Wednesday, December 13, 2006

10 Secrets and Tips for Writing Better Solo Ads (Part 1)

Here are 10 secrets and tips for writing a better ‘Solo Advertisement'. This is part 1 of 3 articles that should be very helpful with improving all your advertising. This article is just the beginning. In parts 2 and 3 we'll get into more advanced secrets and tips. But to write great ads all of these tips need to be a part of your ad writing process.

1) Have a great subject line – Spend a lot of time writing your subject line. This is the most important part of your ad. It will determine whether or not your ad will be read. Don't make the subject too long. A power word, such as "free" or "save" may help. It has to interesting and believable with no hype. You will be competing with a lot of other subject lines in everyone's email boxes. It's got to be compelling enough to get people to click on it before they will ever see your advertisement.

2) Have a profitable webpage – Make sure your website is making sales before you start spending a lot on ezine ads, This is very important! In fact it would probably be very profitable to hire someone to improve your salespage/website before you send any serious traffic to it. You can write the best advertisement ever but you still won't make any money if your website doesn't convert visitors into paying customers.

3) Target your ezine – This is very important - Make sure the ezine you advertise in is targeted to what you're selling! If you're selling internet marketing products don't advertise in ezines about making toy trains. To search for your related ezines you can use: ‘The Directory of Ezines' at: http://www.directoryofezines.com It's a little expensive at $147 for lifetime or $67 annually. But you should never be afraid to invest in your business.

4) Spam filter check – Make sure you check all your ads against the spam filters! What if you created a killer ad with a great subject line and you spend $700 to send it out in this perfect ezine – and the spam filters trashed it and no one ever got to see your ad? Can it happen? Yes all the time. You have to make sure not to use any words that will get picked up by the spam filters. Here's one you can use: http://www.ezinecheck.com/check.html

5) Spelling check – You'll want all your advertisements to look very professional without any misspelled words. So spell check your ads every time before you send them out.

6) Format your ads – Make sure your ad is formatted correctly. http://www.web-source.net/format_text.htm Lots of ads need to be formatted to 60 or 65 characters per line or else they may look very strange when they are published.

7) Subscribe before you advertise – If you subscribe to the ezine you can learn a lot more about it. And you'll also know for sure when your ad is sent out.

8) Don't sell in your ad – Remember your ad is to get people to visit your website not to sell. Your website will do the selling for you. So you'll want to write your ad to get as many people as possible to visit your website.