STEP 3: REINFORCE YOUR HEADLINE WITH BODY COPY

Keep your body copy brief. Include a few power words to reinforce benefit promoted in your headline. For example, "Quick! Easy! Immediate results guaranteed!" could be used as body copy to reinforce sample headline in Step 2.

End your body copy by telling reader exactly how to respond to your ad. Keep it simple and make it easy. For example, "Call 1-800-123-4567 for FREE information TODAY!"

STEP 4: REVISE AND TEST -- OVER AND OVER AGAIN

Keep trying to increase number of responses from your ad. Test different headlines, different body copy, different media. Test even minor changes in your ad. I've seen ad responses jump dramatically after simply enclosing headline in quotation marks. I've also seen ad responses to a different ad drop after making same change. The only way to know if something works is to test it.

Test only one change at a time or you won't know which change produced new result. Be sure to code each version of your ad so you can track results from it. Whenever a new "test" version of your ad produces better results than your standard version, make it your new standard version. Continual testing enables you to gradually increase response rate and profitability of your little ad. I once built response to a recruiting ad printed on a postcard from 3 percent to over 20 percent this way.

Use this simple four step procedure to create your own small ads. If you already use small ads, apply this procedure to your existing ads to increase their effectiveness and profitability. The results will surprise you.

But here is dilemma. Depending on any number of factors, visitors could be coming from places other than your ads, and results might be misleading. If, for example, a search engine picks up one site and not other, you will obviously have more visitors to site that has been indexed.

Bluntly, hits to your web site don't really count - sales do. Your first job however, is to get visitors to your site. This is done through a variety of methods, including advertising, use of search engines and email. Once you get them there, you must then sell them on your product.

On our web sites, we have an "after sale" questionnaire and we simply ask them how they found us. Now these people have decided to do business with us, and their answers will most likely be truthful. We then log this information, which helps us determine what advertising is working.

Ads that don't appear to be pulling, we modify until we start seeing positive results. One of best places to test your ads is in ezine publications that are highly targeted toward your potential customers. I don't recommend ads in publications that are not targeted to your prospects. Unless you have a very generalized product, return you get in these will most likely be minimal. More importantly, you won't get sufficient information to determine if actual copy is working.

Many people have been advertising in same ezines for years. Remember that there is some "thrashing" that occurs, and some people drop off subscription list for publication, but others are added. This gives you a constant new group of people who will read your ad every time it is published.

Experienced online entrepreneurs will even keep same copy year after year if it is pulling. It usually takes 5 to 7 exposures anyway until they receive "brand identification". When someone is willing to "bite", if they have proper ad, they will remember them. To land your customers, like in fishing, you must have proper bait.