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Getting
Started With Classified Ads
By Janet Attard
How
do you go about finding someone to type a resume, spray your trees, fix
your refrigerator or put a new roof on your house?
Chances
are one of the sources you use is classified ads.
Small
classified ads are a significant source of customers for many home-based
businesses. An inexpensive three- or four-line ad can deliver customers
who need your product or service now. More importantly, if the ad is run
regularly, it builds future business by making your name familiar and
establishing your credibility.
Getting
good results with a classified ad isn't as simple as dashing off two or
three lines of copy and placing it in the local shopper or weekly
newspaper. A well-written ad placed in the wrong publication or under the
wrong headline, won’t bring in much business. A poorly written ad, no
matter how carefully placed, is a waste of money.
To
get the most mileage out of your classified advertising dollars, keep
these suggestions in mind when you write and place your ad.
Understand
your customer
Many products and
services can be sold to different types of customers. But each type may
have different needs. Your ad should stress your ability to meet those
specific needs. For instance a job seeker may need your help not only
styling their resume, but also writing it. The owner of a small business
may require your services to scan data, type and maintain mailing lists,
or to do statistical typing.
Choose
the right publication
An ad for pool
maintenance services is likely to attract more responses in publications
that circulate in upper-class communities than in a weekly shopper in a
middle class area. Business opportunity advertising is likely to do better
in a middle class weekly shopper than in weekly publications that
circulate in upper income areas.
Be aware that
individuals often read the classified sections of several different
publications, but read each with a different mindset. A business executive
might look in the local newspaper for someone to paint her house, but turn
to a regional business publication to find a contractor to perform similar
services for her business property.
Do
some homework
Study ads that
appear consistently week after week. Determine what makes such ads catch
your attention. Do they mention a benefit, are they set off in some way
from other classified ads on the page? Are they easy to spot because they
fall immediately under a category heading in the classified section?
Make
the first few words count
The first couple
of ads in your classified ad work like a headline does on a display ad.
They must stop the reader's eye from moving down or across the page and
make them want to read the rest of the ad. To do that, those first couple
of words must tell readers the most important benefit your product or
service offers.
Keep
the ad brief and explicit
A good classified
ad is like a telegram: short, clear and commanding. In as few words as
possible, tell what you sell, who should buy it, why they should buy it
from you today, and how to contact you.
Be careful,
though, not to cut too many words out of your copy. Classified ads are
normally billed by the number of words in the ad. Thus, a common mistake
is to try to save money by reducing the number of words in the ad. To make
sure you don't fall into this trap, ask several people who will be honest
with you to read the ad. After they've read it ask them to tell you what
you are selling, whether the ad would make them want to contact you, and
whether the ad make it clear how to contact you.
If they have
difficulty answering those questions, rewrite the ad.
Make
it believable and appropriate
Today's consumers
are more educated and more skeptical than consumers ever were in the past.
If your ad sounds like you are offering something too good to be true,
most people will skip right over your ad. Furthermore if you make
unfounded income claims or health claims that are not substantiated by
scientific evidence, you could get yourself in trouble with the law. To
win customers and avoid trouble, sell with facts, not hype.
Look
for your competitors
Advertise in the
same publications your competitors do. Look through a year's worth of back
issues of a publication. If competitors have been advertising consistently
in that publication for a year, it's likely to be a good place to put your
ad, too.
Test
your ad in several publications
Two publications
that seem to be aimed at the same readers won't necessarily produce the
same results. A Long Island painter who got no response from ads placed in
one weekly newspaper, for instance, got numerous responses from ads in a
competing publication in the same community. The only way to tell which
publications are the best for you is to test your ad in several.
Never test more
than one thing at a time. If you are testing publications, use the same ad
in each publication you test.
Don't
plan to make a killing with one ad
Run each ad long
enough to give it a fair try. Having your business ad appear on a regular
basis builds name recognition and convinces prospects your business is not
a fly-by-night firm.
Proofread
carefully
Be sure you
include a phone number or other contact information in the ad. Have
someone other than yourself proofread your final version for typos and
misspellings.
About the author
Janet Attard is the founder of
the award-winning Business
Know-How small business web site and information resource. Janet is
also the author of The
Home Office And Small Business Answer Book and of Business
Know-How: An Operational Guide For Home-Based and Micro-Sized Businesses with
Limited Budgets. Follow Janet on Twitter at
http://www.twitter.com/JanetAttard.
Copyright 1995-2001, Attard Communications, Inc
Disclaimer
Business Know-How is a trademark of Attard Communications
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