Who is Your Target Market?

Finding your target market is very important to your success. It's better to find your niche market and work in it than to try to market your product or service to a wide range of people. For example, I specialize in helping others market their business. I want to target people who have businesses online. I wouldn't want to advertise in a ezine focusing on parenting or weight loss.

What Do Your Customers Want?

What do you put in the ad? The first rule of advertising - find out what your customers want, need and fear - then give it to them. How do you find out what they want? Ask them. Put questions out to your target market. Use forums, newsletters, discussion lists. You may be surprised at what you find out. Also, survey past customers. Ask them why they bought from you. You may find out why they bought and why you thought they bought are two different things!

Writing Your Ad

When writing your ad, you want to keep it short and to the point. Don't use all capital letters. Don't try to sell every benefit in the ad. You want just enough to get their attention, so they want more information. To do this, select a few of your best benefits (I'll tell you how to make your list of benefits a little later). Use these in your ad and title. Remember, you want to get their attention. You will want to spend most of your time on the title or first line of your ad. If you don't catch their attention by then, you probably won't. Use power words like free, insider, etc. For a list of power words, go to http://www.jbmarketingtips.com/powerwords.htm .

Making a List of Benefits

An easy way to make a list of benefits is to list all the features of your product or service. Now, write down what benefit you get from each. A feature is a quality or description of the product - what the products does. A benefit is what you get out of the feature. What does it do for me? Don't assume your prospective customer will think of all the benefits. They usually won't take the time. You must point them out.

Be Specific

General statements don't work as well as specific ones. Example: Increase your sales by 187%, instead of using 200%. It is better to use 9.8% than 10%. Don't round off your results. Keep them specific.

The Sales Letter

Once you have your ad written, you want to set up your autoresponders with your sales letter and follow ups. Here you will give them all of the benefits of your product or service. Make the sales letter enticing. Use exciting words. Make sure that every point flows naturally into the next. Keep it simple to follow. Be clear. Get testimonials and use them. Above all, write your sales letter as though you are talking to someone. Use informal language. When making the follow up letters, use different titles. Put your main focus on a different benefit in each letter.

Always transfer ownership. Make your sales letter more personal by using "you" and "your". Say "You will learn...", not "The report will...". "Your report will be delivered in 5 days.", not "The report will be...". Count how many "you's" and "your's" you have in your letter. There should be at least twice as many "you's" and "your's" as "I's", "we's", "me's", "our;s" or the company's name.

The Bonus

Always offer a bonus. Offer more than one bonus and give a monetary value. Example: free bonus report worth $39.95.

Closing the Sales Letter

Close out the sales letter by asking for the sale. Use phrases that stimulate the potential customer to action. Give them a reason to act now. The first 50 who respond. On sale for limited time. Be sure to give a time limit. 2 days, 2 weeks. If you act within the next 48 hours, I will send you a free bonus report worth $29.95. Don't forget, ask for the sale. For a list of action phrases, go to http://www.jbmarketingtips.com/actionphrases.htm .

* Written by Barbara Ayres, publisher, Advantage Marketing Tips Newsletter. J & B Marketing Group has helped 1000's of people profit online. Visit http://jbmarketingtips.com for marketing tips, software, web services, business resources and more. No time to visit the site? Subscribe to our Free bi-weekly newsletter, Advantage Marketing Tips. mailto:advantage@jbmarketingtips.com?subscribeAMTa or visit http://www.jbmarketingtips.com/newsletta.htm

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