How to Make Money with Classified Ads - part 4

How to Make Money with Classified Ads - part 4 

SAVE MONEY PLACING ADS

             Most classified ads are billed a certain charge per word, so you want to keep your words important and precise.  Once you have written your ad, take a closer look at it.  Can you eliminate extra words without changing the meaning?

            You might be able to delete conjunction such as “and,” articles like “the,” “a,” and “an,” or prepositions like “for,” “with,” or “from.”  Perhaps you can contract your company name into initials or use just one word.

            Each part of your address counts as one word:  the number; the street name; the street aspect (boulevard, avenue); the key (if separate); the city; and the state.  Many publishers let you include the zip code free of charge.

            Use figures rather than words for numbers, but don’t use contractions or abbreviate.  You have to pay for each word in full, so spell them out completely.  That way you’ll get no confusion when people place orders.

RESPONDING TO INQUIRIES

            Once you start getting responses from the classified ads, you should send out your sales literature immediately, definitely within one week.  The goal is to convert the inquiry into a sale and convert the sale into PURE PROFIT.

            Your sales literature can be a one-page pitch for your product.  It doesn’t have to be an expensive color catalog.  As you get going, you may prepare a sales package and a series of follow-up offers.

            You can’t tell from the type of inquiry whether the person is a buyer or not.  Postcards or letters are potential profit makers for you.  What’s important is to MAKE A SALE.

            Type the person’s name and address on a label and make at least three carbon copies of these labels to use for subsequent mailings.  Your second sales packet should be mailed a month after the inquiry was received, and another month after that.

            Follow-up sales are where you are going to MAKE YOUR FOR_TUNE.  Your classified draws the inquiries, the first order establishes a good customer, and the rest of the orders are pure gold.  Testing is the only way to find which plan works best for you in getting orders.  You’ll need to find out which sales packet works best, and how often to make mailings.

THE RESPONSE PACKAGE

             A typical mail order package - called a conversion - consists of a personal letter, a brochure, an order form, and a return envelope.  How elaborate you wan to make your conversion depends on how successful your product seems to be selling and how much money you want to invest.

             Always start small.  A simple one-page offer can work as well as a fancy catalog.  After you’ve built up a few good selling product, you might print up a single page brochure or catalog.  Even at that, you don’t have to go to color unless your product warrants it.

             You don’t need an advertising agency to put together your sales packet, but you can use one if you want.  Be sure to investigate the type of agency and what it can do for you.  You should have an agency with a proven background in mail advertising, and you must take a good look at what has already been produced.  Talk with clients and see if the agency pulled through for them.

             Why don’t you need an ad agency?  Because you can produce all the sales literature you need.  You are the best sales person for your product because YOU KNOW IT.  If you have done the proper research, you have already found out what the competition is, how much their products cost, and what sales appeals they are sending out. 

             As in placing and writing classified ads, do what the competition is doing.  Although you shouldn’t - and can’t, legally - take directly from them, you certainly can copy the format and general ideas they project.

             If somebody has been selling something successfully for years, do the same thing.  Adapt your product to fit.  Of course, you can’t convert a sales pitch for surplus goods to an appeal for a self-improvement book, but take notice of WHAT SELLS PRODUCTS.

….continue to part 5 on How to Make Money with Classified Ads

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