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A Friend In Need Ezine |
| Articles - Business |
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Making Cents Out Of Your Ad Copy
Through my experiences working with various companies I have found that many make big mistakes with their ad copy. Many businesses are willing to spend thousands of dollars to have their ad copy displayed to web site visitors, just to convey a faulty and ineffective message. I have seen hundreds of different problems that people have made in their copy and decided to write about some of the ones that I seem to see the most often.
Don't be a used car salesman (no offense).
As tempting as it may be, please stay away from exclamation points. If you find that it is absolutely necessary, one is more then plenty. Also stay away from all caps in your ad copy. I certainly don't like to be yelled at and potential customers don't either.
Other improvements you might consider include: Energy efficiency - With energy bills going sky-high, a new furnace that updates your home's energy efficiency can lower your energy bills, as well as appeal to buyers. Consider a new heating and cooling system, new windows or added insulation.
People Are Wary
Many times making an "I can't believe it" offer in your ad copy will attract less potential customers then just a "very good" offer. The Internet is a scary place and everyone has either been burned on the Internet or knows someone who has been. If you see an offer that says "YOU JUST WON'T BELIEVE IT!!!", I'd imagine you don't click through to see more. I don't know anyone who would. On the other hand when I read about a good deal, I am much more likely to investigate further.
Be Professional
I have talked about making your whole site professional looking in the past. Think of your advertisement copy as an extension to your website. You want visitors to feel comfortable with your products and/or services, and the same rules apply to ad design as to site design. Here are a few rules you should try to follow:
Avoid Information Overload
Remember, that advertisements should be designed to give visitors enough information that they want to know more, not educate them about everything you offer. It should not be an essay but a brief statement of what your product or service is about. It should be designed to get them to click through to get all the details.
Target Your Visitors
I have conversed with many people about their advertising campaigns and many believe that the more visitors, the better. While this is true to an extent, you don't just want the average web surfer to visit your site, but the surfer that is interested in what you offer.
Many online marketing firms will target your traffic for you, but you can do some of the targeting yourself. If your ad is displayed on a site about sports cars, but your site specifically deals with Porches, you want to have something in your ad that specifies that your site is for those interested in Porches. Even further, you can geo-target to a certain level within your ad. If you are advertising for a Porsche Club in San Francisco, then tell potential visitors that your site is for visitors in the San Francisco area right in your ad copy.
Unless you have a service that everyone is interested in (if such thing exists), try to target your visitors as much as possible. In most cases you are paying by the click and the more dead ends that you can weed out before they click through, the better.
I am in the business of delivering high quality visitors, but I know that my customers will have a much better campaign if they spend more time on their ad copy and less time on worrying about other details. If you do not feel confident in being able to create effective ad copy, find someone who is and have them do it for you. Also, make sure that you dedicate some of your resources to reviewing and refining your ad copy on an ongoing basis.
The author, Jason D. Huhtala, is the Vice President of Operations for Target Blaster, Inc., an Internet Marketing firm specializing in inexpensive targeted pay-per-visitor web-site traffic. http://www.TargetBlaster.com |
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Complaining Customers are Good for Business
Remember the Coca Cola marketing disaster a few years ago? They tried to switch Coke drinkers to New Coke. It didn't work. Fortunately, the company quickly recognized the problem and had the resources to recover fast. Their follow up research revealed that only 1 unhappy customer in 50 takes time to complain. The other 49 just quietly switch brands.
It's human nature to avoid unpleasant experiences like customer complaints. Nobody likes bad news. But uncovering customer complaints and satisfying them can give you a powerful competitive advantage.
Why You Want To Hear Customer Complaints
Dissatisfied customers or clients can do one of 4 things:
Which choice would you like them to make? The best choice may surprise you.
You certainly don't want them to complain to a legal or public agency. And you definitely don't want them to complain to their friends and associates. Imagine how much business that can cost you.
Remaining silent may seem like the best choice. But it's not, for 2 reasons. First, because it really won't happen. It's human nature for people to talk about their experiences - especially experiences involving emotions like those generated by an unsatisfactory business transaction. The other reason you don't want a dissatisfied customer to remain silent is because it deprives you of the chance to correct the problem and save your relationship with your customer.
The best choice is to have your unhappy customer complain to you.
Complaining Customers are Doing You a Favour
Customers or clients who take the time and trouble to complain to you are doing you a favor. They're helping you grow your business. They're giving you the opportunity to resolve their problem and keep them as a customer. They're also alerting you to a problem that may be costing you business from other prospects and customers without your knowledge.
This applies to every business including independent distributors for MLM or network marketing companies. If the problem is in your area of responsibility you can correct it. If the problem is with your company's product or system you can advise them and ask them to correct it. You can also reduce the impact of a company problem on your operation by telling your distributors about it and letting them know the company is taking corrective action.
Encourage Customer Complaints
The Coca Cola Company discovered their New Coke marketing disaster quickly because they print a toll-free consumer information telephone number on all their product packages. The sudden deluge of complaint calls alerted them immediately to the extent of the problem and enabled them to respond fast to minimize the damage. I wonder how long it would have taken them to discover the problem if they didn't provide that telephone number and encourage complaints?
A toll-free consumer information line is one way to encourage customer complaints and feedback. Here are 3 others especially suited to small businesses on a limited budget.
* Develop a customer satisfaction and comments form. Include it with products you ship or with correspondence to customers and clients if you don't ship products.
* Send a follow up postcard to customers a week or 10 days after completing a transaction and ask if everything is OK. You can do this by email or telephone if it's appropriate.
* Create a separate page at your website for customer comments and complaints. Publicize the address on your home page and on all communications with your customers.
Your customers and clients know your strengths and weaknesses better than you. Get them to identify your weaknesses and tell you what they are so you can correct them. It may be uncomfortable or ego deflating to hear about your weaknesses. But you'll soon forget that when you take corrective action and see the positive impact it has on your bottom line.
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