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Using Classified Ads To Maximize Your Web Marketing Efforts
by Archie Lawhorne
Obviously there is quite a bit of interest in marketing on the
web these days, and for good reason. With approximately 150
million people connected to the Internet, and more coming on
line every day, the marketing possibilities are tremendous. The
key to success is sorting through the various strategies and
tactics and begin with the basics.
One of the most cost-effective tools available is the classified
ad. Today there are literally thousands of places on the Net to post
free classifieds. And there are numerous ways to find them. Simply go
to Yahoo, HotBot, AltaVista, or any of the other search engines
and type "free classifieds." Hundreds of different sites will
appear.
Set an objective of how many listings a day you're going to post.
It can be time-consuming, mindless work, so plan this in your
"idle" time. Most free ads at classified sites expire after
a certain amount of time, so keep track of which ones are most
effective and keep returning to renew your ads. Here's some of the
most responsive classified sites I've found.
1. The ZAP Directory
2. Yahoo Classifieds
3. Business Solutions Classifieds
4. Best Mall Classified Ads
5. 1AmericaMall
6. Five Star Classified Ads
7. Classifieds 2000
One of my favorite all-around classified ad resources is the
Online Classified Club.
This site offers the latest in classified
ad resources, tools, tips and know-how to promote your web
site almost instantly. The cost is only about 8 cents a day!
Among other things, this site gives you:
- One of the largest list of free classified ad sites on the Net.
- A classified ad broadcaster service, which blasts your ad to over
800 sites.
- A state by state classified ad listing (for low cost off-line
advertising)
- Unlimited, automated search engine submissions to 225 search engines
- 11,000 newsletters and 400 Free-for-All links
- 1,000 "order-pulling" headlines
- Numerous software downloads, marketing reports, and other
tools and resources
Ezine Classifieds
Ezines have become an increasingly popular and effective means
to distribute information. They can also be one of the most
economical ways to reach a large audience. It's not unusual to
be able to place a three to five line ad in an ezine that has
thousands subscribers for less than $40 or so.
One of the challenges of ezine advertising is finding the right
ezine to advertise in. It's no problem finding plenty of ezines,
but it can be a tedious task contacting publishers to get
demographic and subscriber base information, as well as ad rates
and submission procedures. I've found a number of different
directories (listed below) that will help greatly in simplifying
this process.
The nice thing about ezine advertising is you can really target
your market. I've actually placed some "exclusive ads" directed
to a large number of subscribers with some very good results. If
you're not familiar with what an "exclusive ad" is, it's simply
when the owner of an ezine lets you send your sales message to all
the subscribers BY ITSELF. In other words, your ad will go out to
everyone subscribed to that particular ezine with no other content.
Your response is typically higher, since you've eliminated all
other competing information.
Next make sure you code your ad in some way to track responses.
This is critical in determining where to put your future
advertising dollars. If you can't code your site URL, you can
put a code in your ad and ask for it when responding to leads.
Here are a few ezine directory links that I've used to find ezines
that are appropriate for my particular offers.
liszt
marketingwise
bestezines
e-zinez
infojump
webcom
ezineworld
Archie R. Lawhorne, APR is an accredited public relations
professional, marketing writer and president of Crosspoint
Publishing Company. For information on his current business,
visit his web site at: sixfigureincome
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