Yet, local businesses continually find themselves facing a problem. As
potential customers become more Internet savvy, local companies could be
doing themselves a great disservice by not having some sort of exposure on
the Internet.

According to Kelsey Research, 70% of US households now use the internet when
searching for local products and services. In fact, it is projected that
over 20 billion searches for local information will be made in 2007. 75% of
Internet users have looked for services and products within an area close to
their home or business. Moreover, recent Internet studies have found that
some of the most searched queries in search engines such as Google or Yahoo
are words such as local business, free, discount, cheap, and other terms
bearing the connotation that the searcher is looking for something to
purchase.

Although many may be trying to look for cheap electronics that can be
shipped to their homes, it is also extremely apparent that consumers are
searching for businesses in their local area that they can patronize. Most
consumption on a day to day basis is not on items such as electronics that
can be purchased online. People need automotive services, tutors, daycare,
lawn care, restaurants, grocery stores, salons, plumbers, and much, much
more within a few miles of their house. These daily rituals that we all
engage in are all predicated on knowing where to find business. And as
mentioned above, with an abundance of people turning to the Internet to find
out where well priced, convenient goods and services are located, even a
small Internet presence can skyrocket a business.

Unfortunately, the typical local business doesn\’t have a lot of money to
spend on Internet exposure. Even if they do have the finances to build a
website, the process can be cumbersome and somewhat daunting for the
generations of small business that aren?t well-read in the ways of
cyberspace. If the typical website can run anywhere from hundreds to
thousands of dollars, is it still worth creating? Even if you get the
website up and running, how will people find you? How high will you be
ranked on search engines? If you are like me, all the worry involved takes
away time from all the daily customer service issues that come with the
territory of owning a business. Why should you spend an inordinate amount of
money when there is no guarantee of getting more customers for your trouble?
Many are pushed away because the return on investment just doesn\’t seem
worth it.

If this is what you think, perhaps you can consider many other low cost
options for your small business to get attention and some exposure on the
web. Something as simple as a Facebook or Myspace account can be used to
garner advertisement for your business. The Internet is all about content
and link popularity, and having even a little bit can help. However, there
are services that are beginning to expand the range of possibilities for
local businesses and cater explicitly to them. Websites such as
www.Cityslick.net and www.Merchantcircle.com allow companies to create local
listings whereby customers can put basic contact information, slogans,
product descriptions and photos, customizable coupons, appointment
generators, documents, social bookmarking, and much more. The terrific part
about websites like these is that they are not static; companies do not
simply post a listing and hope for customers to show up. Consumers can
browse, request deals, request appointments, chat with other consumers and
businesses in the forums, and leave reviews.

If you decide to list on a business directory website, make sure that they
are doing their best to get you the most exposure possible. According to
www.webworkshop.net, Link text (the text that is clicked on when clicking on
a link) is singly the most important factor when Google determines the
rankings for any given search-term. To help a small local business website
grow in this fashion, it is critical that business owners submit to local
directories that can provide custom back links.

www.Cityslick.net in particular is proactive in its approach to ensure that
these sorts of interactions occur. By using the latest search engine
optimization (SEO) techniques, they are drawing customers to the website not
only by promoting it as a way to find cheap, local deals, but they are also
making it so that listings, just by themselves, have the same sort of
visibility as traditional websites.

Local and small business owners have a multitude of things to worry about
including how to best promote their venture. By using the internet to post
to sophisticated business directories, companies can get all the benefits of
having a website without having to pay a lot of money for their own website.
Take a look. Your customers and business will thank you for it.

Mark E. Moebius
636-300-9000

Consider first, the amount of people who are listening to the radio at any given moment. In the morning, as people get dressed for work or school, the radio is on. When they get into their cars to head to work, the radio is on. The radio is playing in the office, on the way home again and maybe they turn it on before bed as well. It is the first thing that people wake up to. Radio advertising is a powerful medium.

You can put just about anything on it as well. You can fill your marketing dollar tightly by putting it on a number of various types of radio advertising markets. Young adults tend to be one of the largest radio listeners in the afternoon hours. Market your product effectively to them during those hours. Adults love to tune in on their way to and home from work. Market your radio advertising dollars to them during this time. In fact, you can even market your product to young children on various radio stations geared towards them.

Radio is very versatile and allows you to tell your story for a smaller amount of your budget with excellent results. You will see that there are many reasons to head to the radio advertising market with your next product. The downside to radio is lack of talented programming. Prior to the Corporate takeover of radio stations, they had to compete for the number one spot. Now many stations are owned by the same company in the same market. The result  has been a watered down version of an amazing medium, stations no longer feel the need to hire qualified talented professionals, many listeners have even forgotten what real talented radio broadcasters sound like. Eventually it will be the death of this type of advertising. Already listenership is down and the next generation has turned to internet based radio such as Pandora.

My suggestion for radio is to stick to traffic and weather sponsorship for branding purposes and never spend money to be the 3rd commercial in a spot break. If you happen to have a talented and popular Drive time personality, someone who still works the community and is one of those well-known fixtures, try live spots. Live spots are not just an endorsement of your product or service but a much more casual and indirect way to advertise on the radio. Very few “personalities” are good at this type of advertising and it can be a higher dollar amount for your commercial. Be smart on how you structure the deal. Trade for advertising if you can 1st so your risk is low.

I’m a big fan of radio and radio advertising, but with the current management of the medium, you have to be cautious. Fortunately for you the advertiser you can beat them down quite a bit on ad rates because they know the decreasing value of what they are offering.

Mark E. Moebius
MILJONAIR
636-300-9000

Words are important in expressing your ideas. The shortest words are the best and the briefest sentences are best. You should remember that in creating ads a distinct and clear-cut impression is best expressed by short words and short sentences. A good ad and a good salesman both show appreciation of words and their effect. Neither says too little and both are interesting and business-like in their remarks. Take a look at the most successful business man. Analyze his style of dealing his customers. You would note that the great charm of spontaneity and off handedness accompanies his remarks. He is intelligent, satisfactory and specific.

Now, note that the language of your advertisement should be like the successful business man. It should be specific to the degree that it gives necessary information in a business-like style. Keep in mind that a good ad is original because it tells the tale of your values in a manner peculiar to itself. If you have real interest in your products and can write exactly what you feel regarding their qualities, you will find no difficulty in investing your ads with sufficient originality to make them interesting. But originality for originality’s sake does not amount to so much in advertising. It is second to genuineness, brevity and clearness.  

So let’s say you want to produce that winning poster or brochure. Your focus should not only be the design but the content as well. You must carefully choose the words that you will use. It does not really matter if you only have a few words as long as you are able to effectively carry your message across to your customers. With a good headline and content, chances are you will encourage your prospects to take a second look at your goods. Understand that a good headline possesses a distinct financial value. Its commercial importance is proven by the increased business it influences as compared with the trade brought by the ordinary advertisement capped with the ordinary headline.

Remember also that there is a very slim line between knowing too much and knowing too little about the products to be advertised. The right kind of advertising writer sees the goods through the eyes of the public. Seeing the goods thus, he speaks the arguments best designed to influence the public. Hence, most of the time a good headline and content is not enough. You have to also make sure that the content can effectively influence your prospects.

Mark E. Moebius
MILJONAIR
636-300-9000

For marketing experts this can work. For less savvy advertisers, it is a huge pitfall that draws attention away from the much more important aspects of a successful selling proposition. Faulty advertising costs its makers billions of dollars a year, and almost all are guilty of it, even the huge corporations.

You will see many of today’s internet marketing “gurus” recommending volumes several decades old. There is a good reason for this. Many of those volumes were written by direct marketers that engaged in extremely costly mailings.

These ads have to produce optimal results or they produce losses. The upside is that results can be measured and broken down to a ridiculously precise extent. In fact very small fluctuations in these figures separate success from failure.

First and foremost is the written word. Nothing replaces a captivating headline and solid advertising copy. For headlines, the goal is to grab attention and qualify. Prospects must immediately recognize that the ad is addressed to them and they must also be drawn into the main copy. Ad copy should be as abundant as needed to tell the whole story, or however much of the story is needed to lead to the action you are soliciting.

Here are the four biggest mistakes you can make in advertising.

1) Being pretty instead of selling. This is really deadly. You don’t need to impress with your design, you need to make a sale, and words sell.

2) Not following a formula. Formulas exist because they work. Use them.

3) Forgetting, even for a single instant, to concentrate on your MDA, Most Desired Action.

4) Not testing different models. This is one of the most painful shortcomings of many marketers. They try an ad and if it’s not profitable the first time, they drop it entirely. If it is profitable, they continue to run it. Here, there is usually an enormous amount of room for improvement. Fluctuations in sales of the order of 500 to 800% are not uncommon…

Advertising comes in many shapes and sizes, with different costs associated to them. Do your research. The results you get will far outweigh any effort you expend or money you invest.

Mark E. Moebius
MILJONAIR
636-300-9000

Wheels America Advertising (WAA) uses mobile billboards to catch the eye of drivers and passersby alike. Vinyl 8-by-14-foot billboards are mounted on specially designed vehicles and backlit for maximum visual impact.

Unlike a typical billboard, WAA vehicles with their patented backlit images are able to go directly to their target audience. They can be placed wherever there is heavy foot traffic due to an event – including convention centers, train stations, airports and sports arenas. They can repeat routes, ensuring that an advertiser’s message is not only noticed, but that information is retained through repetition.

Outdoor advertising, such as a billboard, is effective because it’s hard to ignore. According to a national survey, it’s also memorable. Capitol Communications Group found that 81.7 percent of those polled recalled images they saw on a moving multi-image sign. This is compared to a 19 percent retention rate for static signs.The most effective outdoor advertising is Digital Out Of Home Advertising. DOOH is a growing marketplace. Easy to update, change and deliver advertising makes DOOH a giant in the advertising world. Unfortunately Advertising Agencies are slow to realise the potential. What that means is in a devistated economy Your Ad Agency is playing it safe and by playing it safe I mean protecting their revenue. Meanwhile your current advertising is less and less effective.

One of my most recent investments is into a company called “INsync Advertising”…Hate the name, love the conecpt. It’s a 7″ WIFI enabled, HD quality, Digital Sign, incorporated into an IR Faucet. Its a patented device that delivers advertising in the washroom away from distractions. The cost of advertising is very reasonable and can not only be targeted but tracked. Call us at 636-300-9000 to find out how your business can benefit from DOOH.

Mark Moebius
MILJONAIR
3009000.com

636-300-9000

- If you have started to promote your web site, keep it constant. If you promote your site with persistence, it will catch your audience’s attention.

- Be patient. Try each different promotion until you find the best.

- Free promotions such as search engines and directories would give your web site the deserved traffic you always wanted. Make sure to check your web site’s ranking to know whether or not this type of free promotion is right for you.

- Make a deal with other web sites on trading links which could help both web sites. Make sure to use words that could easily interest the audience.

- Find free classified ads web sites that could boost the promotion of your web site. Most of these classified ads web sites provide powerful marketing features and are an extremely fast way of getting your products or services on line.

- Free and low-cost internet banners are spread all through out the World Wide Web. Banners that pop-up at the top of a page or in a separate window would automatically catch your target audience’s attention.

Free internet advertising is a perfect way to make your products or services known to millions of prospective Internet customers. The probability of someone needing your services or wanting to buy your products is very high. There are free services out there that may suit your services, products and web site…you just need to find them! Go to work – Browse the internet for the best free internet advertising and learn how to take advantage of what you are able to find.

If at first you don’t succeed…try, try again! Analyze your techniques, keep track of your customers and learn what works. Then be ready to try new methods and repeat those methods that are already working.

It has been said that the best things in life are free and this saying also applies to the many forms of free advertising that are available on the internet. Give this form of advertising a try and you also may become a true believer in the power of free internet advertising.

Mark E. Moebius
MILJONAIR
636-300-9000

Consider this situation: when a stranger enters your place you consider his appearance at once. If he is well dressed, well groomed, easy in manner and conversation you are generally favorably impressed with him until you know him better to his credit or discredit. Same way with a poster. If it has a happy, healthy, well-fed appearance — if its content are convincing, bright and written by writers who understand their subjects, if its paper, typographical appearance and general get-up impress you favorably then it is a safe assumption that the poster has character, weight and circulation.

You have read some posters that somehow fail to interest you. It lacks individuality, life and meaning. It fails to catch your attention rightly because it has a dull, negative, sullen influence. The matter of putting individuality in poster advertising is very important.

Let’s say a salesman enters your office to talk about his goods. There may be nothing extraordinary in the man’s manner, conversation or appearance, but in such a short time he was able to fill your office with his individuality and when he left there is a large hole in the atmosphere which he just vacated. Another salesman enters with equally attractive products and prices but because of his lifeless, dull manner he failed to make an impression.

For this reason, individuality is important in advertising as a whole, not only in your posters. Individuality is a comprehensive expression of one’s own self without fear or favor at all times and under all circumstances. In order to fill advertising or any other literature with individuality one must have the creative power in order to fill advertising or any other material with individuality. This creative power should be cultivated, and is absolutely necessary in preparing a good advertising copy.

Even a small sparkle of individuality is enough to lift a single ad above every other ad in a paper, and when this is done a positive result is achieved. Keep in mind that oftentimes there is too little thought put into advertising. So, do some thinking on your own account—let some of the results of this thinking be boldly put in your advertising. Keep right at it, and in the course of events you will find it will pay you in hard cash besides giving you a pleasing fame as an advertiser whose ads are read and remembered, because they are above the ordinary.

 Mark Moebius
MILJONAIR
636-300-9000

http://3009000.com

New or improved words create a sense of curiosity. The customers get an impression that the product is something that is different from others and he tries to get it before anyone else does so as to have edge over others. The laundry products have always been advertised as new and improved, from years. Although it can be either new improved version of the existing product, but the power of both the words and the product reinforces each other’s strength.

Take for instance the line ‘Money back guarantee’, these power words helps gain the trust of the customer. It is a must to print these words at the closing line of an advertisement. After this sentence, the methods of payment and how money will be returned if the customer is not satisfied should be stated.

Most of the successful advertisements have a little known secret that surely generated curiosity within the reader. People are knowledge thirsty, they want to know what others do not know. They think that there is some vital information they are missing because of which they haven’t gained success in something particular.

Words ‘Insider say that’, is similar to ‘secret’. It gives out information from some expertise that is still unknown to the outside world and only if the customer gives money, information will be divulged to him.      

Free word in the headline of the message simply does wonders. The reader easily absorbs the message, unless and until something free is given to the customer in reality. By any change, if the company tricks the customer into paying money for something, which was supposed to be free, the trust of the customer is lost instantly. Usually the word FREE is spelled as FR~E on websites as ISP filters blocks messages having the actual word, considering it to be some kind of spam.

You is a very important word to be used in an advertisement. It directly points out the advantages to the customer, if he buys a particular product or service. Step into the shoes of the customer and try to note down the points which will be of benefit and what points will decrease the interest. The advantages then should be referred to the customer by addressing them with ‘you’. The customer feels that he is being directly talked to.

The word ‘Immediately’ rings in the emergency. It can be interpreted as ‘Don’t wait any longer, get it now!’ This motivates the customer to take some necessary and quick action.

Power in itself is a powerful word. Give that power to the consumer and see the magic. This gives the consumer a feeling that he can get possession of something that he lacked till now and this could make him achieve the impossible.

The basis of a successful advertisement is to understand the consumer’s needs and then design the advertisement accordingly. Just stating the advantages of using the product or service of the company isn’t enough. Sentence should be so designed that the customer should see his advantage in the product. For example, when advertising for a digital camera, just stating that the in-built memory of the camera is of 1 GB, won’t do the trick. Instead, the sentence should be changed to ‘enough memory to store 350 pictures or 50 videos’. The solution to the problem of the customer is reflected in this sentence. Ideas can be taken from advertisements of other similar brands like how the sentences are written and placed in an advertisement. After the sentence framing, adding power words to spice up the advertisement will definitely make a winning ad campaign. 

Mark Moebius
MILJONAIR
636-300-9000
http://about.me/markmoebius

The way Internet advertising has behaved lately, it may well take 50 years to get there.

More than 1 billion people frequent the Internet daily. Americans alone spent $69 billion buying things online in 2004. eMarketer, a market research firm, predicts that e-commerce will climb to $139 billion in 2008. American Internet advertising revenues boomed to $7.3 billion in 2003 and $9.6 billion in 2004. Shares of companies like Yahoo! and Google – sellers of online advertising space and technologies – have skyrocketed.

This is a remarkable reversal from just a few years ago.

All forms of advertising – both online and print – have been in decline in 2000-2. A survey conducted by the New Media Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) – the Internet Ad Revenue Report sponsored by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) – found a 12 percent decline – to $7.2 billion – in Internet advertising in 2001. CMR, The Myers Report, and McCann Erickson have all recorded drops of between 12 and 14 percent in broadcast advertising and of c. 20 percent in radio spots in 2001.

The following year – 2002 – may have been the turning point. A March 2002 Nielsen NetRatings report registered a sharp turnaround in the first quarter of 2002. The number of unique online ads shot up by one third to 70,000. Jupiter Media Matrix predicted a 10 percent increase in online classified ads – to $1.2 billion in 2002. By 2007, it said, online ads will account for 7 percent of total advertising dollars – some $16 billion. Both IDC and INT Media Group spawned similar prognostications for the weaker Asia-Pacific market.

CMR forecast a 5.3 percent growth in online ad revenues in 2002 – compared to an overall average of 2.5 percent. This optimistic projection is based on expected performance in the – hopefully, more buoyant – third and fourth quarters of 2002.

Still, it was clear in early 2002 that ,even if this surge materializes, online advertising would be almost 7 percent below its level only two years before and vertiginously below projections touted by “professionals” as late as January 2001. Internet.com quoted another gloomy prediction, by Goldman Sachs analyst, Anthony Noto: “The likelihood of an online ad rebound remains questionable in the near term.” Moreover, growth in advertising in local papers, radio spots, and TV spots was expected to outpace the recovery in online ads.

In hindsight, some advertising categories indeed didn’t make it. Cable, syndication, consumer magazines, national newspapers, outdoor, and B2B magazines continued to post sharp decreases.

A sign of the times in 2002 may have been IAB’s multi-million dollar advertising campaign. IAB is the online publishing and ad sales industry’s largest trade association. In 2002, it tried to pitch the Internet to advertisers in what looked like a desperate effort to increase online ad spending.

Internet.com reviewed the campaign in a June 24, 2002 article:

“The gist of the work is that by encouraging consumers to interact with brand elements, marketers can foster greater awareness, favorability and purchase intent – more so than can static media. The executions share the tagline, ‘Interactive is the active ingredient in the marketing mix.’”

They quoted IAB President and Chief Executive Greg Stuart as saying:

“As we continue to mature as a medium, we need to treat interactive as a brand, and the manner in which we position ourselves as an industry is critical to driving the success and adoption of interactive advertising and marketing in the years ahead. We have to speak with the same voice so that we clearly communicate our unique value to all parties.”

The collapse in Internet advertising had serious and, in some cases, irreversible implications.

In a report for eBookWeb.org I wrote:

“Most content dot.coms were based on ad-driven revenue models. Online advertising was supposed to amortize start-up and operational costs and lead to profitability even as it subsidized free access to costly content. A similar revenue model has been successfully propping up print periodicals for at least two centuries. But, as opposed to their online counterparts, print products have a few streams of income, not least among them paid subscriptions. Moreover, print media kept their costs down in good times and bad. Dot.coms devoured their investors’ money in a self-destructive and avaricious bacchanalia.”

Surprisingly, online advertising did not shrivel only or mainly due to its inefficacy – or avant-garde nature. In a survey conducted in early 2002 by Stein Rogan and Insight Express, an overwhelming four fifths of brand marketers and agency executives felt the the Internet is a mainstream medium and an integral part of the conventional marketing mix. Close to 70 percent rated their opinion regarding the effectiveness of online advertising as more positive now than it was 12 months before. A full sixty percent said that their clients are less resistant to interactive marketing than they were.

So, what went wrong?

According to classical thinking, advertising is concerned with both information and motivation. It imparts information to potential consumers, users, suppliers, investors, the community, or other stakeholders. It motivates consumers to consume, investors to invest, voters to vote, and so on.

Yet, modern economic signal theory allocates to advertising an entirely different – though by no means counterintuitive – role.

From the eBookweb.org report:

“Advertising signals to the marketplace the advertiser’s resilience, longevity, wealth, clout, and dominance. By splurging money of advertising, the advertiser actually informs us – the ‘eyeballs’ – that it is here to stay, sufficiently affluent to finance its ads, stable, reliable, and dominant. If firm X invested a million bucks in advertising – it must be worth more than a million bucks – goes the signal. If it invested so much money in promoting its products, it is not a fly-by-night. If it can throw money at an ad campaign, it is stable and resilient.”

Online advertising dilutes this crucial signal and drowns it in noise. Advertisers stopped advertising online because the medium’s noise to signal ratio rendered their ads ineffective or even repulsive. Internet users – a “captive audience” – not only became inured to the messages – both explicit and implicit – but found the technology irritating.

Many react with hostility to pop-up ads, for instance. They simply tune off or install ad-filtering software. All major Web browsers allow their users to avoid pop-up ads altogether. But banner ads and embedded ads are an integral part of the Web page and cannot be avoided easily.

Thus desensitized, users rebel.

“They resent the intrusion, are incensed by the coercive tactics of advertisers, nerve wrecked by protracted download times, and unnerved by the content of many of the ads. This is not an environment conducive to clinching deals or converting to sales.”

There are two sources of noise in Internet advertising.

Free advertising misses a critical element in the aforementioned signal. Information about the purported financial health and future prospects of advertisers is conveyed only by paid ads. Free adverts tell us nothing about the advertiser. This simple lesson seems to be lost on the Internet which is swamped by free hoardings: free classifieds, free banner ads, free ad exchanges. Worse, it is often difficult to tell a paid ad from a free one.

Then there is the issue of credibility. Dot.coms – the leading online advertisers – are rarely associated with truth in advertising. Internet ads are still afflicted by scams, false promises, faulty products, shoddy or non-existent customer care, broken links, or all of the above. Users distrust Web advertising and ignore it.

The Internet is being appropriated by brick-and-mortar corporations and governments. Global branding will transform online ads into interactive renditions and facsimiles of offline fare. Revenue models are likely to change as well. Subscription fees and “author-pays” will substitute for ad revenues. The days of advertising-sponsored free content are numbered.

Mark Moebius
MILJONAIR
636.300.9000
http://about.me/markmoebius

Businesses spend too many dollars, however, on ads that simply will not result in increased sales and profits. These ads are poorly conceived, poorly written, poorly designed, poorly targeted, and poorly placed.

Sounds like a poor way to do business, doesn’t it?

I often ask clients (as tactfully as possible), why they have run a particular ad. I get a lot of blank stares. A few tense moments will pass while the client tries to think of a clever answer. “To get the company name out in front of the public so I can get more business.” they reply, with some relief.

This poor soul has just described a lack of a well defined goal, which leads almost inevitably to what I call an institutional ad. An institutional ad can best be described as one which identifies the advertiser and lists address, telephone number, hours of operation, and (maybe) the company logo. That’s it. What a terrible waste of money!

Unless your company grosses a billion dollars a year, you can’t afford to do institutional ads. If your company does gross over a billion dollars a year…you’re probably too smart to run institutional ads.

Every ad you run must result in increased sales and profits and an enhanced image for your company. Every ad should make the customer a solid offer and give the customer sound reasons to buy from you now. Remember, the customer is sitting back and asking, “What can you do for me?” If you’re careful to answer that question with a powerful offer and reasons to buy now, you’re on your way to advertising success…which results in increased sales and profits.

How can you improve your chances of increasing sales?

Let’s look at some profit-producing ideas…

SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP (aka MILJONAIR)
Very few businesses are prepared or qualified to produce quality advertising. If you spend more than $2,000 per month in advertising, you should seriously consider hiring a qualified advertising professional. There are any number of skilled freelancers who can develop strategy, and create your marketing materials with a keen eye to using proven methods and techniques.

Good advertising talent always pays it’s own way through increased sales and profits, improved cost-effectiveness, reduced selling costs, and shortened selling cycles.

If your resources are limited, don’t feel lost. There’s no reason why you can’t learn to write an effective ad. That’s what the rest of this article is all about…how you can create advertising that sells.

FOLLOW A PROVEN FORMULA
One of the oldest and most useful formulas for ad design takes its name from the opera Aida by Giuseppe Verde. In this case the letters A-I-D-A stand for ATTENTION, INTEREST, DESIRE, AND ACTION.

In it’s simplest form this formula serves as a structural blueprint. It guides us to: (1) Get the prospect’s Attention, (2) Foster his or her Interest in your offer, (3) build Desire for your product or service and (4) Generate some type of Action on the part of the buyer.

As we expand on each of these elements individually, you’ll discover for yourself how to apply the formula to your specific situation.

ATTENTION (The Headline)

Hit your prospect right between the eyes with a magic wand. How? With a powerful benefit headline. The headline is the most important single element of your ad. You have two to three seconds to stop the reader as he or she passes by. You must stop the reader, and interest them in your benefit, if you expect them to read further.

A powerful headline will (1) stop the reader (2) isolate and qualify your best prospects, and (3) pull your reader into the sub-heads and body copy.

How do you write the attention-getting headline? First, carefully review all the benefits of-use of your product or service. Second, take your most important benefit and weave that benefit into your headline. Use action words to describe the benefit to one individual reader.

Here are some examples…

“Save 50% On Office Supplies…Send For Your Free Catalog Today !”

“How YOU Can Create Advertising That SELLS!”

“New! Amazing Techniques That You Can Use To Land A High-Paying Job…Today!”

“How To Design Profit-Producing Web Sites That SELL!”

APPEALING TO BUSINESS EXECUTIVES

When writing your ad to a business-to-business audience you should keep in mind the six key benefits most likely to get attention:

1.Save Money 2.Save Time 3.Increase Sales 4.Increase Profits 5.Enhance Image 6.Boost cash flow

Most other benefits are subordinate to these key six. I call them the”Business Benefit Six-Pack.” Show your customer how your product or service provides these benefits, and you will dramatically improve your results.

INTEREST AND DESIRE> (The Offer, Body Copy, Benefits-Benefits- Benefits)

You build interest in your product or service (and the desire to buy) by making the customer a compelling offer and by describing as many benefits as possible in simple and interesting terms.

Tip # 1: Top ad pros always write the ad first, then buy whatever space necessary to display the ad message with clarity and power.

Tip # 2: Words sell…graphic design displays the words in a visually appealing way. Don’t confuse the two. No amount of trendy design will make a poorly written ad sell for you. Good design reinforces good copy…it cannot take the place of it! The implication for internet marketers is that content is king. Avoid glitsy, moving graphics that only distract from your message and increase load times. Good design and good copy should work synergistically.

Tip #3: Long copy sells…as long as it’s good copy. I call it “greased slide” copy. You get the reader on the top of the slide when he reads a powerful headline, and he can’t get off until he has taken the action asked for (i.e., ordered the product, made the trip to the store, dialed the phone, clicked the order/inquiry button, filled out the on-line order, etc.).

ACTION(Ask For The Order)

Now comes the moment of truth. You must ask for the order. Give reasons for the customer to buy now…and make it easy for him to do so. In direct response marketing, this will involve a coupon for mail orders, a toll-free order line, an e-mail address, an on-line order form, a fax order line..any means to make it easy and simple to order!

Take the fear out of the purchase. Give solid guarantees. Offer secure ordering for on-line customers. Show testimonials from satisfied customers.

Show what the customer is going to lose if he doesn’t order now.

If you are a retailer, include a map to your store(s) (newcomers love them). Show the credit cards you accept, list the hours of operation, tell them about your friendly staff, include a special coupon or other incentive. In other words, “Roll out the red carpet.”

INVEST IN FUTURE PROFITS

So there you have it. A primer on good advertising. If I’ve piqued your interest to learn more, then check out the other articles available at this resource.

Remember, bad advertising…no matter what the media…is an unproductive expense.

Good advertising is an investment in future profits!

Good advertising and good management go together. You can’t have a successful business on-line or off-line—without both.

Mark E. Moebius
MILJONAIR
636.300.9000
3009000.com