Many people are feeling financially insecure nowadays because of the continuing fall-out after the banking disaster. Many of these people are turning to working from home, even if it is just on the week-ends, to reduce this level of insecurity and dependency on an employer. The Net plays a substantial function for many aspirant self-employed people these days.
If you want to sell yourself or products on the Net, you will need to advertise, just as you would in your local, physical world. The thing that amazes a lot of Net marketing newbies is the fact that the off line business world and the on line business world behave according to similar principals.
One way of selling goods and services on and off line is through classified ads. The classified advertisement normally sells quite cheap items (although not always), so the placer of the advertisement attempts to be as descriptive as he or she can within the minimum number of words for the advert, because that keeps the price down.
All the concepts we discuss here will apply to both on and off line classified classifieds.
The first thing to do is think from the readers’ perspective. The reader may or may not want something in particular, but is almost certainly looking for a bargain. How many classified ads are there in your local paper? Hundreds? Thousands? On line it is frequently thousands – just look at Craig’s List.
So you have to grab the readers’ attention as they scan down the ads. You know what it’s like, you have done it yourself. What catches your eye? ‘Free’ is the biggest stopper. Free delivery, or whatever. If you can work the word ‘free’ into your advert, you will stop most people for a couple of seconds more at least.
But that is all you need, if you are selling something worth having, that the reader thinks is a bargain. You have gotten your foot in the door, so to speak and the householder is listening, for a time. Obviously, this is a common attention-grabber and many others will be using the same method.
Now you have to make the reader want what you are selling. At this point, the reader likes to feel reassured, so the word ‘guaranteed’ is good, if you mean it naturally. Promise that what you have to deliver is fit for purpose, guaranteed.
This takes much of the nagging doubt out of the readers’ mind. Everyone is cautious of scams, especially Internet scams and nobody wants to be made to look a fool. Alleviate the fears or your readers, and they will become more likely to ‘give you a try’.
The last part is the ‘call to action’ – ‘grab it now’. But you can make this even more dramatic by saying things like: ‘special offer must end in seven days’, or ‘only 50 pieces left’. Nobody truly believes these claims, but they still work.
There is no need to mislead, but you are in competition with people who are less rigorous, so you have to employ some tactics. It’s a pity, but it is the way of business. Just make sure that the items or services that you are selling are worth the money and up to the claims that you make for them and you will not get criticized too much| for saying you only have 50 left whereas you have 100 !
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with Google web translator services. If you want to know more go to our web site at Real Translator Jobs Advice.