And the Award For Best-Pulling Ad Goes To...
| Category: Online Promotion | Date: 2002-12-18 |
Question: Does your advertising pull the way you want it to? Or does it fall short...way, way short?
As people get more accustomed to online advertising, they are becoming more vocal as to why one ad appeals, while others are earning the cold shoulder.
According to a survey conducted by Jupiter, a globally recognized resource on ecommerce, most winners and losers have a number of things in common.
And The Winners Are...
According to the survey, winning ads:
*Include targeted information. A vast majority (40%) of those surveyed stated that they continue to use the Internet as an information resource.
Consider packaging your ad within free information, perhaps by presenting your ad as a resource box at the end of a free report. Or weaving examples throughout, encouraging readers to refer to your web site for more detail.
*Include statistics. Numbers work, as long as they are realistic. A claim, backed by statistics, tends to be more believable.
*Keep their length appropriate for the offer being presented. More information must be provided for higher ticket items, or items that require a great deal of consideration (buying a house, for example). While other ads, that focus on more simple products or services, can be shorter.
*Provide a number of benefits. There's that word again, benefits. It's the key to success online, and you'll see it again and again.
Benefits answering the 'what's in it for me?' question are far more persuasive than features. Benefits speak to emotions. And the vast majority of sales have an emotional element involved.
Make sure you address in your ad how your product or service will fulfill a need, a want, sooth a concern or fear, solve their problem, etc.
*Have supporting information available at other locations. Does your site include information that back up your ads? If a person clicks through from a link, will the web information continue to build on what was already presented?
So, these are some of the good ad elements. For ads that didn't fare so well, the Juniper survey found that many included the following.
And The Raspberry Award Goes To Ads That...
*Presented the information as a pop-up box. Now, pop-up effectiveness continues to be debated. In the survey, 69% considered pop-ups a negative, calling them annoying and intrusive; just too aggressive.
Within this 69%, 25% stated that they would avoid sites they knew featured pop-ups in the future.
Yet, on the flip side, there are those successful marketers who firmly insist that pop-ups are an effective way to present an offer; that people respond to them.
The only way to determine if pop-ups work for you is to track how your prospects and customers respond to them. If people don't sign up for free information offered on pop-up pages, if traffic goes down, reconsider their use.
If, however, people sign up for the information displayed, and traffic numbers remain stable, then the pop-ups aren't hurting business.
Always test and customize based on your own situation.
*Combined many products in an offer, leading to information overload and confusion.
*Forgot their target audience. If you're marketing to corporate business owners, presenting an ad in a 'fun' contest format won't work. However, if your target is younger, a contest or game-type ad might be very effective.
Keeping the above tips in mind will help ensure that your ads are readily received...not automatically deleted!
About the Author
Paula Morrow is president of Ideal Marketing Corporation. She specializes in public relations, information marketing and creating cashflow systems. IDEALProfits, her ezine, is read in over 12 countries. Subscribe, and receive FREE the co-brandable 'How To Start Your Own Traffic Virus' and 4 other ebooks. http://www.idealmarketingcorp.com/subscribe.html
paula@idealmarketingcorp
http://www.idealmarketingcorp.com
As people get more accustomed to online advertising, they are becoming more vocal as to why one ad appeals, while others are earning the cold shoulder.
According to a survey conducted by Jupiter, a globally recognized resource on ecommerce, most winners and losers have a number of things in common.
And The Winners Are...
According to the survey, winning ads:
*Include targeted information. A vast majority (40%) of those surveyed stated that they continue to use the Internet as an information resource.
Consider packaging your ad within free information, perhaps by presenting your ad as a resource box at the end of a free report. Or weaving examples throughout, encouraging readers to refer to your web site for more detail.
*Include statistics. Numbers work, as long as they are realistic. A claim, backed by statistics, tends to be more believable.
*Keep their length appropriate for the offer being presented. More information must be provided for higher ticket items, or items that require a great deal of consideration (buying a house, for example). While other ads, that focus on more simple products or services, can be shorter.
*Provide a number of benefits. There's that word again, benefits. It's the key to success online, and you'll see it again and again.
Benefits answering the 'what's in it for me?' question are far more persuasive than features. Benefits speak to emotions. And the vast majority of sales have an emotional element involved.
Make sure you address in your ad how your product or service will fulfill a need, a want, sooth a concern or fear, solve their problem, etc.
*Have supporting information available at other locations. Does your site include information that back up your ads? If a person clicks through from a link, will the web information continue to build on what was already presented?
So, these are some of the good ad elements. For ads that didn't fare so well, the Juniper survey found that many included the following.
And The Raspberry Award Goes To Ads That...
*Presented the information as a pop-up box. Now, pop-up effectiveness continues to be debated. In the survey, 69% considered pop-ups a negative, calling them annoying and intrusive; just too aggressive.
Within this 69%, 25% stated that they would avoid sites they knew featured pop-ups in the future.
Yet, on the flip side, there are those successful marketers who firmly insist that pop-ups are an effective way to present an offer; that people respond to them.
The only way to determine if pop-ups work for you is to track how your prospects and customers respond to them. If people don't sign up for free information offered on pop-up pages, if traffic goes down, reconsider their use.
If, however, people sign up for the information displayed, and traffic numbers remain stable, then the pop-ups aren't hurting business.
Always test and customize based on your own situation.
*Combined many products in an offer, leading to information overload and confusion.
*Forgot their target audience. If you're marketing to corporate business owners, presenting an ad in a 'fun' contest format won't work. However, if your target is younger, a contest or game-type ad might be very effective.
Keeping the above tips in mind will help ensure that your ads are readily received...not automatically deleted!
About the Author
Paula Morrow is president of Ideal Marketing Corporation. She specializes in public relations, information marketing and creating cashflow systems. IDEALProfits, her ezine, is read in over 12 countries. Subscribe, and receive FREE the co-brandable 'How To Start Your Own Traffic Virus' and 4 other ebooks. http://www.idealmarketingcorp.com/subscribe.html
paula@idealmarketingcorp
http://www.idealmarketingcorp.com
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