Now all savvy marketers know free advertising techniques are plentiful on the internet, but most of the time you get what you pay for. Yet for those of us running a home based business on a shoestring budget with more time than money, free classifieds are the way to go. You simply can't beat the price.

Yahoo reigns supreme over all the thousands of free classified ad sites getting millions of hits every day. So why not take advantage of all this free traffic, and get your slice of the pie. Just don't expect to get hundreds of hits a day from one ad. It is possible to generate 15 - 30 hits on a daily basis. The key here is to have 4 or 5 ads running at the same time.

Now the above holds true, If you can write a mesmerizing ad with a headline that stops your readers dead in their tracks. Without a well developed ad,  your advertising efforts are doomed.

Here are a few excellent pointers on crafting your ad

1. Write a captivating headline that grabs the attention of the reader in your target market. Use powerful and compelling words that spark the curiosity of the reader. Your headline must pack a wallop. Stay away from negative headlines. We are bombarded with negativity all day long from the news media, television, movies and so on. Who needs it! Say something positive.

2. Focus on benefits not features. Pretend that you're the prospect and come up with a list of benefits from the prospect's point of view. Fill a void. Solve a problem. The prospect has only one question, "what's in it for me?"

3. Use the words "you" and "your" as often as possible. Speak directly to the prospect not at him.

4. Never try and sell your product in the ad. Your only goal is to elicit a response for more info.

5. Please make it credible. Don't hype me with claims that I can earn $100,000 in 90 days or less while I'm sleeping. Not only does this insult the intelligence of the reader but it reeks of scam.

6. When writing ad copy for an affiliate program, create a new advertisement based on your perception of the product. For heaven's sake, don't use the same old stale ads that thousands of other affiliate are employing.

7. Invite the reader to visit your website or e-mail your autoresponder for complete details. Use the words "go here now" or "click here now." Don't leave it up to the prospect. A strong call for action is essential.

8. Whenever you're in a writing mood, it's a good idea to have a dictionary, thesaurus and even a book of quotes on hand.

9. If possible, use an autoresponder with a personalization feature. This enables you to capture the names and e-mail addresses of all potential customers. Besides, it's quite flattering to the reader to be addressed by his or her first name.

10. Subscribe to The Ads That Pull Like Crazy Newsletter and learn how to write killer ad copy. Actual ads are analyzed in each issue.

Now on to Yahoo. Here is my strategy for placing ads at Yahoo

1. Go to: http://classifieds.yahoo.com/ Click on classifieds and post ads. If you don't have an account, you will be asked to set one up. Yahoo does not allow you to post without a username and password.

2. The next step is to place your ads. If you place multiple ads promoting the same product, write a different ad for each category/subcategory. Your ad must fit the category. Yahoo encourages you to place multiple ads, but has a policy against duplicate ads or ads that are incorrectly or inappropriately posted. You run the risk of being labelled a spammer and losing your account. Now I ask you, is it worth losing all that free traffic?

3. It takes about 24 hours for your ads to go online. The bulk of your traffic will come in the first 24 hours that your ad is online. After that your ad will move down in the rotation. Even though your ads are good for 60 days, they will not generate much traffic after the initial 24 hour period.

4. Wait two days. Then go back to Yahoo and edit or rewrite your ads.

As I previously stated, if you have multiple ads running, you can get a decent chunk of traffic.

There you have it in a nutshell. If your ads are not producing the desired results, don't give up. Keep plugging away. Study and evaluate the ad copy in newsletters and classified ad sites. Pay closer attention to the commercials on television and radio. There's a reason why those Madison Avenue Copywriters are paid big bucks. Remember it takes persistent effort and practice to generate a winning ad.

Nancy Denuto
http://www.cebn.com/reviews/nancyd
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