So what can you do? On one hand, you want to make your message short and easy to understand, but on other hand, you don't want to over-simplify your sales pitch. This can be quite a puzzler.

The best tool I've found for making my point when it comes to explaining complex ideas is to use a comparison. If you try to explain a new concept from scratch, you're never going to be able to keep audience's attention. With a good comparison, however, you are not starting from scratch -- rather, you are using your audience's prior knowledge about something else to make a statement about your product or service. In essence, you are just taking what your customers know already, and then "tweaking" it a little bit to help make your point.

There are at least two ways that you can use comparisons in your persuasive messages:

1) Comparison and Contrast: This is probably most common form of comparison. You simply use people's knowledge of some product and service and then show how yours is different and better. This allows you to focus your valuable "message time" on benefits and advantages of your offer.

For instance, if you were trying to market a new software program, you could say, "Our program works just like a word processor, but allows you to edit, modify, and upload web pages as well. It's power of an HTML editor with ease of a word processor!" By phrasing it this way, you can do a lot of explanation in just a few words. You are also doing one thing that we all desire -- you are distinguishing yourself from your competitors.

Everyone has seen media spotlight focused on big dot-coms who, dependent on ad revenues, have either gone out of business or been forced to cut back.

Unfortunately, it's same story for small business owners. The economic downturn leaves many potential advertisers much more reluctant to pay prices they would have a year or two ago.

I recently came across a message board where one advertiser summed it up this way: in these hard economic times, she has read that people are less willing to make purchases. This means that she is much more at risk to suffer a loss rather than make a profit.

Like most people, this advertiser does not have any extra money to spare - and certainly none to lose to a failed ad campaign. To turn odds in her favor, she regularly goes bargain-hunting for ad specials.

Frustrated webmasters and online editors are feeling pinch of lost ad revenues. This is particularly evident with recent launch of ad auction sites such as WebmasterBids.com and EzineAdAuction.com. These sites are specifically meant to aid newsletter editors and webmasters in selling their remnant ad space - space that would otherwise remain unsold, profits lost forever.

This doesn't mean that you can't benefit from your ad space! Quite contrary. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Encourage Customers to Book Multiple Ad Slots.

Offer large discounts on multi-ad packages. This is a win-win situation - your customer receives excellent value, and more of your ad space is booked with less stress.

2. Auction Off Remnant Ad Space.