“Out of Focus” Ads Can Cost You Customers

Written by Karon Thackston


by KaronThackston © 2003 http://www.copywritingcourse.com

As I was riding downrepparttar road last week, I noticed a billboard. As I sat waiting on a stoplight I kept staring at it. I couldn’t help wondering what those people were thinking when they created that thing. It made no sense to me whatsoever. The focus was completely off. They were spending all that money on a billboard that was practically useless.

That happens quite a bit with all types of advertising. Well-meaning people design and/or write ads that just don’t make good sense. For all their time and all their money they will likely get nothing in return. So, what did they do that was all wrong?

This particular billboard was for a realtor. Half of it was taken up with his photo. I understand photos… they help to create relationships and give people a face to put with an otherwise arbitrary name. But halfrepparttar 108151 billboard? The photo should have definitely been much smaller.

The next biggest thing onrepparttar 108152 billboard wasrepparttar 108153 realtor’s tag line. To be honest, I don’t remember whatrepparttar 108154 tag line was… something pretty generic like “Serving your real estate needs for 15 years.” Nothing worth taking up all that space for.

Next… in aboutrepparttar 108155 same size font (type) asrepparttar 108156 tag line wererepparttar 108157 name ofrepparttar 108158 real estate company andrepparttar 108159 realtor’s name.

Last - and inrepparttar 108160 smallest type - wasrepparttar 108161 contact phone number. Hmmm… does something seem wrong to you?

Now let’s think about this. What isrepparttar 108162 purpose of putting up a billboard - or any other piece of advertising? To get people to respond. And how do people respond? In this case by contacting you. If I had a shot at redesigning this billboard, I would do a lot of things differently.

The biggest two things onrepparttar 108163 billboard would berepparttar 108164 realtor’s name and his contact phone number. If a person driving by only got two pieces of information from this ad, I’d want it to berepparttar 108165 name of who to contact and how.

Make Your Website Sell

Written by Chris Mole


Make Your Website Sell By Chris Mole

Thousands of new websites are springing up every week. The owners of these sites are full of optimism that their venture into e-commerce will transform their business by bringing in new customers and boosting their sales.

Butrepparttar reality is that most websites fail abysmally as sales tools. Why? Becauserepparttar 108150 owners of these sites have spent a lot of money creating fancy graphics but have paid little attention torepparttar 108151 words onrepparttar 108152 site. And it’srepparttar 108153 words on websites that sell. Your fancy graphics might entertain your potential customers but they won’t makerepparttar 108154 sale.

Take a look at many ofrepparttar 108155 websites out there in cyberspace. They are full of spelling mistakes, poor grammar and cumbersome text that makes you want to do only one thing … click your mouse button and move to something else.

Small and medium businesses are particularly guilty of this. The words appear to be an after-thought, hurriedly cobbled together to fillrepparttar 108156 space betweenrepparttar 108157 images.

One of America’s e-commerce gurus, Ken Evoy, believes 90 percent of websites are failing to “getrepparttar 108158 order” from potential customers browsingrepparttar 108159 web, because they are badly written, or written inrepparttar 108160 wrong style.

“Remember, people userepparttar 108161 Net to find information. And information is contained in words, not graphics,” Evoy says.

“Let’s face it, there’s some pretty cool stuff onrepparttar 108162 web, and it’s fun to play with. But don’t be tempted. Your sales site can’t be self-indulgent. You have to think customer every step ofrepparttar 108163 way. Customers want information.

“Compelling text is 1000 percent more important than fancy design. After all, if a fancy page has no substance, it delivers no value.”

Web selling also has two important features to consider. First,repparttar 108164 customer sought you out. This is a big positive. Second, there are thousands of other companies onrepparttar 108165 web competing for your customer’s business. And since you are a ‘virtual vendor’,repparttar 108166 customer can click you away in a second … without even feeling bad about it. This is a huge negative.

When you think about selling onrepparttar 108167 web, keep these two points clearly in mind. You have a potential customer browsing your site, finger poised over their mouse. One click and they’re gone.

So what should an effective website look like? First, keep it simple. It may be nice to have moving images to greetrepparttar 108168 customer when they enterrepparttar 108169 site, but make sure it doesn’t take too long to load. Otherwiserepparttar 108170 customer will get impatient and … click … they’re gone.

All your site really needs is to be clean, simple and well-structured. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be complicated. And it doesn’t have to be expensive.

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