Three Proven Steps to Improve Your Home Business Advertising

by: Bob Markovsky

Newspaper advertising is a tremendous source of new business that for so many businesses doesn’t ever reach its true potential. These 3 steps will help you change that forever!

You’re about to find out the mistakes that your competitors keep on making, and to start using techniques proven to grab your prospect’s attention and draw out responses that turn your ad into the 'customer producer' you always knew it should be.

Small Business Realities

All business owners want to increase sales, generate more customers, and make more money. Yet few take the necessary actions to do so. Providing a quality product or service is simply not enough.

Many business owners think they need to set an advertising budget, send out a few sales letters, put a few coupons in the local circular, run a newspaper ad, hand out flyers, and do a bunch of other things 'trying to get their name out there'.

The problem is... a small business that uses that approach wastes a lot of potential. Spending money on this type of exposure is known as advertising. The goal of advertising is to establish a brand name, build an image, and achieve top of the mind awareness. These are some fancy terms taught in business school, but unfortunately they steer everyone in the wrong direction.

You see, small businesses aren't supposed to advertise. Advertising is all about repeating exposures and building an image. Think about all of the many McDonalds commercials you see on television in a week. That's 'high frequency'. Don't they all seem to show a feeling of friendship, eating happily with family ("we love to see you smile")? That's image.

Do you think they intend to get you up out of your seat and go to your local McDonalds right as you're watching the commercial? Not really. OK, they hope you might, but that’s not what they intend. They are paying to have you see their message so many times that when you are ready to buy their product you will remember them and go there. Now,let’s get to work on your steps to advertising success.

Proven Step #1

So what method will work for your business? It's called direct response marketing. Here’s an example. Have you ever bought anything after watching an infomercial? Even if you haven’t, infomercials work, they make a lot of people a lot of money. It might surprise you, infomercials are not advertising - they don't try to build an image or get you to remember a brand, the products aren't even sold in stores!!

What do they do?

** They take a receptive audience.

** They get them excitedly to pick up the phone and buy. They create action!

This is why most newspaper ads don’t deliver big results. Most newspaper advertisers choose the commercial, but you want the infomercial. Your one and only goal in newspaper advertising is to create action.

In the usual types of Newspaper Directory ads you're dealing with very targeted prospects. These are people looking up your company type and ready to call you. That's the beauty and the curse of Newspaper Directory ads. The beauty is prospects can find you easily, the curse is that your competitors are right there with you!!

So how do we get them to pick up the phone and dial your number?

Use direct marketing...which is:

** Directly target a group of people who are in the market for your product or service.

** Offer them what it is they want.

** Generate a response by forcing them to respond to your offer.

Proven Step #2

Your competitors probably waste a lot of money because they're charged for people who will never even consider their offer. There is a definite and specific market for your service and these are the only people that you should aim your offer to.

For example, if you repair dental equipment you want to market your service to dentists, oral surgeons, etc.. But it's not generally that easy.

Consider a Home Cleaning Service in a suburb of Cleveland that advertises in the Cleveland Plain Dealer due to the tremendous readership. If 75% of the cleaning company's clients and target prospects are 3 person families and larger, with incomes of $100,000 per year, living in suburbs A, B and C., they've wasted a big chunk of money. Here’s why.

They just spent a lot of money for an ad that will be seen by college students, low-income families, and others that would never consider using their services anyway. Their high percentage prospects make up only a small readership of that paper. Who knows what percentage of those people will see the ad?

Maybe there's a magazine or community mailer that caters to middle/upper class families in a county neighboring Cleveland or in one of the many suburbs. Sure, maybe the readership is nowhere near as large but the lower cost and targeted readership will generate a much greater return on the company's investment.

A mailing list of 3-person households and larger with incomes above $100,000, who moved to such-n-such city or county within the last year can be purchased. Direct marketing targets the people most likely to respond to your offer.

Proven Step #3

Most advertising has no offer. And so the prospect has no incentive to respond right now. Direct response always tries to get a response by offering something of value to your prospect right now.

Using the home cleaning service in the example above, you could offer a free hour of cleaning, 20% off the first job, a free pack of sponges and a bottle of Simply Green or anything of value that will cause a person to act.

Since the offer is subject to your terms, you set a date when the offer expires, a number they have to call, a letter that they must bring in, a form that they must fill out.

So, at the end of your promotion you know exactly how much was spent reaching how many people. Also, you will know how many people responded and how much business was generated.

Most of your competitors don’t do this little analysis! They repeat campaigns that cost more than they bring in. So they are forced to set advertising budgets that limit the amount of advertising they can run each year.

But, if every one of your promotions cost you $55 and brought in $225 in business, why would you need a budget? Wouldn’t you just keep repeating the promotion over and over?

Your goal should be to repeat and improve what works for you. If you do, you will not need a budget and you will be able to predict what kinds of repeat and new business each promotion will generate.

Bob Markovsky

Millennium Services Group

Start Your Own High Profit Cleaning Business

http://www.Cleaning-Biz.com

There is no such thing as Free Advertising!

by: TBA ~ Tricia, Billie and baby Ashley

There is no such thing as Free Advertising.

Yep, you read right. There is NO such thing as FREE Advertising. The only kind of advertising you can get is inexpensive or expensive, good or bad, but you can’t get FREE advertising.

Why do we say there's no such thing as FREE advertising?

Because you’re advertising is paid for with either time or money. You either pay someone for advertising OR you take your time putting advertising up.

Whichever way, you’re paying for your advertising. There are some things you need to consider when advertising, whether you’re paying in time or money.

Groups Advertising - Is the group active? Do the group rules allow advertising? Is the group targeted to your target audience?

Signature Lines Exchanges - Does the other business compliment yours? Are they in different groups than what your in so you get more exposure.

Link Exchanges - Make sure the site has traffic; one way to find out is to ask. Make sure the site compliments your product. Make sure it has a Google ranking of at least a 3. Does the site target your audience?

Site Advertising – What are the site stats? Ask the Webmaster if you can't find it on the site. Check Google page ranking. Check to see if the site is updated with new information regularly. Does the site target your audience? Does the site compliment your product?

Ezine Advertising - Again ask for the stats, don't just ask how many subscribers they have. Ask how many are reading their newsletter. Make sure the ezine is geared towards your targeted audience.

We keep coming back to the check this and check that because you want to make sure that ezine or site is worth your payment, rather it be in money or time; because our time is valuable too.

So be selective in how you spend your time, just as you would in spending your money, when advertising your business.

About the Author

Written by TBA. TBA stands for Tricia Billie and baby Ashley. We are a mother, daughter, & granddaughter WAH team. We own and operate TBADeals.us

Pay-Per-Click Advertising & Search Engine Optimization

by: Carrie Reeder

There are pro's & con's to both Pay-Per-Click advertising and optimizing for natural search engine traffic.

PPC advertising has many great benefits. First of all, you get your traffic going quickly. I have used this advantage many times. I test new products and even new websites through PPC advertising before making a decision to promote or scrap my new website or product idea.

I am a firm believer in testing new products before throwing large amounts of money into advertising. PPC advertising is a great way to do this. For example, with Google's Adwords program, you can post your ad, pay a $5 sign-up fee and have highly targeted traffic to your website within an hour. How is that for efficiency?

Also, you can moniter your click charges and stop them before they get too expensive. By the time you have spent your budget on clicks, you should have a pretty good idea of how successful your product is going to be.

I think of PPC advertising as being the most useful when starting a new business or product. WIth PPC advertising, you can quickly and efficiently find out which keywords you need to target and which products are the most popular.

Once that testing period is over, however, it's time to look into Search Engine Optimization. PPC advertising can be very expensive, costing hundreds, even thousands a month in advertising costs. Once you know what keywords to target, it's time to put together a plan on how you are going to optimize your website. The drawbacks to search engine optimization is that it requires a lengthy amount of time to get your site to rank high with your keywords. That is why I suggest using this method after the testing period is over, when you already know your business will be profitable.

Search Engine Optimization is definately a slow way to get your website traffic if you plan on not using PPC traffic. It could be a long, expensive road before you even begin selling your product. Search engines can take months, even years to start pulling up high with the search engines. But, natural search engine traffic is definately the best long term way to get the majority of your traffic.

When getting your site to start pulling up in SE natural listings there are 2 main things that need to be done:

1. Add Content
   

2. Add Backlinks
   

Search engine traffic requires you to submit your site to many different search engines and wait, maybe even months for them to spider your website.

I have had much better luck with another route. You can pay a fee to have your website listed in a very high ranking directory like www.dmoz.com (free), www.yahoo.com's directory ($299), sbd.bcentral.com (only $50), or another website where your link is on a page that has a page ranking of 4,5,6 or higher. The sites I mentioned above have rankings of 8 or 9. When you have your link on a site with that high of a ranking, the search engines are spidering those sites constantly and will find your website and spider it very quickly. Not only will they find it quickly but because you are linked to a high ranking site, you will also rank higher with the SE.

When looking for backlinks, focus on sites with content related to yours and high page rankings of 4 or higher.

As for content on your site, try to include about 200-500 words of content or text on most of the pages of your site. Text makes your site bulkier. Make sure to integrate all of the keywords you want to target within the content of your site. Don't worry about cramming the same keywords in over and over. Search engines may possibly even blacklist your site for keyword stuffing, if you try to do that.

There is a lot to know about Search Engine Optimization but, those are the 2 main factors when getting started.

In summary, when starting out, I suggest using PPC advertising for testing products and keywords. Spend time optimizing your site for search engine traffic after you have tested your products and keywords.

Carrie Reeder has been a web marketer for 3 years and has various websites where she sells a variety of products from software to clothing accessories.

www.thelevelcollection.com

carrie@thelevelcollection.com

Advertising Your Home Business With Pay Per Click Can Be Risky

by: Kirk Bannerman

An unfortunate byproduct of the pay per click advertising
business is click fraud. Many people with an online business
spend large amounts of money on pay per click advertising only to
discover that many of the people clicking on their ads weren't
really interested in their products or services.

Bogus "visitors" to a pay per click ad represent click fraud.
This is a serious scam that threatens the viability of the pay
per click advertising business which has become enormously
profitable for all of the major search engine operators, namely
Google, Yahoo/Overture, and MSN.

Click fraud has different twists, but the end result is generally
the same. Advertisers are billed for fruitless traffic
generated by someone who repeatedly clicks on an advertiser's ad
without any intention of ever buying anything.

The search engine advertising market is currently about $3.8
billion per year and estimates vary widely on how much click
fraud is actually going on. Clearly, the search engine operators
would like to downplay the extent of this problem. Some industry
experts claim that a little click fraud exists but that it is
overblown by advertiser paranoia, while others estimate that ten
to twenty percent of all clicks are false (made by someone with
no legitimate interest in the ad itself).

Virtually everyone involved with pay per click advertising sees
click fraud and knows it's there, but no one is quite sure what
to do about it.

Both Google and Yahoo/Overture acknowledge that the click fraud
problem exists, but claim improved internal controls will prevent
the problem from escalating. Their stated position seems to be
that they are concerned about click fraud, but that it is not a
material issue so far. Both of them are touting their increasing
internal actions aimed at detecting and combating click fraud.

Such reassurances from search engine companies certainly aren't
surprising, given how much they stand to lose if advertisers
cut back on advertising spending. The stakes are huge and the
search engine companies are actively involved in public relations
campaigns. Industry research firm eMarketer expects $7.4 billion
to be spent on search engine advertising by 2008, up from only
$108.5 million back in 2000.

The incentives for click fraud have increased along with the
money devoted to search engine advertising. Advertising on search
engines has turned into a fast-spreading craze as more and more
marketers have realized substantially higher returns on search
engine ads than on more traditional marketing campaigns conducted
through print media.

Most pay per click advertisers set a spending limit and once the
spending limit is reached, the ads cease to appear in the search
results. Click fraud is a very unethical competitive tactic
where someone repeatedly clicks on a competitor's ad until the
spending limit is reached and the ad then disappears from the
search results. It seems that it's only a matter of time before
some advertisers become so exasperated with click fraud that they
file a class-action lawsuit against a major search engine.

The success of search engine advertising has substantially
raised prices that advertisers pay for top spots. Unfortunately,
these higher prices have turned click fraud into a dark little
industry of its own. Some crooks have hired cheap overseas
contractors to just sit in front of computers and constantly
click on targeted ads and others are developing sophisticated
software to help automate and conceal click fraud.

If you use pay per click advertising it would be wise to
carefully monitor your traffic to determine if you are the victim
of click fraud. In any event, it's probably safe to say that
pay per click advertisers are going to have to accept a certain
level of click fraud as just a cost of doing business.

About the Author

Kirk Bannerman operates his own successful home based business
and also coaches others seeking to start their own home based
business. For more information visit his website at Proven Work At
Home Business

13 Free or Cheap Effective Advertising Methods

by: Donnie Baird

Advertising is the life blood of any business, no matter how big or how small. No advertising usually means no business. Large companies have an almost unlimited source of advertising dollars. Small business owners on the other hand, are limited in the amount of money they have for advertising. So, the problem is how to make ones advertising dollar get the most bang for the buck. It's not enough to advertise. Your advertising must be effective. So, once you have a website or an ad to advertise, check out the following ways to advertise for little or no cost.
1. Advertising coop- Many businesses, especially work at home businesses, offer advertising coops. They will send people to your business for a fee. Usually the fee is relatively small. This is nice because you already know that these people have at least some interest in your business. Although they may not spend a penny with you, you at least get the exposure.
2. Website-The age of the internet has expanded the possibility of owning your own business to an almost unlimited number of people. It also has expanded the advertising audience to a tremendous amount of new people, world wide, who otherwise you would never have been able to reach. Although websites will cost you to get hosted, you can advertise it many ways for free. Things like link exchanges and article submissions allow you to get exposure to your website with no cost except for you time. And as we will see in a moment, your website can be advertised many other ways for free. The advantage of a website is that it centralizes all your business and products into one central location. It gives you somewhere to send people so that you don't have to do as much selling because you let your website do the selling for you.
3. Answering Machine-Change the message on your answering machine to reflect the fact that you are now in business for yourself. You could say something like," Hello. You have reached the home office of John Doe of My Business.com….." That way when you call that person back, they may ask you about your business and thus the door is open to discussing your business.
4. Put a sign in your front yard or in the yard of a friend or relative with your name and website address on it. This is a good way for your neighbors to find out about your new business as well as any people that ride by your house.
5. Place a magnetic sign or bumper sticker on your car. Now, when you are riding down the road, sitting at a stop sign, or leaving your car parked at the mall or grocery store, you are getting free advertising.
6. Wear your ad-Place your website on a sweatshirt, tee-shirt, or a hat. So, when you are out in public, people will see you ad and again it will open up the door to discussing your new business.
7. Flyers-There are many places that will allow you to place a flyer about your business. Businesses like grocery stores, libraries, laundromats, hair salons and others will let you place a free ad on their public bulletin board.
8. Business cards-Don't leave home without them. You never now when the chance to hand one out will happen. You may see an old friend, meet someone looking to get out of the 9-5 rut or who is in need of a new opportunity.
9. Free Classifieds-Use the internet and the many free classified ads on it to advertise your business. A search using "free classifieds" will give you an almost limitless number of places to submit your website and ad.
10.Ezines or electronic magazines are also a good place to advertise your business. Some charge a fee for placing your ad in the best location, some let you advertise for free. Again a web search will allow you find numerous ezines to place you ad in.
11.Place your web address in your e-mail signature.
12.Place a flyer or business card in your out going mail.
13.Word of Mouth-The least expensive form of advertising and maybe the most effective way to advertise your business is word of mouth. Simply tell those you come in contact with that you are in business for yourself. They will tell others and they will tell others and it can go on and on. Sooner or later someone will take a look at what you are doing.
Obviously, there are many more ways to advertise your business for little or no money. The point is you don't have to have the big bucks to successfully advertise you business or product. There are many people who have started and become extremely successful in their business on a shoe string advertising budget. There is hope for the small business owner. All you need is a website or add, a little creativity, a little time, and you too can advertise your way to success without going to the poor house.

About the Author

Donnie Baird has been involved with work at home businesses for 4 years and is the webmaster/owner of http://internet-work-at-home-opportunity.com . He lives in North Carolina with his wife and two children.

What is Advertising - and What Does it Mean on the Internet

by: Bret RIdgway

Today’s Quick Tip answers the question “What is advertising?”

“Advertising is salesmanship. The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its
actual sales.”

- Claude Hopkins, one of the early masters of advertising and author of My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising.

This #1 issue of Copywriting Classics Quick Tips focuses on the late, great Claude Hopkins and how you can apply his decades old marketing wisdom to your online efforts today.

Jay Abraham, renowned as 'America’s Number One Marketing
Wizard' said this about Hopkins. “Claude Hopkins is the master
of them all. His influence has easily added over $6 million to my personal Income…and still counting.”

So, what else did Claude have to say about advertising in addition to the quote above? Hopkins said “Advertising is not for general effect. It is not to keep your name before the people. It is not primarily to aid your other salesmen. Treat it as a salesman. Force it to justify itself.

Compare it with other salesmen. Figure its cost and result. Accept no excuses which good salesmen do not make. Then you will not go far wrong.”

So how many of us do a good job of this in the online world?

Obviously the only way you can know if your advertising is profitable is to be able to accurately track its results.

How many of us have thrown money at the concept of branding - of keeping our name before the people? Just hoping we'd get some results. I know I’ve been guilty of it in the past.

So when you’re getting ready to place that banner ad, or pay for some online or offline directory listing, or bid on that keyword at Overture.com, how are you going to track the cost and result?

And don’t delude yourself into thinking that any advertising is
“free.” The most valuable resource any of us have in our marketing arsenal is probably our own time.

What do you value yours at? $25 - $50 - $100 - $1000 per hour? Or more? So be sure and include the cost of your time or whoever you’re paying to perform that advertising task into calculating the true cost of your advertising.

This is truer then ever in the Internet world. So, know your costs
and measure your results. There are online tools available to help you do this, so don’t get careless or lazy. The effectiveness of your online advertising can only be measured by its actual sales.

Your task: Analyze all your advertising to determine its true
effectiveness. If you're not tracking your results you have to figure out a way to do it now. Why? Because Claude told you so.

Next week – you’ll get some more thoughts from Claude Hopkins. This time about how long you should make your ad copy in order to make the sales. Until then, my best wishes for success in all your marketing endeavors.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bret Ridgway is President of TWI Press, Inc., supplier of hard-to-find classic marketing books via the http://www.twipress.com website. He provides a copywriting and advertising resource center at internet marketing conferences for well known internet marketers like Carl Galletti, Jonathan Mizel, Michael Penland, Ron LeGrand and Fred Gleeck.

Advertising And Generate New WebSite Traffic

by: Charles Kangethe

Here's a simple way to use "No Results, No Pay" radio advertising and build traffic for your website.

Step #1 - Understanding "PI" - Per Inquiry Advertising.

Radio has a unique advertising format known as "PI" or per inquiry advertising.

"PI's" main benefit is that your commercial is aired and you ONLY PAY for inquiries phoned into the station from listeners !

Inquiries are in the form of callers asking for more information.

The radio station counts each caller, and re-directs them to your web site address.

Step #2 - How To Start a "PI" Campaign.

Find a good directory of all commercial radio stations where you intend to advertise.

Some sample Internet resources :

http://www.mediauk.com - UK

http://www.web-radio.fm - USA

http://www.radiodirectory.com - International

Other online resources can be found by searching for keywords like "Radio Directories."

Alternatively, visit your library and in the references section ask for the Yearbook of Independent Local Radio Stations.

Note details such as :

• Ad manager's names,
  

• Telephone numbers,
  

• e-mail addresses
  

• Programming and schedules
  

Listener profiles:

• Age,
  

• Income,
  

• Sex,
  

• Location.
  

Step #3 - Decide on Strategy and "Wanted Response."

Before you contact the radio stations, be clear on strategy, goals and have your draft commercials in outline.

* Are you advertising a product offer at your website ?

Specify product details fully to avoid paying for "tyre kicker" inquiries.

* Is your "Wanted Response" to build an opt-in list ?

Decide how you will entice visitors to your web site. Will you offer FREEBIES, or a competition of some sort ?

* Are you advertising for market research purposes ?

Tell listeners how and why they should participate.

* Decide how much you are prepared to pay per inquiry.

Step #4 - Use Your Strategy To Build A "PI" Proposal

Two aims in this step :

• Make it as easy as possible for the station to schedule your commercial.
  

• Negotiate the lowest Per Inquiry cost during the best advertising time slots.
  

Keep in mind :

• Listener profiles you want to reach.
  

• Times you want your advert to go on air.
  

• Which commercial will best deliver your "Wanted Response".
  

Write to the ad manager by e-mail or normal mail. In your letter :

• Introduce yourself.
  

• Inform them this is a "PI" Per Inquiry advertising proposal.
  

• Inform them you of what you are trying to achieve, refer to your strategy.
  

• Detail your product or service prices and how much you are considering paying for each inquiry.
  

Sidebar

If your "Wanted Response" is not selling a product, you must pay for inquiries out of your "own pocket". Negotiate a keen cost per inquiry !!

* Explain how you will handle all the administration

For instance writing the commercial Outline, handling product fulfilment, dealing with refunds and product support questions.

Depending on your negotiation skills and size of Radio station you might be able to work a deal where you only pay for *Converted Inquiries*.

This is practically *FREE* advertising, because you only pay for referrals once a sale is made !

Step #5 - How To Deal With Radio Ad Managers

If you do not hear back within a few days, call the station.

Commercial radio is a busy environment. Be prepared to explain yourself and answer questions quickly and clearly.

Radio ad managers are always looking for advertisers. That is their job and advertising fees are the lifeblood of Commercial Radio.

However, "PI" is not the only money earner for stations, so be prepared for a polite but cool reception.

If this happens, pick another station and start the process again.

The rewards of a successful "PI" campaign will pay back your effort many times over.

Step #6 - The Commercial Ad

Write your commercial's outline to maximise your "Wanted Response."

Write the outlines for at least two 30 second, and two 60 second commercials.

Writing commercials for broadcasting is very different to writing ad copy for printed media. However, stations will help you by taking your outlines and turning them into finished commercials for a fee.

Alternatively, if your copy writing is good and you have time to tweak it for broadcasting, then do it yourself.

Listen to the station's ads, jingles, and catch phrases and pre-record your own following a similar model. Ask objective people to listen to your ad and give you critical feedback.

Sidebar

When recording for radio you may or may not want to use your own voice. Radio stations have "Voices" to record your commercial for a fee before it goes on air.

They also have royalty free music to include with your ad.

Make your commercials memorable, with clear contact information for listeners to follow up on.

When such ads go on air during relevant programming, you cangenerate considerable traffic.

In closing, "just do it" and learn more than I can show you in a brief article.

Radio is often overlooked by online advertisers, but it can bring good results depending on your "Wanted Response" and at a surprisingly low cost.

Ad Managers are tasked with maximising revenue for the broadcaster. They are flexible and as long as you demonstrate a financial benefit to the station, they will listen to your "PI" proposal actively.

This is good news for you because for minimal outlay and sometimes for free you can drive quality traffic to your site, product and services.

"PI" is the lowest cost form of broadcast advertising. Make this a new part of your overall advertising strategy.

Charles Kangethe of http://www.simplyeasier.com is a leading new wave Netpreneur and a published author from England. The "Simply Easier" brand name is your guarantee of high value, quality Marketing Products, Services and Resources

Charles Kangethe has been involved in direct response marketing since 1982. He now lives in Suffolk County and spends his time working on new Online Marketing campaigns, with particular focus on helping new netpreneurs at http://www.simplyeasier.com