Internet Sales Made Easy – IM Tutorials

"Making Money Online Was Never So EASY!"

Many small businesses don’t get success they deserve from their advertising due to the availability of very few resources. The results are simply flat due to the lack of good ideas for improvements. Whether the ads are put in a local newspaper or are printed in a popular periodical or posted on a website, the money invested should gain the desired outcome. There are some common mistakes small businesses and professional service providers make when designing and posting their advertisements, which leads to the failure of the advertisements.

Bigger is better is a saying that is believed by many. That’s exactly what some of the small firms think when they want to advertise their product. They think bigger and select a medium where they need to invest a lot of money, but do not reach the targeted market. Like if a company specializes in designing diet plans and want to help out people who had disappointing results from their individual diet plans, and the company chooses to advertise a full page in the local paper instead of running advertisements in a health magazine, obviously not many of the dieters will notice the advertisement and it therefore doesn’t get the desired attention.

So the point is to come up with the best campaign, which will increase the probability of the ad getting viewed and the right customers trying to buy the product or sign up for the service. Studies and research can be carried out on the market and targeted audience can be narrowed down. Once getting the list of newspapers and magazines meant for the customers in mind, find out how many readers they have and the cost they ask for posting the ad. Special deals are offered from time to time and can only be found by the watchful eye.

It is estimated that every day people are subjected to around three thousand commercials. That is a huge number and if someone desires to be noticed, he should certainly be different. Not only the services and product sold should be unique in the market, so should be the advertisement.  For example, if a business selling mattresses says, “We sell mattresses”, it will not make a statement and will be passed over as just another mattress advertisement. But if they say, “Our mattresses are of the finest quality”, it will make the advertisement stand out from the crowd. Other catch lines are “Are you suffering from back pain? Perhaps you need to try our mattresses ”, are more specific and will catch the fancy of the people who are suffering from back pain for a long time. The advertisement should also focus on the uniqueness ( is that a word? ) of the product and how it stand up when compared to the competitors’ product.

Focusing on the problems of the customers and giving a solution for them, is what a customer demands. A customer does not buy a product – they buy benefits in the form of a product. The real value of the product should be realized and a clear picture of it should be presented to the customer so they will be able to relate with the product. If the advertisement doesn’t specify the solution it can provide, the customers will never know of it. So focusing on the customers problem is what some ads miss.

The last thing missing in most advertisements is motivation for the customers. If the advertiser has designed the advertisement and the customer had read the advertisement, all efforts and money invested will be wasted if they don’t get up and do something about it. It shouldn’t be assumed that the customer knows what to do – the advertisement should influence the mind of the customer and should tell them what to do. A “call to action” is the final job of the advertisement. It should call for information, or visiting the store or even visiting the online store. The message should sound confident and clear.

"Making Money Online Was Never So EASY!"

Employing a banner ad strategy may be one of the elements you want to incorporate into your overall publicity campaign. Banner ads are an approach that can cost a fair amount of money, but if they are placed in the right spots around the Internet, they can provide a huge return on the investment.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to putting together a successful banner ad.

One of the first things to remember is that a banner ad is meant to accomplish one central function. The banner ad is to grab the attention of the reader long enough to entice the individual to click on the ad to learn more about what you have to offer. As such, you need to be very careful about how you put together the ad.

A very common mistake that people make with banner ads is to try to cram too much information into a very small space. Keep in mind that the ad is not supposed to provide a lot of fine reading. Nor do you necessarily want to make it a point to include your company name or logo in the ad.

What you do want to do is use a short and sweet slogan that acts as the ideal teaser. Keep the amount of words as few as you possibly can. Don’t think that you need to make use of full sentences. You are selling an idea at this point.

Using the right words to convey that idea is far more important than correct grammar. If you find that two words will create a slogan or catch phrase that carries a lot of power, then go for it.

While a company name or a logo can be helpful, chances are you will do much better without cluttering up the banner ad with that information. Logos on the ads are only helpful when the company name and image are well known to the public, and popular to boot.

While all of us hear that good business means getting the company name out there, the fact is that the Internet has altered that philosophy somewhat.

Keep in mind that keeping the look of the ad simple and effective will create the opportunity for people to visit your site and look around. Your company name and logo will be on every page of your site, so the customer will certainly get familiar with your name in no time.

Thinking about the fonts and colors that you use with your ad is also important. This can be somewhat tricky, as you want the banner ad to stand out as it pops up on the screen. The ad should be different enough from the web pages that signal the banner ad to show up, but you also want it to make a point very quickly.

People tend to give a banner ad very little time to make an impression. That means the colors and the fonts can play a big role in providing those critical extra seconds to establish an interest. Bright colors for the background with a contrasting color for the fonts will often make a good impression, and entice the visitor to click through to your web site.

Don’t be afraid of getting too bold with the choice of colors, but do be aware of the type of image you want to cultivate. For example, if you sell natural health products, you may want to make good use of greens in your banner ad. They will help set the tone for your web site.

On the other hand, if you are offering high tech products, electric blues and reds may prove to be fun and winning combination.

Finding the right locations for your banner ads is also important. There is one school of thought that dictates that you worry less about the type of web site and focus more on the amount of traffic that the site generates. Of course, this does not mean that you want your ad associated with content that is completely inappropriate for your products and services.

For example, if you sell faith-based products, you would probably not want your banner ad to show up on an adult dating site. Still, you would want to define a broad range of sites that would be right for your ad, check into the average daily and monthly traffic that is generated by the site, and then make some decisions about placing your ad.

Keep in mind that depending on how you go about arranging for the creation and placement of banner ads, the cost may be minimal or it may be significant. Weigh this information against your budget and determine just how much of your advertising funds can be allocated to the use of banner ads, without hurting the other components in your program.

If you find that banner ads really work well for you, there is always the chance to expand your use of these ads once there is a larger revenue stream to work with.

"Making Money Online Was Never So EASY!"

One of the methods to employ in your plan to drive traffic to your site is pay per click advertising. This particular advertising model has been around since the late 1990’s and has been a means of generating hits for many different businesses with an online presence.

It is not, however, something to jump into without at least some basic training. Pay per click is one of the easiest ways to lose your shirt in a very short time if you do not follow a strict formula of testing and revising your campaigns regularly.

Pay per click advertising can be an excellent way to get the word about your company to a wide audience. The process involves placing an ad that will forward an interested party back to your web site and, done correctly, can produce the desired results almost immediately.

Part of the attraction of pay per click advertising is that the ad owner only pays when someone clicks on the ad and actually follows through to the web site. This can also be part of the problem. If your ads are in the least bit vague, or misleading, you can end up paying for click-throughs that do not end in sales. This, along with a poor choice of keywords, will lead to your ads costing more than they produce.

When it comes to PPC advertising, never forget the importance of keywords. Essentially, keywords are words and phrases that are considered to be common modes of searching the Internet to find desired content.

As an advertiser, your job is to come up with keywords that you believe are likely to take you to web sites that are relevant to the type of business site you currently operate. The rationale is that persons who visit those sites would most likely be interested in the content of your site.

If you manage to find the right web sites for your ads, then the chances of generating clicks to your site are much greater.

While the keyword mode of pay per click advertising is very common, there is also a second method. Known as content match PPC, the principle is still the same.

The main difference is that rather than basing the search on keywords, the results are based on the content of the site. As an example, if you run a site that is dedicated to gardening supplies, then it would be a natural for you to want to place ads on sites dedicated to gardening.

Content matching can be used right along with keywords to create a well rounded pay per click component in your overall publicity campaign.

Finding online resources to help you with the process of placing pay per click ads is relatively easy. One of the most popular approaches is to make use of the Google Adwords program. You can get started by identifying a list of relevant keywords. You can also get help in designing the appearance of your ad, using online tools.

Adwords also includes a number of online tools, so you can keep track of how many visitors get to your web site through those ads. This allows you to stay on top of how much pay per click advertising is costing you each month. By comparing the sales that result from the hits with the cost of your pay per click campaign, you can determine if the program is making money for you.

Another target for your pay per click campaign is online comparison shopping engines. These types of engines often are willing to provide feeds through the placement of ads on their searches.

Just as with the ads on informational web sites, persons can click through to your web site and see what you have to offer. Some of these sites provide you with the ability to see the number of hits, while others do not. Payment for placing the ad on the shopping comparison site may be in the form of a fixed monthly amount or based on a fixed rate per click.

Keep in mind that there is no such thing as an exclusionary pay per click arrangement. This means you can sign up with as many keyword and shopping ad services as you like. In fact, you may do very well to try out several different services, to see which ones seem to provide you with the best matches and coverage, but you should start with a number that you can confidently handle and keep track of daily.

If funds for advertising are limited, go with a well known service, and then add more services as your revenue stream builds to the point you can afford to do so. Remember that your goal is to build a solid foundation for your web site, so it may take some time before you begin to see results.

Disregard stories about overnight success. Chances are you will go for months before you see significant traffic that results in sales.

Pay per click advertising is often an affordable way to launch your advertising campaign. The cost per click is often less than a dollar, so it certainly will not cost a great deal, unless you happen to get a huge number of visitors clicking through to your site.

The law of averages would dictate that of that huge number, enough sales would result to make your investment in the pay per click program well worth your time and the expense. It all comes down to common sense and diligent management of your campaigns. If your product costs $25.00, then you must ensure that you make 5 sales for every $100.00 you spend on advertising. If you only make 4 sales, pause your campaigns and tweak that extra sale out of them. While 4 sales will see you break even, you are not doing it to break even and you have a very small margin before you start to lose money.

My gift to you today is a quality ebook on PPC programs. The post you have just read can, in no way, be considered a tutorial so I am providing the ebook to fill in the blanks. The name of the ebook is called Basic PPC and is approximately 40 pages of no-nonsense information. Simply right-click on the link above and select “Save As” or  “Save Link As”.

"Making Money Online Was Never So EASY!"

Unless you have spent the last few years in a box you will surely have heard of Craigslist. This is one of the most viewed advertising sites on the net, with well over 5 million unique views per month, but in order to make your ads effective there are a few little tips you need to be aware of.

Firstly, as the ads you post are live for 30 to 45 days, depending on category and area, many people simply submit their ads and come back in a month or so and submit another. However, in order to create an effective campaign, you really need to resubmit your ads every 48 hours to keep them at the top of the listings. This is the method for maximum effectiveness, but remember to delete your existing ad before submitting the new one or you could get banned.

There are several methods of getting around the rules of Craigslist, but be aware that while most of these methods are effective, you could get found out at any time. Other members, as well as moderators, are viewing these ads every day and it only takes one of those people to report your ad and you could quickly be without one of the most effective advertising mediums available.

Many people will create several similar ads for the same product or service and cross-promote these ads through various categories and cities. While this is clearly against the rules of Craigslist, it is a difficult thing to police effectively and therefore is common practice by those who frequent this classified ad site.

The correct method is to create 3 or 4 similar ads for the same product or service and rotate them every 48 hours, all the while tracking results to see which ad is the most effective. Once you have isolated the ad that is producing results, don’t stop there! Continue to return to Craigslist every 48 hours and delete the ad and resubmit it. Because of the manner the ads are listed, latest ads are listed at the top of each category, the best way to get your ad noticed is to continue to keep moving it to the top of the list.

It is also a good idea to move your ad around the available cities, but this also requires some careful consideration. Some cities perform better than others, that is a well established fact, but Craigslist is also well aware of this and has made some changes to the submission process for those cities. For example, the Bay area of San Francisco is the top performing city for classified ads and Craiglist has reacted by imposing some conditions for posting to that area.

Firstly, you will now need to prove that you live in that area, whether you are selling a physical product or digital, and secondly you now will need to pay a fee to advertise in some of the categories for that area. The fees are very low but it is best to be aware of the pending cost before posting your ad.

While it is not always practical to try different cities when promoting a physical product, it is almost a must when promoting a digital product or online service. As you will be well aware, you can not link directly to a sales page or commercial website of any kind, there is a way around this as well. Design a compelling advertisement and either use your email address for customers to contact you for further details, or use the ‘unanimous’ email contact system that Craigslist has in place.

This has been a fairly basic outline of some of the most effective methods to using this outstanding advertising medium. Follow the rules and review your results for every ad you post. Good tracking and vigilant rotation of your ads will provide some amazing results. For all the information about this excellent service, download the Craigslist Advertising eBook here free. Just another free gift with the compliments of www.InternetSalesMadeEasy.info

"Making Money Online Was Never So EASY!"

A products benefits are essentially what the features can do for your customers. Your customers will not be as interested in a products features, as what they will be in what the features can do for them – the actual benefit to them.

There is one phrase you should always bear in mind when structuring an advertisement – WIIFM. No, it is not a radio station. This is primarily how your customers think. It is a prime aspect of human nature to always want to know ‘What’s In It For Me?’ This is not to say that your customers are selfish in any way, merely that benefits will always outweigh features in the eyes and minds of potential customers.

A list of product features seems like a good way to promote something but time-tested advertising campaigns have proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a list of the benefits to be gained from these features will always have a stronger influence on potential customers. You need to always bear this in mind when attempting to promote any product or service.

An example of a feature versus a benefit for a random product may help to clarify the terms for you. Let’s take a car for an example. If you were going in to purchase a new car, which of these statements would have the most influence over your buying decision?

A. This car delivers 47 miles per gallon around town and 60 miles per gallon on the highway. ( feature )

B. You’ll save money on gas and cut down on environmental pollutants because we use the latest technology which produces more power with less fuel requirements. ( benefit )

Does that make it clearer? Would you be more inclined to purchase based on option B? I am sure I would.

If you have the option to add images, this will also increase your conversion rates. Let me explain this with another example. If you were promoting a watch, somewhere in the list of features would be:-

This watch has a 1 and a half inch face, making it easy to read, and comes with a hand-crafted leather band.

Okay, that sounds fairly good, but consider how much more influential an image would be, accompanied by a few benefits to really drive the message home. The image should have some sort of reference point, such as a gold coin placed beside the watch, to highlight the actual size and clarify it in the potential customers mind. It should be followed by some attention grabbing text, describing the benefits in detail, such as:-

The extra large face will allow you to tell the time at a glance, you won’t need to look foolish as you squint to read this magnificent timepiece. This beautiful gold watch, with its hand-crafted leather band will project an aura of success and charisma making your partner proud to be seen with you.

That sale is almost made already!

These are just a few of the tips in the ebook, ‘Top Ten Methods’. This is another free download with my compliments. Simply right-click on the link and select “Save Link As”, no opt-in or other tricks, a simple free gift from me to you.

You can, of course, opt-in to my list for a 24 part e-course on blogging and many more free gifts.