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Internet Marketing : Internet Marketing with Classified Ads

Classifieds as an Internet Marketing Strategy

You have all read them, offline anyway, in papers, magazines and journals among other places. If your goal is web site marketing, online classified ads work the same way. You write a headline, description and contact details for potential buyers to reach you. Offline classifieds direct people to a phone number, while online classified ads contain your URL and an email address.

Offline you'll have to pay for almost all classifieds you post, however online there are thousands of free sites which allow you to post your ad. It is not a terribly expensive web marketing strategy for your online property. Of course, there are plenty of low-cost sites which will also except your ad.

Benefits of Internet Marketing with Online Classifieds

Apart from the benefit of free online classifieds, pursuing this Internet marketing strategy has a few advantages.

• The Internet has a much larger audience than any local or national newspaper, so more people can potentially see your ad and act upon it.
• You can post your ads online and receive a response within a very short time since people just click on your URL for more info. Offline classifieds require potential clients to make a phone call or send a letter, both of which lack the immediacy of a web link.
• Ads placed online are much cheaper than their offline counterparts, because space is not as tight on the Internet as in a magazine or newspaper.
• Your ad is easier to find. A potential seeking a particular product can usually search for a particular word or phrase from the classified ad site, whereas offline clients manually scan different categories.

A Drawback of Classified Web Marketing

A disadvantage of online classified ads for the webmaster is that it can be quite time consuming. Writing the copy, submitting it to classified sites and managing the outcome, like any Internet marketing strategy, requires a time investment.

However, many good software packages are available that automatically submit your ad to lots of these sites. The software is not free, but if you're interested, for 'classified ad software' or something similar on Google.com or Yahoo.com.

Making the Most of Web Marketing with Classifieds

No matter at what site you post it, the keys to successful Internet marketing with classified is relevance, management, and good copy.

Stay specific, always post to the most appropriate category or categories. In this way, you'll post to an area where people will actually be interested in your product, this is vital. The better targeted your ad, the better response it generates.

Remember, especially with free classified sites, that a lot of other webmasters will try to promote their products and websites too, so you'll have to repost your ad regularly to stay near the top of the bunch. Your ad will be trampled on the bottom of the pile otherwise, and nobody will even see it.

Now on to the actual copy of your ad, since few classified sites allow you to post graphics, you'll have to rely on your headline to grab the audience's attention. You can do this by using words like 'free', 'secrets', 'how-to', and other words which build curiosity. If you can, include keywords in your headline, as some classified sites use this as the link to your site. Setting up a link in this way helps establish relevance and link popularity when that linked is indexed by search engine spiders.

Always target your market with your ad copy. If you sell a product for webmasters, mention 'webmasters' in the headline and body. Next, describe what your product will do for the customer. (i.e. the benefits of it. - how will it make their life easier).

The goal of classified ads, whether in print or as a web site marketing strategy, is to generate interest, not to actually sell anything there and then. The ad must make the reader want more information, and it should be provided easily through your website or autoresponder. To that end, the ad body should always be short, concise and to the point, a big long page sales letter will scare people off.

Free Versus Paid Classified Ads : Which is the Best Internet Marketing Strategy?

In my experience, paid classifieds have always produced much better results. At this point, advertising in "Free Classified Sites" has now become an almost automated task. Few people actually visit and respond to classified ads on these sites. Submission spiders are wonderful creatures but aren't often interested in clicking on your well-crafted classified ad. Two of the best places where you can place fee based ads which do bring results are AOL.com and Yahoo.com.

Good luck!

About the Author : David Callan is an Internet marketing professional and webmaster of AKA Marketing.com webmaster forums.

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