Print advertising was one of the first ways that private sellers could advertise their product or service for sale. As technology has continued to advance, online print ads have taken advertisement to a whole new level.
Individuals can post their ad online classified free ads and have their product sold to someone clear across the country or even to someone in a different county altogether. The vast amount of exposure of an online ad is unbelievable! In order to keep up with the competitive nature of online advertising, many newspaper companies have also began offering online posting as well. Although internet classified ads are extremely popular and continue to grow extensively, video classified ads are making some headway.
It has been said that online video advertising began back in 1998 when Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner sold their company, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo for $5.7 billion. There were many problems associated with the internet and videos during this time; there were many bubbles that needed to be smoothed over. It was not until about 2005 that many of the glitches of video advertising were fixed.
In 2006, YouTube.com was sold for an enormous amount of money which prompted online advertising companies to expand to video ads. With this milestone, the online video was perfected even more and it became available on many more websites. Video classified ads offer a new and exciting way for individuals, business owners, or company leaders to advertise their products in a cheap, easy way on classified ads websites.
Although these video ads typically run about 15 seconds long, they catch the attention and interest of private buyers and businesses. Since this advertisement option is relatively new, most classified ad websites charge a small few for this service.
Many see the video ad as an opportunity to create a commercial-like video at a fraction of the cost. As a result of all of this, video classified ads will continue to grow rapidly in years to come. Be prepared for some exciting and transformational changes in the near future!
Hal Johnson, who has been using online classifieds to find bargains for the last 10 years has found an online video classified site that syndicates their ads out to over 100 partners, meaning your ad will be placed automatically on all their partner sites. When you perform a search on their site, if the bargains you are looking for isn’t on their site, they will search other sites to help you find the results you need. Stumblehere.com is the home of free classified ads and for a limited time you can test out their ad upgrades for free. Check out their site and classified ads now!
You have finally decided you want to take the plunge and place a classified ad, but where do you begin? What do you say and where do you place your ad?
Let’s start with writing your ad. Think first about who you are targeting this ad to. If you use the phrase “easy work” you will find people who want a paycheck without putting in the time. If you use a phrase like “earn $1000’s daily” you will attract people who after not earning thousands their first few days or even first few weeks will quit. While it has been said, that the word FREE is a big attention grabber, I can not tell you how many calls I’ve gotten where the person only wanted their freebie. They had no interest in my product or business.
I am a firm believer in writing ads to attract those who you feel will benefit your business. If you can, use either a company name or a description of the company. Let people decide before they call if this is the ad for them.
Most people will only read one or two lines, so keep your ads short. Have you ever picked up a classified section and looked at the ads with 10-20 lines of text? I know for me, I just skip right past those. I never even read the first line seeing that the entire text is so long.
Now that you’ve written your ad, where do you place it? You can place your ads either online, offline or both. One of my favorite resources is the Gale Directory. Though I did buy a copy, they are available at our local library in the reference department. The Gale Directory contains over 57,000 newspapers and magazines. The directory gives full contact information along with circulation and frequency of distribution.
One of my favorite places to advertise online is in ezines. Ezines are electronic magazines. Some ezines are published weekly, while others are published monthly. Rates will vary depending on number of subscribers and number of ads accepted.
It is crucial that you track your ads. Test different headlines. When you do get a response, don’t be afraid to ask why they called and where they saw your ad. I often say “tell me what about the ad appealed to you”. This lets me know what’s working. Not all ads will be successful. It’s important to know what is and isn’t working so that you don’t continue to invest time and money into ads that are not working.