eye your easily transported around a whole planet. It's a smorgasbord !! The web site you just visited could be in Singapore, the e-mail your reading now could have come from Alaska. The Internet is just one big Soup Bowl of Information just waiting for you to come and gobble it up. We live in a world of "Everything Quick". Quick Food, Quick Money, Quick credit, Quick Advertising, Quicker Cars and the faster we get Quicker, the better!! Not only is it possible, but it's not that complicated to achieve. Most experts agree that advertising in ezines is THE quickest way to effectively generate more traffic to your website and increase your sales. Ezine Classified Advertising is incredibly popular which means most ezines are being filled with classified ads. Some people use their lunch time to glance over their e-mails while chowing down. The average ezine reader sees hundreds of headlines and classifieds every day, taking a quick peek to if it might be worthwhile. So, How does your Classified Ad Look ?! The 3 things Every ad needs 3 basic things. A HEADLINE that stands out, Quick and easy to understand CONTENT, and an ADDRESS on how to get there. Your HEADLINE should say everything in 5-7 words or less. It should for all intensive purposes "make the sale" Some ads look fantastic using all capital letters and then switching to lowercase for the content, but on the flip side, remember it can end up looking tacky as well. Your CONTENT should always be very specific. It has to or it becomes cyber-trash very quickly. A favorite Internet saying i've heard is to " KISS IT " or, in it's original form, * Keep It Simple Stupid !! * Big words can be overwhelmingly impressive but i have found that shorter words easily read and just work better. ..... (ironic eh) Part 1 The Headline is your menu How do you make eye grabbing HEADLINE? I'll bet you didn't know it's always been right in front of you the whole time, and your going to wonder why you never thought of it. Ready??..... Your email box.. It's a treasure trove of headlines just waiting to be found. Now, i'm not saying that you steal someone else's headlines. That wouldn't be nice at all, now would it!! That doesn't mean you can't get idea's from them though. Here's a simple way to find a few "catchy headlines" (You need to do this fast OK. Really Fast!!) Every time you open your email box, Quickly scan the contents. Which one do you remember the most? It doesn't really matter which one it was, just be honest with yourself. Begin a list of catchy phrases and write it down somewhere. If you have more than one email box use it too. (Build's your list quicker) The next step is the Fun Part. Sit down and start butchering these Headlines!! Go for it!! Grab a word here, a phrase there, change a couple words around in a sentence. Replace words that would better identify your opportunity or service your promoting. Soon you will have a nice selection of Headlines you created yourself. No one has a monopoly on words, so i'm certain the Internet cops won't bother you for this apparent "theft" of words.....ya think?? Part 2 The Content is your appetizer Most classified ads usually contain around 25-50 words each. You only have so much space, and you have to say everything in a little teeny tiny spot. I can't emphazise how very important it is that the content "grabs" the readers attention. This is the meat of the ad. Create an irresistible offer. Tantalize your readers, entice them into wanting to take a bite. Make an offer that is so overwhelmingly attractive, that they would have to be insane to pass it up. Give them a tidbit by adding something free. Anything, just make it free. What's that? You say your not so good at writing classified ads like that? I'll wager a bet you are! There is a way to write great ads quickly. Yup you guessed it!! Read a few of the emails and save the ones that caught your eye. Get out the knife and cut up those ads using the same technique you used for Headlines. Once you have 6-8 contents ads written, simply get the Most Excellent Headlines YOU created and start slicing and dicing. Mix them up, change them around until your happy with them. You might end up with over 20 different ads to chose from... (bummer huh) CHOP-CHOP time again!! You don't want those 20+ ads... do you? Some of these ads aren't quite as as good as the others. That's OK, it's time to trim the fat anyway. Select the 5 choicest ads and remove the remaining ones Part 3 The Address is the dinner bell E-mail address or Website address. The person reading your classified ad has 2 options. Read the next ad or click your link. They have either eaten enough of your ad, or their ready to gobble up the main course. Your ADDRESS is a way to get more information about the opportunity you are promoting and is achieved by putting either your Web site ADDRESS to take the visitor there or an E-mail ADDRESS to contact you directly. You can spice up your address by giving your webpages catchy names, but a draw back is the length it may create. problem is, People don't like 86 character website addresses. Their either too hard to remember, or mistakes are made when entering it into their browser. You just lost a prospective sale right there. (another bummer huh) Another option is using a re-directed address. There are several companies that offer this service FREE, which allows you create nice short, easily remembered website addresses. Two places that give you 3 different addresses are rename.com and iBoost.com Thats 8 different addresses leading to the same page ***Caution; It's not wise to submit these redirect addresses to the search engines because, they don't like being tricked. Duplicate sites usually get "UN-indexed" .....rather quickly and forever too! Dinner is served! Pass the Gravy!!? You have a visitor!! Hopefully your ad was tasty enough to bring you the Gravy too!! You got them there so give them your main course. Make sure you get a counter or some kind of tracking system set up to follow your ads progress to see which ones worked the best...... (i'll save that for another article) About The Author A.L Haines is the editor for several leading Internet Marketing publications supporting free Internet marketing opportunities and resources. http://alhims.tripod.com http://articlesarchives.netfirms.com
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