Both businesses were spending a lot of money to get attention but weren’t converting this attention to leads.

Are you having same problem?

Marketing is a lot like farming. You can’t just head out to your fields and bring in a bountiful harvest. First, you buy seed from money you’ve budgeted. You buy enough to be sure that a good crop will germinate and thrive until harvest, and you’re likely to plant several different crops to hedge weather and market.

You may not be interested in becoming a farmer, but if you want to see your business grow there are three ways thinking like a farmer can help you.

1. Learn How to Collect More Leads A farmer needs seed and lots of it to bring in a bountiful harvest. You need a lot of quality leads to increase your clientele.

If your ads or mailings aren't resulting in a steady stream of inquiries, find out what's not working and change it. By changing a couple of sentences of your marketing copy or your offer, for example, you can increase response rates by a factor of ten or more.

Could you collect more leads with right marketing strategy and marketing copy?

Classified ads can be free (certain restrictions are likely to apply) or can cost you as low as less than $10. For ones that you have to pay, prices vary depending on where you advertise, how large subscriber list is and number of impressions (how many times your ad appears).

You may consider placing your online classified ads on a website that is already generating huge traffic or in someone else’s ezine.

Here are a couple of sites that you may wish to check out:

http://www.classifieds.yahoo.com http://www.5starads.com http://www.isnare.com http://www.web-ads.com

With there being a limit to number of lines that your classified ad can contain, it is a good idea to spend some time crafting out an effective ad copy to elicit best response. Your job is to conjure a clear image of a solid benefit in minds of your prospect, based on restricted number of words that you are allowed in your ad.

Here are 7 tips on crafting out your online classified ads:

1) Use age-old marketing formula once again: AIDA! Attract Attention, get Interest, Attract Desires, Get Action.

2) In order to attract attention and to get your prospect's interest, you must first know who he/she is and what he/she wants.

3) Sell on benefits and not on features. Remember saying “Sell Sizzle, not steak”!

4) Make a clear statement that says specifically what your prospects will get when they answer your ad. Show by using facts instead of claims. For instance “Fast service guaranteed” is not as preferred as “Your items shipped in 24 hours”.

5) Get your prospects to act on information immediately. Put a time limit!