More about advertising by BIG Mike McDaniel

Advertising is not a substitute for good sales technique and superb customer service. Inserting an ad in a handy newspaper to call attention to a line of goods will not sell those goods unless you can back it up with intelligent, well directed sales efforts in the store. Sales technique and service must follow advertising and unless it does advertising is a failure.

The function of advertising is to bring prospective buyers into the store; nothing more. How you advertise, how much you advertise and where you advertise, can all contribute to advertising’s success or failure. Assuming you do an adequate job of promoting your products through advertising, the visitors will come. Your job, then, is to convert them to customers.

When the visitors arrive, everyone in your employ must be ready for the task. Any enthusiasm created by your marketing efforts will cool quickly if greeted by sour faces and dour attitudes within the store, or worse, expecting the customer to crawl under the counter or up a ladder to get what was advertised.

Some merchants believe a "test" of advertising is to hide the item promoted and make the customer ask. If no one inquires, advertising obviously doesn’t work. People are basically shy and will not ask, fearing they didn’t hear or read the ad correctly, since the item is not prominently displayed. Rather than risk the embarrassment of hearing "no, Stupid, we didn’t advertise anything like that", they will leave the store, perhaps never to return. The first step to back up your advertising is to display the advertised products in a conspicuous location with signage supporting the ads. "Ah hah!.. this must be what we read about. Here it is!".

But NOT in the front window. For advertising to work, your visitors must be converted by your salespeople. If the advertised product is in the window, the visitor can make a decision not to explore further based on a quick first impression. At least give your salespeople a fighting chance to "one on one" with a prospective customer.

Don’t blame the advertising if you can not convert visitors into customers. Or worse, if you run them off before anyone has a chance to convert them.

Everyone in the store should know the items being advertised and be able to explain or demonstrate them.

Question your advertising if there are no (or few) visitors. Question your sales efforts if there are visitors but no (or few) conversions into customers.

Advertising will pay handsome dividends when the service within the store is directed intelligently. Advertised goods should be displayed prominently and demonstrated easily by willing workers. Unless you can render such service, on a consistent basis, don’t advertise. Sell out.

For more about advertising, get my article "Do Your Radio Ads Work?" Mike@BIGIdeasGroup.com http://BIGIdeasGroup.com

©2005 BIG Mike McDaniel All Rights Reserved Mike@BIGIdeasGroup.com BIG Mike is a Professional Speaker and Small Business Consultant with over 30 years experience, http://BIGIdeasGroup.com

Subscribe to "BIG Mike’s BIG Ideas" Newsletter MailTo:subscribe-956603364@ezinedirector.net

If you are an ardent web surfer and MLMer like I am, then I am sure you would have seen the sales pitch "Give away free broadband and earn £27 GBP each time".

Depending on which side of the fence you are, this product is either God’s gift to freebies enthusiasts, MLMers and all paying ISP subscribers or it is the biggest scam yet, bar none.

For those still in the dark, let me fill in the blanks for you. A new ISP service will be launched in October 2004 that will be offering its subscribers internet connections at speeds "Faster than Broadband". This service will be available worldwide and get this, you can now get a free connection just by submitting your name and email address.

Among other things, JUICE:

   - Will work with any PC or Mac with 9600 kbps modem upwards.

   - Will work with any Internet connection including dial-up,
 ISDN, BROADBAND, GSM, GPRS and wireless connections in
 any country as long as you have a telephone line.

   - Requires no cabling, engineers and no need to alter your
 PC in any way.

   - Guarantees connection speeds 40 times faster than dial-up
 and 4 times faster than broadband.

   - Promises that you will never have to pay for this service
 if you sign up before October 1, 2004.

For those who are not too technologically savvy, I guess you will ask "What’s wrong with that? Sign me up!"

Here is where the detractors of "JUICE" smell a SCAM - and I will excuse your outright laughter at these claims.

   - You will never see another dead, blank or irrelevant page
 ever again and if you do, they will pay you £500 GBP.

   - You will NOT get another Spam email EVER, but if you do
 they will pay you £100 GBP in compensation.

   - You are guaranteed to get a minimum connection speed of 2MB
 with 100% uptime. If Juice fail to meet either or both they
 will pay you £500 GBP per failure.

   - YOU will NEVER receive a virus or worm in your email inbox
 again as Juice operate up to the millisecond software to
 stop the same, but if you do get one they will pay you £500
 GBP compensation.

   - JUICE will be able to block every porn and adult site on
 the Internet if you choose to filter it and if they fail,
 you will be paid £200 GBP per reported instance.

   - JUICE can STOP your child from chatting to people who
 pretend to be children in chat rooms by using amazing
 breakthrough IP filtration and parenthesis technology.

Amazingly, this company promises to pay you £27 GBP for every person who you introduce to this service and they are accepting 80 million free subscribers by October 2004. They will also pay each affiliate £1.79 GBP for each person their downline introduces for ten levels down. Assuming they meet their target and my math is correct, that is in excess of £ 2 billion payment even before the product is launched!.

Scam, or the opportunity of the century? You can decide for yourself by visiting these two websites for more details. The first promotes Juice while the second expresses opinion of its detractors.

  http://www.juiceboosted.com/index.php?RequestId=2&Id=qky5uxt

  http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/51529

If you find this opportunity too tempting to ignore you may wish to take the precaution of not providing Email addresses you have used to set up your Paypal, Stormpay or other secure transaction account.
Similarly, it may not be advisable to provide details of bank accounts and credit cards if in doubt.

As one MLMer promoting JUICE points out, if you take the right precautions you can only be scammed out of your email address. His advice for the ultra-cautious, open a throwaway email account.

Eservices & Globalsales Inc.
michael_daniels3@hotmail.com
 
Copyright 2004

Question: What do you think the most important part of any ad is?

Your company name?  Your telephone number?  Your offer?

Look at your own advertising.  What stands out?  What is in the largest print?  If it’s your company name or logo hold out your wrist so I can whack it with a stick.

What’s the answer?  THE HEADLINE!!

You see, without a good compelling headline it won’t matter much how great your copy or you offer is, because few will ever read it.

REMEMBER: The Only Job Of A Headline Is To Get The Reader To Read The First Paragraph.

It should be big, bold, dark and easy to read.  But more importantly, it must force the reader to read on.

"HEADLINE TEST"

How do you know you have a powerful, effective headline? 

Here’s a great acid test: separate the headline from everything else, out of context, and treat it as a classified ad; nothing but the headline and a response instruction….then ask yourself if people would respond.

So if your headline is, say, the name of your company, the classified ad would read:

“Acme Mortgage, No. 1 in service
and reliability.  For more info,
call 1-800-000-0000."

Trust me, that does NOT work. 

But if the headline is;

"6 Things You Must Know Before Getting
A Home Mortgage.  Free Report Tells All.
Call 1-800-000-0000".

That does work.

Put every headline you use in your ads, letters, flyers, brochures to this test.

Tips For Stronger Headlines

1. Telegraph a dynamic benefit or promise.

 (You want to evoke emotion in every advertisement, always answering the reader’s questions, “What’s in it for me?  And why should I continue reading this?”)

Example:  "You Can Laugh At Money Worries — If You Follow This Simple Plan"

2. Add "How To" to the beginning.

Example:    "How To Escape the Debt Rat-Race And Get Debt-Free, Fast….."

3. "Flag" your targeted prospects.  Let them know who the ad is talking too. 

Example:  "Credit Card Payment Sufferers: How To End The Pain In 3 Days!"

4. Arouse curiosity. 

Example:  "What Your Banker Doesn’t Want You To Know"

5. Use meaningful specifics.

(3 days is more "specific" than "in days").

Example:  "I Instantly Saved $103,239.83 and Never Took The TV Remote Out Of My Hand"

6. Use powerful attention-grabbing words.

(Like "Warning", "Guaranteed", "New", “Now.")

Example:   "WARNING: Credit Card Users May Be Paying To Much"

For a free instant reference guide that reveals time tested formulas to create dynamite, attention-getting headlines visit: http://www.leadgenerationadvertising.com/

Shawn Meldrum has spent the last two decades marketing everything from almonds to landscape lighting.  He currently specializes in marketing for mortgage brokers, loan officers and real estate agents.  For free mortgage marketing articles and much more visit: http://www.mortgagemarketingtips.com

You may be aware that in a basketball game the assistant coaches keep an almost unending list of personal statistics for each player.  Rebounds, assists, points, minutes played, etc.

Why is that?

Because they know that these individual statistics all add up to the bottom line. 

The final score. 

If they can achieve even a small incremental improvement in these individual statistics for each player this will have a compound affect on the final score. 

And of course, it helps them know which players to give the most playing time too. 

In marketing your business you should be just as disciplined. Which products and which ads and which media should you give the most playing time?  Do you know?

What’s the point of designing and implementing an advertising campaign if you don’t know if it worked or if it was better than the last one? 

What a waste.

How do you know where the best place is to spend your advertising dollars? 

By tracking everything. 

Incoming calls, emails, walk-ins, website visitors, etc. 

Train yourself and your staff to always ask these questions.  Where did they come from?  How did they hear about you?  Which ad did they call on? 

Here is an example:  Let’s say you place a classified ad in the newspaper at a cost of $135.00 offering a free report on your product.  You could track the incoming calls in many ways (for instance by directing them to a free recorded message with a unique extension number or simply by asking them where they heard about the offer when they call). 

Let’s say you receive 12 calls on this ad and 2 of them end up as completed  sales.

What is your cost per prospect?

(Cost of Ad) / (Number of Calls) = Cost Per Prospect

$135.00 / 12 = $11.25

Your cost per prospect is $11.25

What is your conversion rate of prospects to sold clients?

(Number of Sold Clients) / (Number of Prospects)  = Conversion Rate

2 / 12 = .17 (or 17%)

Your conversion rate of prospects to sold clients is 17%

What is your cost per sold client?

(Cost of Ad) / (Number of Sold Clients) = Cost Per Sale

$135.00 / 2 = $67.50

Your marketing cost per sale is $67.50.

Now let’s say you place a display ad in a large local corporate newsletter and it costs you $450.  You get 27 calls which turn into 4 sales. 

Which ad is performing better?

What is your cost per prospect for this ad?

(Cost of Ad) / (Number of Calls) = Cost Per Prospect

$450.00 / 27 = $16.67

Your cost per prospect is $16.67

What is your conversion rate of prospects to sold clients?

(Number of Sold Clients) / (Number of Prospects)  = Conversion Rate

4 / 27 = .15 (or 15%)

Your conversion rate of prospects to sold clients is 15%

What is your cost per sold client?

(Cost of Ad ) / (Number of Sold Clients) = Cost Per Sale

$450.00 / 4 = $112.50

Your marketing cost per sale is $112.50.

Depending on your products and profit margin both of these ads may be performing well enough to merit continuation.  However, based on this information we would want to look for other opportunities to expand our use of the classified ad first.

This may seem a little basic but this information is extremely valuable and often overlooked. 

The outcome of most athletic contests is normally decided by a very small margin,  sometimes by as little as tenths of an inch or hundredths of a second, missing that pass completion by half a step or missing one basket. 

One would suspect that most winners and losers in business are also determined by very small margins. 

Not giving that extra little bit of caring and customer service.  Not having your presentation skills honed, not including testimonials with your sales information.  Not having the most effective headline in your ad or not having a headline at all.

And worst of all, not knowing which ads are working and which should be put on the bench.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.  Then quit.  There’s no use being a damn fool about it.”  - W.C. Fields

Shawn Meldrum has spent the last two decades marketing everything from almonds to landscape lighting.  He currently specializes in marketing for mortgage brokers, loan officers and real estate agents.  For free mortgage marketing articles and much more visit: http://www.MortgageMarketingTips.com/

MANY INDIVIDUAL ELEMENTS COME INTO PLAY MAKING A SUCCESSFUL AD:

1. PERSUASIVE SELLING COPY. The wording is the single most important element in determining a successful ad. What counts most is what you say and how you say it.

2. PLACEMENT IN APPROPRIATE PUBLICATION. This might seem obvious, but it is often neglected. If the right people don’t see your ad, they can’t respond.

3. SPACE/PRICE IN PROPORTION. You simply can’t sell high priced merchandise from a small classified or one inch ad space. These should be considered as a low cost means of building a mailing list by asking readers to write for more information. If you expect to sell directly from an ad, the size of the ad will have to increase in proportion to the selling price. Two or three inches of space for items selling for 42 to $5… half or full page for items selling for more than $5 up to $20. When the price goes above $20 it is usually best to run inquiry ads and follow up with a printed sales presentation. There are exceptions, but this is a fairly safe rule to follow.

4. TESTING ALL THE ELEMENTS. Unlike institutional advertising (toothpaste, cars, soap, etc.) which must rely on extensive market research, analysis, surveys and a lot of psychology to achieve success, mail order selling has a built-in "watchdog" to guard against waste and loss, and to help assure that every dollar spent will produce a profit…or at least tell you why it didn’t, so you won’t make the same mistake twice. This method (unique to mail order) is called KEYING. By inserting a number or letter (or combination) into every ad you run, you can tell which ad works in which publication and in which issues it works best. More sophisticated forms of this testing technique can be carried thru by trying a new headline, a different testimonials,guarantees, etc. The testing technique know no limits, but there is also danger in becoming test-happy. To use the testing principle effectively, be certain that the results will justify the time and expense of making the test. If it merely means adding to your paperwork without adding profit or reducing cost,it isn’t worth it.

Copyright 2004 by DeAnna Spencer
This article may be reproduced freely on the Internet as long as the resource box remains intact.

DeAnna Spencer is a virtual assistant that helps entrepreneurs run a successful business by providing affordable administrative help. She also publishes a blog for small business owners. Visit this small business resource today.

Mail order is a very complicated business. Every phase must be planned, analyzed and tested. The right demand products must be selected. The correct type of ads must be placed in the proper media and a multitude of other details must be attended to constantly.

A great number of people enter the mail order field every week. When they find in many instances that only three responses are received from 100 mailings, or that a $100 ad in a magazine with 4 million readers pulls 15 inquiries, it appears hopeless. Especially after reading the glowing ads portraying the $THOUSANDS$ that can be made overnight from your kitchen table! The mail order enthusiast is led to believe that he should be able to hit it big immediately with little work. Dream on. When he finds that this is not the case he drops out before he has a chance to learn. Many people do this because it will take too much of his prime TV time, or that it will cost too much to get started on the ROAD TO PROFITS! CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, IT DOES COST MONEY TO MAKE MONEY. Much more than the $10 or $20 often advertised as the total amount necessary to create a substantial income in the mail order business.

Many are continuously making fortunes in the mail order business. However, if they can do it and you are one who thoroughly enjoys the world of mail order, then there is no reason why you cannot make it also.

REMEMBER AS YOU PROCEED ON YOU WAY TO ULTIMATE SUCCESS, THAT THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FAILURE . . . 95% of the people in mail order DO NOT FAIL IN THE MAIL ORDER BUSINESS . . . THEY JUST DO NOT SUCCEED ! ! ! !

Copyright DeAnna Spencer 2004

This article may be reproduced and redistributed freely on the Internet as long as the content remains the same and the resource box is left intact.

DeAnna Spencer is a virtual assistant that helps entrepreneurs run a successful business by providing affordable administrative help. She also publishes a blog for small business owners. Visit this small business resource today.

What if you can understand and control your customer’s mind? What if you can influence, persuade and motivate your customers to buy from you? Well, I’m not talking about a magic trick or lay down a lesson of motivation. It’s about understanding the different reactions made by the human mind in various situations. I’m going to briefly discuss 3 key aspects of psychological secrets that you can apply in your promotion efforts for a certain increase in customer response. They are,

1. Curiosity
2. Because / Reason Why
3. Greed

Curiosity

What is it? Curiosity can be defined as “the desire to know the unexplored” in simple terms. People want to know things that many others don’t know. They like to discover the ‘secrets’ that only some people know. The desire to know is a compelling force in marketing, so we have:

* Secrets of the Diet Industry Uncovered
* What Time Share Companies Don’t Want You To Know
* Msteries of A Youthful Appearance Revealed
* The Hidden Keys of Car Buying

People don’t want

* How to Diet Successfully or
* A Guide to Buying Cars

for example. First set of titles surely outshines the second set of titles because the former takes advantage of curiosity. You must design your advertising in a way that arouses curiosity. Getting to see the powerful of curiosity? (When compared the two sets above)

Because / Reason Why

Telling people a valid reason for your action is another great influencer in human behavior. People will trust you if you can offer a reason for what you are doing. Say you offer a 50% discount on your digital cameras for the last 10 days in this month. People are too smart today and start to think it’s probably because you want to get rid of your defective products or because its 2 days before the expiry date (in case of food items). Wouldn’t you and I think the same way when we see a similar message?

Give them a true believable reason. For example, let’s say you have a slow time of the year and you want to increase your business during this period. Make a special, limited time offer. Offer to throw in an extra free bonus or a special discount simply because it’s your "slow time" and you need to pay your staff anyway.

Don’t you think people will believe it? If you can give a solid reason for a particular action, people will have no doubts about what you say - there is simply very little room for doubt.

Greed

People are greedy. I’m not talking about food but ‘greedy’ in a marketing perspective. Everybody feels from “what’s in it for me” syndrome. They really want to know how your product can benefit them. Notice that, the "customer’s will buy benefits and not products". Confused? You’ll see what I mean in a minute.

Analyze the following list of benefits written about a digital camera.

* Can store over 200 photos
* Supports every color you can see
* Manual included so you can start even if you have no previous experience

This will certainly open the eyes of a person who has an idea of bu’ying a camera one day. This is in complete contrast to the following, where the ‘product’ is described.

* Has a memory of 6000k
* Supports 16-bit colors
* 60-page manual included

Customers don’t want a memory of 6000k, but they want to store 200 photos. Get it? You must clearly tell the customer how will they benefit by bu’ying your produc’t. You can then describe the prod’uct itself, when they are looking for more information.

To make this point clearer, understand that,

"Customer’s will bu’y benefits and ‘not’ the features."

Okay.. Whats the difference between features and benefits? Features describe the product itself - what it has. Benefits describe the advantages a customer gets by bu’ying the product. The first list above is a benefits list and the second is a features list.

Benefits will drive customers to explore more information about the product. This is when you should give them the features and describe the product itself. To summarize, get customers into looking for more info by telling them the benefits and then describe the prod’uct. This will assure the best results.

I laid out just 3 powerful tactics here. There are many more ‘explored’ and ‘unexplored’ secrets, and hope you can discover a few too. Please let me know if you do. I hope this information was helpful to you and wish you good luck and success in your future mark’eting efforts.

Fahad Hassen is the publisher of “Forbidden Psychological Secrets" eBook, which has over 25 proven secrets of controlling your customer’s ’subconcoius’ mind and influencing them to b’uy from you.

Visit his site at http://www.mafoor.com/forbidden.

We already know this from our history books. If you want to make money today, you must first look back in time to the first time in history that a large portion of our country all tried to get rich at the same time in the same place. The first discovery of gold was at Sutter’s Mill by James W. Marshall in 1948, Mr. Sutter’s mill contractor and builder. This discovery sprang thousands upon thousands of ambitious individuals to get rich which we refer to as the "Gold Rush."

As you can imagine, these people were not that much different from the thousands of new entrepreneurs trying to get rich on the Internet. But out of all those thousands of people seeking their fortunes, only about 4% to 6% of them even found enough gold to feed themselves. And history books tell us that less than 1% ever became wealthy. This is so similar to the Internet of today that the two are worth comparing.

BUT Wait! A completely different group of people became extremely wealthy in those exact same gold fields…

Who were these people who managed to get rich during those hard times?

They were the people who opened little stores not far from where all the people were digging and panning for gold! These people were the smartest group because they chose to sell the tools that they knew all those gold diggers were going to need. This special group of individuals some how knew that it was a waste of time to dig and pan for gold. This amazing group of people wanted something with better odds. They wanted a sure thing!

They knew that the miners couldn’t mine unless they had clothing, tools, and food. So these genius store owners made their fortunes selling the shovels, jackets, pants, wheel barrows, picks, pans, beer, food, hats, medicine and etc. So it didn’t matter to them if a miner found gold and got rich or whether that miner couldn’t find an ounce of gold. It just didn’t matter to the men and women who owned the stores because no matter what, all those people in search of gold still needed massive amounts of supplies to live and more tools to keep trying. The shopkeepers were always there to sell all these supplies!

Whether gold was found or not, during any given day, the shop keepers made the same consistent amount of solid income!

Below you’re about to find out why all this is relevant to you and your Internet income.

You now know that history has proven that if you do exactly what the masses of people are doing to get rich, you’ll most likely fail. And you now know that if you provide products or services to that large group of people that are all trying to get rich, you’ll most likely become wealthy. It’s simple! Turn those gold diggers into your customers!

Just for a moment, separate yourself from the rest of them - sit back and relax. While sitting there, watch what they are doing; pay attention to what they are looking for and what they are using to get it. Once you have figured these things out you will know what to do to turn them into your customers.

But in case you don’t, here’s the simple answer to how you’re about to turn all of today’s Internet gold diggers into your own customers. First of all, you must ask yourself this question: "What is the single most important thing to all of today’s Internet gold diggers? What do they crave and desire the most?"

The answer is "Traffic." In case you’re new to the Internet, the word "Traffic," of course, means visitors to your web site. It doesn’t take Internet marketers long to figure out that even though they have a professional web site up, not a single person is ever going to visit that web site unless it gets advertised. You have to know where to get traffic and generate MORE traffic.

With all that in mind, I’m about to discuss a very important subject and it may be very controversial to some, and even cause me to lose a few customers but I MUST make my point.

You hear this from people around you, your teachers, your advisors, even television, "knowledge is power." Do you agree?

Please explain.

I’ve asked a few people this same question and some have explained, "Well, yeah, without knowledge you have no authority."

"Well, it’s obvious, without knowledge you have no power."

"Knowledge is what gets the job done in your everyday task."

While these are good explanations, I disagree. You’re baffled. Totally understandable because I’m probably the only person on Earth standing up to this worldwide, coined phrase. So I better begin explaining myself before I start receiving hate mails. Allow me to explain by using an example.

Electricity.

Can you agree electricity is power? It has the power to turn your lights on, it’s what plays your radio, and it’s what starts up your car. Or does it? Electricity doesn’t just magically turn your light on, automatically play your radio nor does it mysteriously start your engine. No. The electricity HAS TO BE APPLIED.

Like electricity, knowledge doesn’t magically write your sales letter, knowledge doesn’t automatically file your folders and knowledge doesn’t mysteriously tune up your car. It has to be "APPLIED."

"Where are you going with this," you might ask.

Simply this, "knowledge" is only POTENTIAL POWER. All the knowledge that you hold within you is nothing unless you put it to use. That’s it. If after reading this article and you decide to do nothing then you will have wasted your time and effort. Unless you apply what I’ve taught you, you will have thrown away your money. You can learn from my 4 years of experience or you can ignore it, the choice is yours.

I’m not here to change your mind about anything, I’m just pointing out important aspects to consider and I can only hope it has opened your mind and drive you to take action.

Van Lam is a business opportunity reviewer who speaks his mind and shares his thoughts. He has written a new ebook called, "The Hidden Secrets Revealed." Visit his web site to read the reviews and register at his Private Forum for plenty of free products to download and to chat with other network marketers and online opportunity enthusiasts. http://www.networkersdebut.com

In today’s fast paced environment, interaction with family and friends is often relegated to a few left over minutes here and there, leaving many people feeling isolated.

Radio fills the gap. Radio provides a one on one emotional experience. It creates a connection that is a personal and unique experience for each listener. It’s just you and the voice on the radio, speaking to you.

TV and print media are mass media. Eliciting an emotional response from print is almost an impossibility. TV is emotional but not personal. You know it’s you and the thousands of others who are watching, besides which it’s beyond the budget of many businesses.

As an advertiser, you have an opportunity to speak directly to your customer, using words and phrases that have meaning for them. Radio can relate messages that have synergy with campaigns in other media, but shouldn’t be written in the same style. Effective radio is a conversation with the customer. It’s your chance to tell a story.

How interesting would you find a story that started with the company name or, “ We have friendly, knowledgeable staff. Stop in and see us. We have 20 colours of sofas in a variety of sizes and styles.” Boring isn’t it? So why do so many advertisers do it?

It’s easy to talk about your business and what you want to sell. It takes more time and effort to find out what your customer wants and talk in terms of their buying motivation, but it’s worth it. It’s easier to get quick results by announcing a sale, than it is to build a relationship with the consumer. Where do you think those sale shoppers will be when your competition is having a sale, not at your business I bet?

Another of radio’s great strengths is its ability to reach a defined market segment. When you buy newspaper advertising, you buy the whole and very general readership, all the demographics and special interest groups. Now it’s not a bad thing to reach more people, but if you have a limited budget you can spend it very quickly in your daily paper, on one ad,…. one day, ….one time. That’s not great frequency and just hit and miss reach. What if your best prospects don’t read the paper on the day your ad runs?

Radio gives you an opportunity to target the age and interests of your segment of the market. With a budget large enough to cover the cost of a reasonable sized ad in your daily newspaper, you can buy a whole week of radio commercials.

Don’t get put off by commercial prices at the top stations. It is not about reaching a huge number of prospects a few times. It’s about reaching a smaller number of listeners enough times for them to think they know and like you, and want to do business with you. Spend time and money creating a message that conveys a message your customers can relate to.

Have you ever bought something you just had to have, and then gone home and explained logically to a family member why it was an essential? You bought on emotion and justified with logic, the same thing your customer does. Forget generic when it comes to radio. This is one time it pays to get personal.

In the US the norm is 60 seconds for a radio commercial in Canada 30 seconds. If you’ve got a great story to tell and you’re a good storyteller, then use 60 seconds otherwise the shorter commercial is better. The only thing worse than boring the listener for 30 seconds, is boring them for 60. Frequency to raise awareness for your business name and purpose in speaking to them can be achieved economically by adding a schedule of sponsorships and/or 10-15 second messages.

This is an example of a 30 second radio script that connected with the customer. How do we know it was good? Sales increased.

Unbeknownst to your co-workers, you are a connoisseur. Sure, you have tattoos and a problem finding your inner-self, but you crave adventure and You! Know! Food! So, in this world of new awareness, reward yourself with a world of flavours. Wrapzone. An ambrosia of foods, and devilish sauces harmoniously heaped on a tortilla. The silver gift wrap is free every day! Experience-Full-Fillment. Wrapzone.

On radio, as in all your advertising, you need to keep it simple. A soliloquy well read is much more effective than something with too many words, multiple focus, lots of sound effects or a conversation between a two or more people.

Points to remember:

Radio is an opportunity, use it to your advantage, some of your competitors never will.

Negotiate; the price isn’t always the price.

Don’t get too hung up on the price per commercial. Ask for pre-emptable no charge commercials to augment your campaign.

Find out when your commercials will run. If you choose a station based on the number of commercials included in a package make sure they are not bumping up the numbers by running them all 6pm – 5am.

If you have a small budget focus on one daypart to increase the number of times a listener hears your message.

Writing and production are included in the price but that doesn’t mean the message they create for you will be effective. You need to be involved in the creative process.

You can be too creative. Don’t make listeners strain to try to figure out what you are saying.

If you haven’t got the budget to do a heavy enough campaign to make an impact, save your money until you do.

Ask how the station schedules their commercials. If they have long commercial blocks you have to work especially hard to stand out from the 5 or 6 (or more) other messages.

Keep your message simple.

Nancy Fraser worked in radio for over 20 years. She owned and operated her own specialty retail store, and held Management and Sales Executive positions in media and communications. Free information and tools on effective advertising and marketing are available in Notable News at http://www.notable-marketing.com

Achieving sales is probably the biggest challenge a web business owner has. It requires a balanced mix of the right products, competitive pricing, optimal web design, aggressive advertising and attracting the right online visitors.

While all of the above are equally important in achieving abundant sales, none of them will work at all if you don’t target the people that are most likely to buy your products or services. These people are known as your target or niche market. Focusing in on your niche market will allow you to find only those that are ready, willing and able to buy what you have to offer.

Your niche market provides you the competitive edge over larger corporations because larger companies tend to market to a much broader range of people. Their promotions are more generalized and less focused. For them, the smaller markets are not worth bothering with. This now becomes your opportunity to capture those highly defined niche markets that they left behind.

Defining your Market

In order to find these people you must first determine who they are. This might sound like a simple or perhaps insignificant question at first but it can possibly make or break the success of your sales if you don’t give it some serious thought. Here’s how to get started.

Think about the following and jot down all those that might apply to people interested in your products or services. Don’t rule out any category completely. Think about each group of people and how they might apply.

Age Group:

infants, Children, teens, young adults, baby boomers, middle aged, elderly or all.

Gender:

Male, female or both

Marital status:

single, married, divorced, widowed or all

Ethnic or religious backgrounds

Occupations:

Executives, doctors, lawyers, housewives, business owners, teachers, blue collar, white collar, students, out of work, etc.

Health Status:

healthy, diseased, home bound, active, sedentary, etc.

Interests:

sports, hiking, music, arts, computers, reading television, animals, home decorating, cars, walking, running, relaxation, health conscious, age conscious, physical fitness, etc.

Income status:

low income, middle income, high income, no income.

Education:

high school dropout, high school, college, MBA PHD, hates school, loves school, etc.

Certainly all categories are not listed above, however these can get you started on thinking about all the possibilities.

Next, it’s important to determine what benefits you are offering. Examine your products or services carefully listing all the benefits that you can think of. Perhaps take a poll of your existing customers and ask them what it is they like about your products or services. What benefits them the most.

Once you have a listed all of the benefits, think about what people would be interested in these benefits based on your list above. Then put them together to assist you in reaching a market that will bring you sales.

Reaching Your Target Market

Search engines are the best way of finding a targeted market because those searching on the web can type in exactly what they are searching for and receive the targeted traffic the search engines so proudly advertise.

But attaining good placement on the search engines is often difficult and time consuming.

Ezines and newsletters are a very effective alternative.

Most ezines cover specific subjects such as finance, marketing, health, internet, etc. Your job will be to find an ezine whose topic matches your target market. To do this you must locate an ezine directory. Directories usually list contact information, advertising rates, and circulation. Once you find a targeted ezine then place your ad. Be sure your ad includes as many of your product benefits as the ad will allow.

The idea is to define your target market specifically enough so that you can find the appropriate place to advertise and then create sales messages that make your readers feel you are talking directly to them.

You’ll be amazed at the amount of traffic you can receive by finding your target market and reaching them in the appropriate location.

Elizabeth McGee has spent 20 years in the service and support industry. She has moved her expertise to the world wide web helping businesses find trusted tools, enhance customer service, build confidence and increase sales. Elizabeth’s sites can be viewed here: http://www.pro-marketing-online.com http://www.homenotion.com

Copyright © 2004 Adlite Enterprises All Rights Reserved.