Yahoo Groups

You’ve probably heard a lot about Web 2.0. Everyone’s telling you how big and important it is. Well I’m here to tell you Web 2.0 is overrated. I’m not bashing it, I’m just telling you like it is. It’s totally overrated and don’t put too much into it or you’ll just be disappointed.

On the other hand news groups and forums have been around forever. You can leave all the hype and go back to news groups and forums that a lot of people have forgotten about.

People always want to get together with other people to talk about certain topics. There are Yahoo groups for everything you can imagine and more.

There are groups for people in certain areas geographically, there are groups for every type of problem you can think of, there are groups for discussions on politics, news, problems, family, hobbies, fun, money, jobs, health, and more.

Yahoo groups are completely free. You can start a group for free or join for free. It’s a great way to meet new people who are interested in the same things you are.

You can reach a lot of people with these groups. Find some active, large groups in a niche you are into and negotiate with the owner. This isn’t some jv crap, you have to negotiate just like you would with a major businesses offline in the real world.

So get in there and find those active groups where you can reach tons of people and have your business boom while others are still playing around with web 2.0.

Doing this, you can be seen by lots of people who are interested in your website without the crazy high costs of pay per click.

Here’s a riddle for you. What’s an advertising method that’s been around for a long time? It’s an old marketing method, but it’s not dead. In fact, it’s still going strong.

Yellow Pages

The yellow pages have been around since the 1800s and don’t count on them dying out. Everyone still gets the yellow pages every year and now they are online too.

When people need some local services, the first place they go is to the yellow pages. Now yellow pages aren’t cheap, know that. They just know how many people rely on the yellow pages to find local businesses. The majority of people.

Like all ads, you want to make yours eye catching. Make a catchy title and it should be in all bold letters to get people’s attention. Get the most bang for your buck.

Pictures of people also grab attention. Like for all the ads of doctors, lawyers, and plumbers, people first pay attention to the ads with a picture of a person. If you are placing the type of ad where you can put your picture or another picture of a person, then that will grab peoples attention ahead of all the other ads and they will be more likely to contact you first.

Sometimes you can add colors to your ad, but this is more expensive and probably won’t have much of an impact. Just stick to the regular black.

Remember the keys-

*Bold letters for the title. But don’t use all CAPS, because it’s harder to read and people don’t like READING ALL CAPS.

*Catchy title and phrase

*Stand out from boring ads

*Add a picture if you can

Like I said before, Yellow Pages aren’t cheap so if they didn’t work, people wouldn’t be buying them. People are buying them year after year after year because it works! It simply gets a lot of attention, otherwise people would just save their money. But many businesses can add a lot of business by all the exposure they get from yellow pages. Always ask about online yellow pages too, you want to make sure an online listing is included with an regular yellow pages ad.

There’s one more Old One to return in the marketing morse code, can you guess what it is?

Banner ads- The third Old One to return

Some people say banner ads don’t work, but they don’t know what they’re talking about cause then why are there so many banner ads out there? Because they don’t work? Come on! Nobody is dumb enough to keep paying for something that doesn’t work. If banner ads didn’t work, then you wouldn’t see them everywhere. People keep buying banner ad spots because they work!

So let’s say you have a website ready to earn you cash and it just needs one important thing-traffic. A great way to get lots of traffic is by having a banner ad on a site that gets a lot of traffic of people into your niche.

Now you don’t want some boring ad or one nobodys gonna see. A good way to display banner ads is to make them not look like a banner ad. You can make them look like a coupon. Who doesn’t like coupons? Put something really interesting on it that makes people want to click to see what it’s all about.

Or make it look like some hot report. Give it a catchy title. 10 Hottest Tips to ….
3 Top Ways To….
How to … In 3 days guaranteed!

Location, location. You want your ad in the best location. Don’t get an ad that’s below the fold. You want as many people to see your ad as possible. You don’t want them to have to keep scrolling down before they see your ad. And most people are blind to ads at the very top. Of course you’re trying to get peoples attention!

Just like if you were running an Adwords campaign you have to track your ads. Run them on different sites and see which site brings the most clicks then focus on advertising on that site. You definitely want the ad on the right kind of site. The good thing about banner ads is you don’t pay per click like Adwords. You either pay per impression or pay a flat fee per month. Check in to see how much traffic these ads are bringing you. Make 2 different ads and track which one gets the best response. Track and improve. Drop what doesn’t get good results and when you find out what works best keep doing more of it to bring in more profits.

A lot cheaper than adwords, more click for the buck.

Hey everyone, now it’s time for part 2 of my Return of the Old Ones-The Marketing Morse Code. Sounds like a bunch of old people are going to come back, but it’s the return of the tried and true marketing methods,with a twist.

Classified Ads

Classified ads have been used from the small time business owner to Big MNCs to advertise their services. Its one of the longest running advertising models in the world.But just because its been used so damn long,doesnt mean everyone is doing it rightly.

If you turn to a typical day’s Classified Ads section in the newspaper,take for instance the Real Estate section,you will see 97 percent of the advertisers using the same damn style in their ads.If its just words,they are almost too similar that you cant tell one offer apart from the other,and if its a display ad with the real estate agent in it,you see like an Ants Nest looking page with every real estate agent in the typical black suit and giving the fake smile.

Many will say,why i still am making a profit from the ad,so why change it.Well would you rather make the $1000 dollars you are making from the generic ad or would you like to make $10,000 from the same ad.Imagine,that ad is converting at 1%(meaning 1 out of every 100 who see the ad will call you),just by tweaking it a little and increasing the conversions by 1 %,just 1 %,it will double your profits..Wouldn’t you want that?

The thing is,classified ads work,but you gotta do it the right way. The people who are doing it all wrong are just wasting their ad money. Think of using a classified ad like Google adwords. You have to say something short and sweet to get people interested and wanting to know more. With Adwords you have just 3 little lines to capture someone’s interest.

To make a good classified ad that gets a lot of response, you have to get to the point without saying too much. Say something effective in just a few little lines. Make it stand out from all the boring ads.

Another way to make your classified ad stand out is to buy a display ad that makes it look like it’s been circled.

As you can see from the picture at the top, if someone is looking at the classifieds, the first thing that gets their attention is the ad that has a red circle around it. That’s a surefire way to make sure your ad gets read first.

Ever since the beginning of classified ads, it’s been a way to market stuff, get people’s attention and make money. It’s not going to die out because it’s a tried and true effective marketing method. If it didn’t work, you wouldn’t see so many classified ads.

You have to remember to get the most bang for your buck by writing a good ad. Not some long and boring ad. Not a dry ad. Not a confusing ad where people don’t know what on earth you are talking about. Write one like an ad that would get your attention. Look through classified ads for examples and see what ads get your attention, which ones stand out and which ones don’t. Look at all the bad ads and avoid making yours like that.

Remember:

1. Short and sweet

2. To the point

3. Make it stand out

You can always offer a free report or some kind of information that people can ask for. Write an ad that gets to the point and tells them what’s so awesome about the information you have. Make them want it.

There are older people who don’t like computers and don’t use email. They use the old fashioned way of calling or writing in for information and orders. You can make these people your customers. You just have to have a product they would be interested in and target classifieds they’re likely to read.

Like Google adwords can also test to see which ad is best. One time run one ad and then next time run another ad. You can see which one gets a better response and stick to that one.

Go out today and start playing with Classified Ads.You will love me for it.

Stay tuned for the next part of the marketing morse code. There’s another old one that’s coming back!