What Not to Display on Display Signs

By: Jay Conners

If you are promoting a product and you are doing some advertising with displays, don't allow for your customer to know everything. Otherwise, they won't have a reason to call you, or come visit you.

For instance, when I was working in the banking industry, we displayed our rates on a fancy looking board in the middle of our main lobby.

Customers would come in, take care of their business, glance at the rate board, and walk out the door.

Than one day, some genius decided to take the rate board down, forcing the customer to come into an associate's office, have a seat, and verbally ask for the rates.

This gave the sales associate an opportunity to sit down with the customer, discuss rates one on one, and also have the opportunity to go over some other products the customer might be interested in.

When you put together an advertisement, put on just enough information to peak your customers interest. Enough to get them to pick up the phone and call you, or come into see you.

Never underestimate the power of meeting one on one with a potential customer.

And remember, props don't sell, people do.

If a customer has gone as far as contacting you, they have pretty much placed the ball in your court. You now know that they are interested, and it becomes your responsibility to finish the advertisement and close the deal.

When putting an advertisement together, you want people to be wowed by it. But you also want to save some of that magic for when they contact you.

So when you get their attention with your products great features, make sure you save some of that magic to peak their interest even greater once they contact you.

An example of this would be a bank advertising a free checking account.

The advertisement would read:

Open a free checking account today, and receive a free gift.

The customer would take interest because they would be getting a free checking account, but it is the free gift that will spark their curiosity. And of course they wouldn't know what the free gift was until they came inside and sat down.

So once again, don't let your advertisements do all of the selling for you, only allow them to kick open the gates, so your customer can come inside, sit down and talk to you.

Time Proven Internet Advertising Options

By: Glenn McDonald

Your online business will likely require more advertising than a contemporary business downtown, yet some new to the world of online business do not spend the time and money to advertise their business appropriately and are, in turn, losing money. Your online business is crammed into the world wide web along with thousands of others selling the same product or service as yourself. Consider this scenario: In your hometown you want to open an art supply store. In that same town there are thousands of art supply stores. In order for your business to be successful, it will have to stand out in some way from the others. This is exactly what is happening when a business is opened online. There is so much competition, that you must take drastic measures to ensure that you are getting noticed. Advertising can be done in so many ways online. These are some of the most successful ways that you can promote your online business.

Advertising in e-zines is a popular way to promote your online business. Ezines are the magazines of the Internet; they written on a particular subject and read by those interested in that subject. Therefore, ezine readers are already potential customers and advertising your site in ezines that are related to your business is almost guaranteed to help drive traffic to your site and increase sales for your product. You should be sure when advertising in ezines that you are not advertising along side competitors. Ask the ezine producer if there is a policy concerning posting competing ads. It is also a good idea to subscribe to the ezine before making a decision about whether or not to advertise in it. An ezine that runs fewer ads is a better choice than one that runs many ads. You can look at the online Directory of Ezines to find publications that are relevant to your company.

Pay-per-click programs are an excellent way to advertise your business without taking a risk that you have advertised in the wrong place. With pay-per-click, you can advertise you site and only pay for those who click the link and go to your site. Another popular pay-per program is the pay-per-lead program that allows you to only pay for leads. Usually this means that you pay for only those who download a trail, fill out a form or enter a sweepstakes; whatever you choose. Lastly you can display pay-per-click banner ads in which your company would be allowed to place a banner on their site and you will be charged for every click that your banner receives.

Opt-In email is a great way to advertise your business, however it is expensive and it can be misused very easily. Using opt-in emails, you would submit your sales copy to the company that will in turn email it to those on their mailing list. You should be very careful since some of the companies that advertise their mailing lists as opt-in email service is sometimes really SPAM. It is essential that you have a perfect and effective sales letter when using opt-in mailing lists. Without and effective sales copy your money and time have been wasted.