How To Write Profitable Classified Ads

Everybody wants to make more money... In fact, most people would like to hit upon something that makes them fabulously rich! And seemingly, one of the easiest roads to the fulfillment of these dreams of wealth, is mail order or within the professional circles of the business, direct mail selling...

The only thing is, hardly anyone gives much real thought to the basic ingredient of selling by mail--the writing of profitable classified ads. If your mail order business is to succeed, then you must acquire the expertise of writing classified ads that sell your product or services!

So what makes a classified ad good or bad? First of all, it must appeal to the reader, and as such, it must say exactly what you want it to say. Secondly, it has to say what it says in the least possible number of words in order to keep your operating costs within your budget. And thirdly, it has to produce the desired results whether inquiries or sales.

Grabbing the reader's attention is your first objective. You must assume the reader is "scanning" the page on which your ad appears in the company of two or three hundred classified ads. Therefore, there has to be something about your ad that causes him to stop scanning and look at yours! So, the first two or three words of your ad are the utmost importance and deserve your careful consideration. Most surveys show that words or like this:

MAKE BIG MONEY! Easy & Simple. Guaranteed! Limited offer. Send $1.00

These are the ingredients of any good classified ad---Attention--Interest--Desire--Action...Without these four ingredients skillfully integrated into your ad, chances are your ad will just "lie there" and not do anything but cost you money. What we've just shown you is the basic classified ad. Although such an ad could be placed in any leading publication and would pull a good response, it's known as a "blind ad" and would pull inquiries and responses from a whole spectrum of people reading the publication in which it appeared. In other words, from as many "time wasters" as from bona fide buyers.

So let's try to give you an example of the kind of classified ad might want to use, say to sell a report such as this one...Using all the rules of basic advertising copywriting, and saying exactly what our product is, our ad reads:

MONEY-MAKER'S SECRETS! How to Write winning classified ads. Simple & easy to learn-should double or triple your responses. Rush $1 to ABC Sales, 10 Main, Anytown, TX 75001.

The point we're making is: 1) You've got to grab the reader's attention...2) You've got to go "further stimulate" him with something (catch-phrase) that makes him 3) "desire" the product or service...4) Demand that he act immediately...

There's no point in being tricky or clever. Just adhere to the basics and your profits will increase accordingly. One of the best ways of learning to write good classified ad is to study the classifieds--try to figure out exactly what they're attempting to sell--and then practice rewriting them according to the rules we've just given you. Whenever you sit down to write a classified, always write it all out--and then go back over it, crossing out words, and refining your phraseology.

The final ingredient of your classified ad is of course, your name & address to which the reader is to respond--where he's to send his money or write for further information.

Generally speaking, readers respond more often to ads that include a name than to those showing just initials or an the number of words, or the amount of space your ad uses, the use of some names in classified ads could become quite expensive. If we were to ask our ad respondents to write to or send their money to The Research Writers & Publishers Association, or our advertising costs would be prohibitive. Thus we shorten our name Researchers or Money-Makers. The point here is to think relative to the placement costs of your ad, and to shorten excessively long names.

The same holds true when listing your post office box number. Shorten it to just plain Box 40, or in the case of a rural delivery, shorten it to just RR1

The important thing is to know the rules of profitable classified ad writing, and to follow them. Hold your costs in line.

Now you know the basics...the rest is up to you.