6 Steps To Make Your Ads More Effective

Introduction: Advertising is one of the key factors in successful promotion for your business. It is how you will project your company in front of your potential customers and gather leads. Not only that but you will also make sales. However many advertisers do not realize the basic factors that make advertising truly effective.

Here are 6 steps you can take to improve the effectiveness of your ads.

Targeting: what do we mean by targeting? Briefly it is when you advertise or promote to a specific market. For example if you are selling tennis rackets and you want to find people who need and want them. This is your targeted or specific market. You will need to advertise in publications that cater to this specific market.

Find related websites: You will also need to advertise on websites that are focused on your special market. Now here you will need to take a little care. Do not advertise on your competitor’s websites. They will be selling tennis rackets like you. You will need to advertise on related websites. These are sites that are maybe selling tennis lessons or tennis balls. Their customers will also be interested in your tennis rackets. I am sure you can see the picture.

Not targeting your ads: Is a common mistake and easily rectified. Many advertisers will place their ads in ezines and on websites that do not target their markets. In order to make your ads do well it is critical to target or pinpoint your special market.

Solution: Check out on Google your main keyword and ezines, you will find publications that will be catering to your market. These are the ones to advertise in. Check these ezines carefully before placing ads for quality, targeted market and frequency of ads.

Ad Copy- be sure you start with a good ad: Your advertising campaign will not get very far without good ads. Some programs are extremely good and give strong pulling ads. Others give weak and hyped up ads. A quick way to check is to stop and ask yourself would you buy into this opportunity or purchase their product/service if you saw this ad? If you answered no then be assured readers of your ad will think the same way. This ad is very likely weak and will not get the results you need.

Solution: You can either have a set written by a professional or do it yourself. Very often only a few words will make a big difference. The basic layout of an ad is simple.
1.    A stunning headline-you must capture your readers attention
2.    Benefits-answer your reader’s question “so what’s in it for me?”
3.    A call for action-go here to find out etc.

Test: testing is extremely important. You can do split testing by placing 2 ads for the same product in the same ezine. See which one pulls best. That is your winning ad and should be used and expanded. Classified ads should be used for this purpose. They are the cheapest ones and you will easily be able to afford to put in 2. Once you have determined which is the best you can expand into Top Sponsors and Solos, plus you can put these classified ads on related websites.

Track your ads: This is a critical step that many do not do. It is very important to know what sort of response you ad is getting. How many have clicked through, and what the sales conversion for that click through is.

Solution: You can either use good software tracking system or URLs like tiny URL to track your ads. They will give all the above information.

Record: Another important step is recording all your results. Make a note of the good and the bad. Keep a swipe file of all your successful advertising places. Build on your successes and learn from your failures.

With these steps you will improve your ads and really make your advertising campaign successful. Remember not every ad is a winner and not every place you advertise will be successful. The most important thing in advertising is persistence. You need to be continuously advertising and keeping your business in front of your potential customers. If you fail to do this your competitors will and they will snatch your customers. So go ahead use these steps to make an effective advertising campaign and get a jump on your competitors.

August 16, 2006 – 5:38 pm by Constantin Chersin