Posted by Jeremy Padlock income.
5 Simple Steps To Making Your Ads Work
Have you placed an ad online that did not deliver the results you expected? It happens to us all, and it’s frustrating 
We do what the books and seminars say to do — find the right advertising source, write the best ad we can, pay our money and hope for the best……and then nothing happens.
Disappointing to say the least - Disappointing and destructive.
- Disappointing because we lost money.
- Destructive because we can easily believe the biggest lie of all — this Internet thing won’t work for me. It might work for others, but not for me.
- Or worse yet, that it’s your fault!
The good news is this:
- Broken ads can be fixed
- Your lost money (and morale) can be redeemed……and you can do this starting today.
As I am writing this I’ve been online for about 2years, and In that time I’ve written more ads than I care to think about. That doesn’t mean I’m a “guru” — it just means I have experience….. lots of BAD EXPERIENCES.
Allow me to share with you the steps I take to fix a broken ad - Use these steps and you just might be able to turn a loss into a gain and a losing ad into a winner as well.
Step 1 – The Headline
The headline is an ad for the ad. In many cases the headline is all your reader will look at. It is what convinces people to read your ad and possibly take action. So it needs to be strong. The number 1 reason that ads fail, in my opinion, is a weak headline.
So, how can you write a killer headline?
By adding emotion – simple
The ONLY thing you need to convey in the headline is what the reader will get if they do what you want them to do. That’s called a benefit and answers the burning “what’s in it for me?” question that they are asking in their mind. Think of it this way: we are in a lift together and you have exactly five seconds to tell me why I should spend my valuable time on your site — to tell me what I get in exchange for my time.
What ONE THING would you tell me?
That is your starting headline. I say starting because you will probably improve it overtime.
Step 2 – Get To The Point
Don’t you hate those ads that ramble on, telling you everything except what you want to know? Everyone does…..yet most ads fit this category.
Your ad must get to the point – FAST !!
When writing ads punctuation and grammar don’t matter very much. Perfect English (or the language of your ad) doesn’t matter much either…..though it totally infuriates me !!!
What DOES matter is that you convey your main point in an emotional way and make the reader want to know more.TIP: Remember this — people buy what they want more often than they buy what they need. Of course, your ad must make sense when read in the language of the reader, so read your ad aloud…..Listen to your ad.
Why do this?
Because most of us read by speaking the words in our mind. So, in a very real way, your prospect will be “hearing” your ad. Now that you have read your ad out loud, did that make you want to go to your site and learn more? If not it’s time to keep refining. You will get there - If yes you have the start of a killer ad.
Step 3 – Benefits – Benefits – Benefits
I’ll bet you’ve heard this before . You must speak in benefits, not features. Put simply, a feature is what your product does and a benefit is what it does for me. Here’s an example benefit statement:
“My List of Solo Ad Providers helps people save time when buying solo ads.”
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It’s not our list of Solo Ad Providers that matters.
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It’s not that we update every day that matters.
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It’s not even that I work with members to help them succeed that matters.
Saving time is what matters to people who buy a membership.
They could use Google and struggle for days to find the right Solo Ad Provider, and then waste more time finding out if they are actually any good and for how much. Or they can use “My List” and know right now which provide matches their needs.
See the difference?
What we sell is more time with your family, more time for yourself, more time to work on your business – not just a List Of Solo Ad Providers.
Do this: make a list of all the benefits of your offer and then make sure that you cram as many as you can in your ad. If your ad ends up looking like nothing but a list of benefits – GREAT - That’s the goal.
Step 4 – Fix The Call To Action
How many ads have you read that end with the simple phrase “click here”… I know (I’ve written them and read them too)…most of these ads fail miserably.
Want to know why?
Because the phrase “click here” is a momentum killer.
You work your fingers to the bone to create a hot headline that draws the reader into the body of the ad. Then you pummel them senseless with benefits that raise their blood pressure and get them reaching for their credit card. Then you tell them to simply “click here”. Kind of like a cold shower, isn’t it?
The call to action should continue to excite them.
And the best way to do that is to use a phrase that includes your main benefit as well as asking them to click. Let me say that again. You ARE asking them to click but doing so in a way that makes them know that they will get that big benefit by clicking now. Here’s a sample.
If you sell a time saving product ”Click here to begin saving time today!” is so much better than “click here” See the difference?
Step 5- Track Every Ad
This won’t make your ads stronger, but it will make your business stronger. So, please, track every ad. Why?
Because the problem might not be the ad – it might be your site or the traffic source you are using. When an ad gets clicks but no sales are made the problem is your site (or the source of the traffic) not the ad. The job of the ad is to get clicks, not make sales. The job of your site is to make the sale.
I hear this often: “I ran an ad and got 73 clicks but didn’t make any sales, so what’s wrong with my ad?” The answer is often “nothing.”
THIS IS IMPORTANT:
The job of the ad is to get clicks, not to make sales. The more you remember that while writing your ad the better your ad will perform. Your ads should be magical. They should romance the reader into responding, making only promises that you can keep and speaking about benefits that readers want and that make them respond.
If you have a broken ad now, take heart. Your ad can be fixed, your hope in an online business redeemed, and your wallet fattened. All it takes is a little work and, like most things in life, never giving up !! By all means, keep writing and refining. When you do you will create what I call a “killer” ad – an ad that works over and over again for years.