Get attention by targeting your best audience. Then use a headline to shout out a problem or solution your target audience will immediately identify with.

3. Make your ad skim-friendly. Only a small percentage of us start at beginning of an ad and read every word to end. We just don't have time or interest (remember those thousands of ad messages we face each day?).

Most of us skim through an ad. If ad is more than a couple of sentences, we will skip it if it doesn't look like copy we can skim.

Put your most important phrases in bold. Ron likes to bold key elements of offer. Kevin insists that he can get jist of offer simply by reading Ron's bold phrases.

Your ad should be easy to read FAST. Keep sentences short. Use simple everyday words. Make your paragraphs no longer than three lines. Try to limit yourself to one idea per sentence.

4. If your ad will appear in print or on TV, use a picture, graphic, or image to enhance your message. The image should help tell story.

Almost all advertising paints a vision of customer in dire trouble. Then, when she buys product, she is delivered into promised land of a better, easier, more enjoyable life. Depending on your ad, you may be able to use images to illustrate this important story line that works with any audience.

5. Your ad must show people how to buy. Include as many ways to contact you as you can. When we send an article to publications, we hear from a lot of readers when we include our web site address. We hear from even more if we include our email address at end. Put those plus our phone number and regular mailing address at end and reader response goes from a trickle to a flood.

2. Summers are slower than other three seasons. This is not to say that you shouldn't advertise during summer. What it means is that you'll probably have to advertise more! Again, focus of most people is on planning vacations, being with their children and having fun. Because of that, most won't pay much attention to advertising that isn't specifically related to their immediate need. You'll have to up your ad frequency in order to place yourself in front of them continually.

3. Always take advantage of advertising related products during "newsworthy" times. Nationally or locally, if your product or service relates well with something that is being covered in news, jump on bandwagon. Again, it deals with general focus of your customer's attention. (Of course, PLEASE use good judgment!)

-->> You Must Repeat Your Ads Regularly <<--

There is another old advertising saying (marketer's are just full of them). "Repetition breeds remembrance." Nothing truer has ever been spoken. Why do you think Pepsi and Coca-Cola spend millions on marketing each year? Everyone in world knows who they are. However, they understand that if they disappear from view, they are likely to drop in market share and fast!

Pepsi, Coke, McDonald's and hundreds of other major corporations understand importance of staying in front of their audience. The last statistic I saw pertaining to impressions stated that consumers must see your ad seven times before they really even notice it. SEVEN TIMES!

I know what you're thinking, "But I'm a small business owner. I don't have budget of Coke or Pepsi." True. But you can swap ads with others, write and submit articles to ezines or Web sites, arrange joint partner ads and split cost plus a number of other things to reduce your advertising expense. What's important is that you stay in front of your particular customer.

Once this combination is put into practice, you will notice a great increase in your advertising response. The result of an ad that is well written, placed in a targeted publication, timed impeccably and repeated with regularity will be a more consistent flow of sales for your business.