Small ads 'as sound as a pound'

Here are some tips on how to write small ads that are 'as sound as a pound'.

First, satisfy yourself that the goods, services or unwanted possessions you are about to advertise are legal and decent. You should be their legal owner with rights of disposal. Further, you must realise that, if you try to advertise anything indecent, upstanding publishers will reject your ads and probably keep any fee. That's the 'heavy' stuff out of the way!

Now establish your contact details. Consider including two means of contact: a landline and mobile number perhaps. Landline numbers suggest permanence and may inspire confidence in customers. Mobiles often make you more contactable. Now double-check the details. Are they accurate and valid? To ensure any sort of 'return on investment', customers must be able to contact you.

If you prefer contact by e-mail, acquire temporary addresses from Yahoo or Hotmail say, rather than use a permanent one provided by your Internet Service Provider. The 'permanence' rule mentioned above doesn't apply to e-mail, due to the spam problem. Although many small ad sites protect against automated address harvesting, it's impossible to prevent manual harvesting. Mail 'boxes' can protect privacy; as can the use of first names, nicknames or business titles in adverts, rather than full names.

Whichever you choose as a means of contact, do check your text messages, voice mail, fax machine and e-mail regularly. Try to reply to all sensible advert responses within twenty-four hours of receipt. Otherwise, your hot sales 'leads' may go cold. Ignore, block or report if necessary any suspicious responses.

If you trade commercially, tell your potential customers in your adverts. Honesty and truthfulness are always best, if you want to make a long-term business from selling by small ads. Place Trade and Private adverts in separate transactions if necessary, to make it easier to track business investments later.

Tell potential customers the best day, and time of day, to contact you. They will want to avoid embarrassment by contacting you just as you are going to bed. You may be better at negotiating deals first thing in the morning. Stating contact times might save you waiting by a telephone, in case calls come through.

Also, consider telling potential customers roughly where you live, at least the county and nearest town, possibly a village or suburb. Many small ad sites now offer postcode or telephone dialling code proximity features, and find the nearest offer to customers' locations. When choosing the size of an area, consider carefully your security and privacy.

Look for small ad providers that offer website links, especially if you are in business. Use small ads to attract customers and interest them in these links. Create specific 'landing pages' on your site, so that you can track small ad performance. Use your website to stimulate desire and provide the means to 'close' sales. Include 'rich' media, like full-size photographs, on your website. Including thumbnails in small ads is of questionable value. Poor quality thumbnails could deter customers.

Consider your small ad strategy. Will you create one ad, or many different ads? Will you use one delivery channel, or many different channels? Will you broadcast all of your ads at one time, or stagger their delivery over a period? Small ads are to selling, as baited hooks are to fishing. The more hooks you have in the pond, the more likely it is that fish will bite.

Do test new adverts by running them for a few weeks initially. Monitor their performance proactively, change them and run more tests until you are happy. If tested adverts contain offers that are unlikely to change over time, select longer advertising periods, to take advantage of any discounts. Select longer periods too, if you are prepared to wait for the 'right' price or customer.

Set fair and reasonable prices. Include commas for prices in thousands, full stops for prices in pence, and state clearly the tax arrangements. Attach any conditions of sale, like 'or very near offer'. Check your price and conditions. You may wish to set a slightly higher price if you foresee haggling.

Think carefully about your most likely customers. Which emotions will motivate them to buy from you: happiness, love or jealousy perhaps? What do your customers need? Do they seek fulfilment, a sense of belonging, or security? What associated benefits are they seeking from the items or services you are selling?

Describe sales offers in ways that will interest your potential customers greatly. Use simple, factual words that they will search, or browse, for. Enter unusual abbreviations in full. Avoid slang, legal and technical words, and jargon. Use as few 'noise' words as you can, words like 'but', 'and', 'to'. Create short, logical, punchy sentences with correct spellings and punctuation. Use plain, positive English that stimulates curiosity and demands action. Your only goal remember, is to make buyers contact you for more information.

Create captions that will grab the attention of your most likely customers. Use advertising 'power words' to fascinate them with what you have to sell. Make your customers stop in their tracks and want to read your description. Avoid unsubstantiated hype though, as well as the extensive use of exclamation marks.

Leave any selection of advert types and classes until after you have drafted your description and caption. Often, the most cost-effective categories become apparent once these are in place.

Now you've established the contact arrangements, sale locations, prices, conditions and classes, check your adverts again. Read them aloud to yourself. Show them to objective friends. Will your captions entice? Will your descriptions fascinate? Change your adverts, if necessary. Repeat this process until you are happy that your adverts are attractive, credible and effective. Use your full character or word allowance. Balance this suggestion with the needs for accuracy, brevity and clarity.

Lastly, check for competing small ads in various different media. Who are your nearest competitors? Are your offers competitive on price and availability? Change your adverts again, if needs be. Effective small ad creation is a highly iterative process, you see.

Do experiment and aim for uniqueness. Small ads should be 'right first time', competitive and successful. Yes, and fun too! Good hunting.

About the author: © Steve Hawker 2005. All rights reserved. Steve is a partner at http://www.ehawker.co.uk, the small ads search engine. E-mail him at: info at ehawker.co.uk