IF YOU WANT SALES, NEVER WRITE OR PRESENT A BORING AD. Again, if your ad is interesting, that's only reason why your readers or customers are ever going to read on and finish reading your ad and possibly buy and try out your product. One effective way for you to "connect" with your readers/customers is for your ad to speak directly to them. Tell them a story, appeal to their emotions, their needs, their desires. If possible, add testimonials from people they are familiar with; a famous actor or actress perhaps. Never make mistake of talking more about your company and your success more than product you are trying to sell. Your target customers are reading your ad because they want to know about your product and not about you. Don't also bother trying to tell them how your company developed product. Tell them instead what your product can do for them.

DON'T EXAGGERATE; BE BELIEVABLE INSTEAD. The only way to achieve this is to tell truth in your ad. You have to be able to develop image that your customers can trust you based on kinds of advertisements you show them. If you have to choose between being clever or ingenious with your ad and being honest and truthful, go with latter. Your customers will be able to discern for themselves that you are being honest with them. If you were able to convince them into buying one of your products before by giving them false hopes or facts, trust me, you won't be able to convince them to buy that same product again simply because product didn't deliver what you promised in ad.

GET THEM MOVIN'! You have managed to hook their attention, get them to read entire ad and convince them to buy and try out your product. But without this important part of your ad, you still won't be able to really have a successful ad. Yes, your customers now want to buy their product. They're excited to try it out. Where and how do they buy? It's important to put an address, a phone number or even a hotline for them to make them buy and take that final step in your ad campaign. Give them ways of how they can order: credit card, a form they can mail and send money order to, using discount and promotional coupons.

Keep in mind these tips and you'll be able to produce ads that will sell you your products.

Unique visitors to that page - one month: 150,000 Prime Ad price: $.007

Calculation: 150,000 x $.007 = $1,050 /mo.

So, for a prime ad on that page of your site to run for one month would cost advertiser $1,050.

* For advertising in an ezine or newsletter, just substitute your subscription base for unique visitor figure. (Remember, if yours is a weekly publication, be sure to times your subscription base by 4.333 to arrive at a monthly figure.)

This is just a guideline - it's always a good idea to find out what your competitors are charging advertisers and adjust your price based on that information.

Advertiser's Informational Packet

Once you've collected all above information, you need to come up with a way to present this information to potential advertisers. I suggest a short and to point Advertiser's Informational Packet. This should be available in both an online and off-line version.

Our Advertiser's Informational Packet is ordered as follows:

Company Information and Background

Our Advertising Efforts and Partnerships

Web Site & Newsletter Demographics

Advertising Options & Current Rates

Payment Methods

It's always a good idea to offer incentives or discounts. Give a price break to those who commit to advertising for several months or for those who take out more than just one ad, etc. Personally, I like to offer new advertisers ½ off their second month's total ad cost. (Buy one month, get second at half price.)

Where To Find Potential Advertisers

The last thing you need are actual advertisers themselves. If you don't already have an Advertise With Us page on your site, consider putting one up. You might be surprised by how effective this can be. Many potential advertisers use search engines and terms to find sites which relate to their products. If they come across yours and you have an Advertise Here page, they just might contact you for advertising information. Be sure to also submit this page to major search engines.

Another simple way of getting advertisers is to go to your competitors web sites and see who's advertising with them. All is fair in love and Internet advertising, right? If you can offer them a better deal, they just might place their advertising with you.

Don't forget to look into off-line businesses as well. For example, there may be a magazine (not online), which shares similar demographics with your web site. By taking time to do a little research and to draft a well-written letter of introduction, you may find these off-line businesses very receptive to placing advertising with you.

There are also many advertising agencies which would be more than willing to help sell advertising on your site (or in your ezine), but I suggest trying to do it on your own at first. If later you need help, then contact these agencies.

For an example of an Advertise With Us page, see http://www.taddgroup.com/newsletter_advertising.htm or go to our sister site http://www.mysticbeagle.com/advertise_here.htm

Todd W. Winslow is the co-owner of TADD Marketing Group, L.L.C. He is also the founder of TADD Publishing Group which publishes a variety of e-mail newsletters http://www.taddgroup.com, and is co-creator of The Mystic Beagle - a romance and relationship advice web site http://www.mysticbeagle.com