Small ads - 'as sound as a pound'
By Steve Hawker |
Here are some tips on how to write small ads that are ‘as sound as a
pound’.
First, satisfy yourself that the goods, services or unwanted
possessions you are about to advertise are legal and decent. You should be their
legal owner with rights of disposal. Further, you must realise that, if you try
to advertise anything indecent, upstanding publishers will reject your ads and
probably keep any fee. That's the 'heavy' stuff out of the way!
Now
establish your contact details. Consider including two means of contact: a
landline and mobile number perhaps. Landline numbers suggest permanence and may
inspire confidence in customers. Mobiles often make you more contactable. Now
double-check the details. Are they accurate and valid? To ensure any sort of
‘return on investment’, customers must be able to contact you.
If you
prefer contact by e-mail, acquire temporary addresses from Yahoo or Hotmail say,
rather than use a permanent one provided by your Internet Service Provider. The
‘permanence’ rule mentioned above doesn’t apply to e-mail, due to the spam
problem. Although many small ad sites protect against automated address
harvesting, it’s impossible to prevent manual harvesting. Mail ‘boxes’ can
protect privacy; as can the use of first names, nicknames or business titles in
adverts, rather than full names.
Whichever you choose as a means of
contact, do check your text messages, voice mail, fax machine and e-mail
regularly. Try to reply to all sensible advert responses within twenty-four
hours of receipt. Otherwise, your hot sales ‘leads’ may go cold. Ignore, block
or report if necessary any suspicious responses.
If you trade
commercially, tell your potential customers in your adverts. Honesty and
truthfulness are always best, if you want to make a long-term business from
selling by small ads. Place Trade and Private adverts in separate transactions
if necessary, to make it easier to track business investments later.
Tell
potential customers the best day, and time of day, to contact you. They will
want to avoid embarrassment by contacting you just as you are going to bed. You
may be better at negotiating deals first thing in the morning. Stating contact
times might save you waiting by a telephone, in case calls come
through.
Also, consider telling potential customers roughly where you
live, at least the county and nearest town, possibly a village or suburb. Many
small ad sites now offer postcode or telephone dialling code proximity features,
and find the nearest offer to customers’ locations. When choosing the size of an
area, consider carefully your security and privacy.
Look for small ad
providers that offer website links, especially if you are in business. Use small
ads to attract customers and interest them in these links. Create specific
‘landing pages’ on your site, so that you can track small ad performance. Use
your website to stimulate desire and provide the means to ‘close’ sales. Include
‘rich’ media, like full-size photographs, on your website. Including thumbnails
in small ads is of questionable value. Poor quality thumbnails could deter
customers.
Consider your small ad strategy. Will you create one ad, or
many different ads? Will you use one delivery channel, or many different
channels? Will you broadcast all of your ads at one time, or stagger their
delivery over a period? Small ads are to selling, as baited hooks are to
fishing. The more hooks you have in the pond, the more likely it is that fish
will bite.
Do test new adverts by running them for a few weeks initially.
Monitor their performance proactively, change them and run more tests until you
are happy. If tested adverts contain offers that are unlikely to change over
time, select longer advertising periods, to take advantage of any discounts.
Select longer periods too, if you are prepared to wait for the 'right' price or
customer.
Set fair and reasonable prices. Include commas for prices in
thousands, full stops for prices in pence, and state clearly the tax
arrangements. Attach any conditions of sale, like ‘or very near offer’. Check
your price and conditions. You may wish to set a slightly higher price if you
foresee haggling.
Think carefully about your most likely customers. Which
emotions will motivate them to buy from you: happiness, love or jealousy
perhaps? What do your customers need? Do they seek fulfilment, a sense of
belonging, or security? What associated benefits are they seeking from the items
or services you are selling?
Describe sales offers in ways that will
interest your potential customers greatly. Use simple, factual words that they
will search, or browse, for. Enter unusual abbreviations in full. Avoid slang,
legal and technical words, and jargon. Use as few ‘noise’ words as you can,
words like 'but', 'and', 'to'. Create short, logical, punchy sentences with
correct spellings and punctuation. Use plain, positive English that stimulates
curiosity and demands action. Your only goal remember, is to make buyers contact
you for more information.
Create captions that will grab the attention of
your most likely customers. Use advertising ‘power words’ to fascinate them with
what you have to sell. Make your customers stop in their tracks and want to read
your description. Avoid unsubstantiated hype though, as well as the extensive
use of exclamation marks.
Leave any selection of advert types and classes
until after you have drafted your description and caption. Often, the most
cost-effective categories become apparent once these are in place.
Now
you’ve established the contact arrangements, sale locations, prices, conditions
and classes, check your adverts again. Read them aloud to yourself. Show them to
objective friends. Will your captions entice? Will your descriptions fascinate?
Change your adverts, if necessary. Repeat this process until you are happy that
your adverts are attractive, credible and effective. Use your full character or
word allowance. Balance this suggestion with the needs for accuracy, brevity and
clarity.
Lastly, check for competing small ads in various different
media. Who are your nearest competitors? Are your offers competitive on price
and availability? Change your adverts again, if needs be. Effective small ad
creation is a highly iterative process, you see.
Do experiment and aim
for uniqueness. Small ads should be 'right first time', competitive and
successful. Yes, and fun too! Good hunting.
About the Author
© Steve Hawker 2005. All
rights reserved. Steve is a partner at http://www.ehawker.co.uk the small ads search engine.
E-mail him at: info@ehawker.co.uk
Top of Page |
