The Art of Writing Profitable Classified
By Emma Okafor
Posted Thursday, August 26, 2004
Everybody wants to make money. In fact most people would like to hit upon something that makes them instantly rich! And seemingly, one of the easiest to the fulfillment of these dreams of wealth is mail order or within the profession of the business, direct mail selling. Hardly anyone gives much real though to the basic guide for selling by mail-the writing of profitable classified ads.
So what makes a classified ad good or bad? First of all, it must appeal to the reader, and as much, it must say exactly what you want it to say secondly, it has what it says in the least possible number of words in order to keep you operating within your budget. And thirdly, it has to produce the desired results.
Grabbing the reader’s attention is your first objective. There has to be something about your ad that gets a reader’s attention out of many other ads. So, the first two or three words of your ad are of the most importance and it deserves your careful consideration. Most surveys show that words or phrases that quickly involve the reader tend to be the best attention-grabbers. Some words as: FREE… WIN… MAKE BIG MONEY…
Now after grabbing the reader’s attention you still need to go further. You have to interest him with some thing that even him can do. A word like easy & simple “guaranteed” or some other such word or phrase that can do the magic. So now, we’ve got an ad that reads MAKE BIG MONEY! Easy & simple. Guaranteed! By now he is hooked up.
The next stage of this game is to get the results. Results need action from the reader. This is the part where you need words like Limited offer- Act now! Write today. Putting it all together, then your ad might read something like this:
MAKE BIG MONEY! Easy & simple. Guaranteed! Limited offer. Send $1 to:
The final ingredient of your classified ad is of course, your name, address the reader is to respond where he is to send his money or write for further information.
Generally speaking, readers, respond more often to ads that include a name than those showing just initial or an address only. However, because advertising costs based upon the number of words, or space your ad takes, the use of some names in classified ads could be quite expensive. For example a company name like Money Maker’s opportunity forum can be shorten to Moneymakers. The point is to think relative to the placement costs of your ad. Shorten excessively long names. The same applies to your post office box number. Shorten it to plain Box 50, or in the case of rural delivery, shorten it to just RRL.
Just adhere to the basics and profits will increase according. There is no point in being tricking or clever. One of the best ways of learning to write good ads is to study the classified-try to figure out exactly what they’re attempting and then practice rewriting according to the rules I have given you. When you sit down to write a classified ad, always write it all out-write down everything and then go back over it, crossing out words and refining your phraseology.
In summary of all what I have written, good written classified ads should
1) “Grab” the readers attention …
2) “Interest the readers” with something, that appeals to him/her…
3) “Further stimulate” him/her with something (catch phrase) that makes him/her “desire” the product or service …
4) Demand that he/she act immediately …
Now you know the basics, the rest is up to you.
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