Secrets Of Classified Ad Millionaires

The popular media screams over and over again, that it pays to advertise. You must advertise to stay in business, earmark as much advertising budget for your business as possible. What the media is not saying is that the advertising dollars you pay each month is going in the medias pocket and they are getting fat on your dime. The media is happy to take your money, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars a year.

So, how do you run a business without advertising? Well it is difficult to impossible except in rare circumstances. But you can promote a business with very few ad dollars. An important part of a low dollar ad budget can be classified ads.

Classified ads are generally inexpensive to run, even in city newspapers. Additionally, online classifieds are generally free or close to free because of the lower costs to manage an online presence. Classified ads are generally not pushed by your salesman in a suit and tie that visits from your local newspaper because there is little or no commission built in. Classified ads will not generate helpful sales people ready to handle tour advertiser campaign for you. But, classified ads will not have you paying thousands of dollars at the end of the month either. You can take those thousands of saved dollars and invest them in real estate for your millionaire future.

Would you like to know why cheap classified ads are superior in some ways to expensive display ads in the newspaper? Disregarding the cost, display ads are designed to catch the readers eye. Your salesperson will tell you that size matters, the bigger the better. He will tell you that if you add a color, especially full color, that will help greatly. He will also tell you that he can get you great placement, above the fold right hand side, back cover, etc. Why are you trying to catch the readers eye? Because most people try to avoid reading ads. The newspaper is full of them and many of them repeat and repeat. That is the dirty secret of newspaper ads. People avoid them so we try to catch their eye to entice them to read the ad and maybe effect buying actions or awareness for our products or business.

Classified ads on the other hands are consistently read by bargain hunters and read by consumers who are on a buying quest for particular items at a discount. They are seeking your classified ad out, not trying to avoid it. This is a whole new ballgame and the price is right for you, but you need to follow some common sense steps to maximize this merchandising source.

Classifieds are read by a certain segment of the population daily so you must change your leading words in the ad to draw these readers in again and again. If you just run the same old ads over and over, a certain segment will scan over your ad and then you are wasting ad dollars. The best method is to write one ad for each day of the week for a month, 30 ads, and have the newspaper change the ad daily. They are generally happy to make changes for free. Then you can repeat the same series of ads the following month and just make minor changes. You can do this for several categories al song as the ads are different for each category.

The final trick is to use killer lead ins for you ads. The first couple of words of your ad will either suck your prospect in or cause you prospect to scan on. A classified ad shopper will skim the first couple of words of each ad in the category he is interested in. Words like free, sale, new, special, etc.