What's Wrong With My Ad?
by Jonathan Gray

Are you frustrated with your ad response?

In desperation I rang a friend who had 5 websites raking
in thousands a month.

"What am I doing wrong?" I asked him.

"Simple," he said. "Make these adjustments. Then you
should start getting BIG sales from your SMALL spaces."

Then he showed me four ways to make DRAMATIC IMPROVEMENTS
to my short ad copy... to attract a much bigger response and
improved sales.

1. Emphasise benefits, not features

To clarify. A real estate agent offering a "price analysis
of recent beach front sales" is advertising a FEATURE of
his website.

But if he writes, "Avoid wasting time having to search,
with my price analyser", then he's promoting a BENEFIT.

2. Write to a targeted audience

Let's face it. Your service or product will not appeal to
everyone. So word your ad to target your best potential
customers.

In the pay-per-click search engines you pay for every click
your ad generates.

So if you are targeting Toyota owners in the Dallas area,
you will ensure your ad says so. Then you won't waste money
on people looking for Toyotas in Seattle.

3. Include a call to action

You must include these two important features in your call
to action:

(a) Clearly identify what action is desired. "Buy now"
may not be the action you want. Think about what you are
trying to do.

Is it to generate leads? Get people to subscribe to your
newsletter? Or collect a specific audience from which to
convert as many people as possible into sales?

It's important to make your ad copy as DIRECT as
possible. Tell your visitors specifically what to do.

If you have a button that is labelled "Sales", you may be
confusing your visitors. Leaving them guessing.

"Sales" could mean
* their opportunity to sell your products
* online ordering, or
* products you are offering at a special sale price.

Much better to change that button to "Order online". That
clarifies what you want them to do.

Again, you could change "Email" to "Contact us" - which is
a clear, specific action.

(b) Give people a REASON WHY they should buy.

For example, you could say, "Click here and claim your
eBook of interviews with top tennis Pros who reveal their
hottest secrets, guaranteed to improve your game in two
weeks."

That will get you results far quicker than "Buy now".

4. Watch your lay-out

Your message must be brief... compelling... and effective!

In HTML format, you can choose bold, italics and color,
etc. Or in text, you can show FEATURES by using bullet
points and white space - and emphasise BENEFITS by using
capitals.

Then, at the end, place the CALL TO ACTION.

This will give you high impact copy.

May I suggest you now go and examine every piece of ad copy
you are using - every link, banner, newsletter subscription
offer... and classified ad.

If you follow these four rules, you simply can't lose.

Jonathan Gray has been helping people succeed in small home
businesses for over three years. To discover some powerful
tips and strategies that can help you write high impact
copy, go to http://www.businessrich.com