Why Do People Read Adverts?

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WHY?

Not for fun.
Not for entertainment.
Not because they are bored.

They are seeking information. They want to know something.
They are definitely not looking to buy anything.
It’s the same when surfing the net. Very few surfers are looking to purchase a product.
When they are looking for a product it is generally to compare prices with similar products for sale on the high streets. They are looking for information (Prices.)

How often do you glance down the pages of small ad’s in your local newspaper? Were you looking for something in particular? I
very much doubt it. Did something catch your eye? It would have been a headline referring to something of definite interest to you.

Your local newspaper will have a circulation of many thousands.
How many would have been captured by that particular advert?
Answer: Only those who, like you, are interested in that particular subject. Just stop and think for a moment, It was not the advert that stopped you and invited you to read, it was the headline.
Which brings me to my point. If the headline doesn’t catch you, you’ll not read the advert. The most cleverly written advert will not sell for you if the headline doesn’t do its job. It must make you stop and take a closer look.
I won’t go into what makes a good headline. There are dozens of books written on the subject. Written by people who are experts in that field.

Everyone wants to get a better return for their advertising costs.
The first law of advertising. “A better advert with a better headline will get better results”. We all know that. It’s pretty obvious. What else? “The more people who read it, the more sales you will make”. That’s obvious too.

So. We have a brilliant advert with a fantastic headline but we are still not getting the R.O.O. ‘The Return On Outlay’. In other words, we feel that we should be getting a better return for the money we are spending on our advertising. What can we do about it?

The first thing that I would look at is the advertising venue. The place where I am displaying the ads. My preference is for ezine adverts. Have I chosen the right ezines. There are ezines with hundreds of thousands of readers. There are lots of others with just a few hundred readers. Where will I get the best response?
The ones with the most readers will charge me a lot more per advert than those with just a few readers. The cost per thousand readers of the big ezines may be slightly less than the smaller ones but I have to look at some percentages.
What percent of the readers of the big ezines are interested in my product? If the ezine is one of general readership, probably about five percent. Five percent of one hundred thousand is five thousand potential readers. Of which about six percent my click through to take a look at what is on offer. That is three hundred who may take a look. Out of that three hundred, two percent may make a purchase. I have a potential of six sales from a readership of 100,000 I can expect six sales at $19.99. A return of $119.94. The advert cost me $100.00. Leaving a profit of $19.94. I didn’t lose but was it worth the time and trouble?

What if I had chosen to advertise in ezines with a much smaller readership? I am still prepared to spend $100.00 on advertising. That means that I can spread it amongst several venues. I do a search on Google for ezines with up to 5,000 readers. There are thousands of them. I then search for those with an interest in my book’s subject. That cuts the list down to under one hundred. The average cost to advertise in these smaller mag’s is between $20 and $25 00. I
can afford to advertise in
four of them.

I spend the next two hours sorting through the list looking for the most suitable ones to invest my money in. I pick my four. Three at $25.00 and one at $20.00. $95.00 in total. The four mag’s between them have a readership of only $18,000. but they all have a close affinity with the subject of the book that I am selling.
In other words, the vast majority of those 18,000 readers have an interest in what I am selling. I can expect a click through rate of at least 15%. I expect about 2,500 readers to be interested enough to click to take a closer look at my offering. If the same 2%, as above, take up my offer that will mean 50 sales for the same outlay giving a return of almost $1,000, less the $100 for the adverts leaves me with £900.00 to go into my bank account.

When we compare the two scenarios, something comes to mind that my old grandma used to say, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

P,S. You may think that the figures that I have used are a bit ‘Over the top’. You could be excused for thinking that way, except that is exactly what happened to me two years ago. I was pouring advertising money down the drain until a very good friend put me straight. You will find, as I did, that the smaller mag’s readership is more closely focused on one particular subject. It’s up to you to do your research and find the ones most interested in your product. You will find that the time taken researching for the right magazines to place your ads will be time well spent.
R J Farey
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Profile.
Bob has been working on the internet in various capacities since 2000. He uses ezines to market his products simply because, if you do it right, it works.
You will find his latest venture at: http://www.rjf08.com "It’s a no brainer."