Jul 11, 2010
Market Your Product through Classified Advertising
If you are looking for new ways to market your product or services online, then you should never underestimate the power of online classified advertising. You can generate very good amount of fresh and targeted leads just by posting daily ads on one or more of the large classified sites and in most instances this will cost you absolutely nothing.
Most of the online classified sites allow free advertising for individuals and business alike, while some of them are paid or at least have paid sections; this gives you the opportunity to spread the word about your business and find prospective clients, customers and even business partners. Getting involved in classified advertising requires some preparation, but not necessarily technical knowledge; all you have to do is register an account on one or few classified sites, verify that account through email or phone and you are ready to roll.
Once you have the accounts registered, it is time to compose your ad: online advertising is quite different from placing an ad in your local paper, so you will have to make sure that your ad is clean, catchy and straight to the point. Your ad should also clearly state how the product or the service that you are selling benefits your customers and why it is better than the one offered by your competitors. Do not try to go into too many details while advertising on the classified websites; include only the main features of your product or service and then lead your prospective customers either to your own website, where they can learn more, or leave a contact phone number or email, where you can be reached and answer all their questions.
A picture is worth a thousand words: if the classified site allows you to post picture, by all means include one in your ad; a picture in your ad will increase the responses considerably!
When you engage in online classified advertising, always keep the geographics in mind; if you are running a local business, then advertise only in your own city, but if you offer online services such as say website design, then you can advertise nationwide or even globally. Regardless if you are running your online business from your house in New York or your apartment in LA, you can have customers in London or Toronto and many more cities all over the Globe; classified sites in English can be found in no less than 50 countries and there is no reason why you shouldn’t take advantage of this fact.
When done right, online advertising can help you rapidly grow your customer base; the saying “build it and they will come” might have been true a few decades ago, but today if your product or service does not get wide exposure, your business might fail miserably. Of course, once you have run a few ads and have replied to a few potential customers, you will gain experience and can scale up your advertising campaign by placing more ads on more websites; you can also tune up your ads and responses in order to attract more customers and ultimately successfully grow your business.
Alex Wu operates a classified website that lets people advertise, build groups, and connect. He hopes to create an active environment for businesses to place their jobs.