Category: Advertising

The advantage of using classified ads to market your business is that it’s a system that most people are familiar with. This makes it easy to get started.

The disadvantage is that unless you have a system, it can quickly become more time consuming than necessary. Also, without proper planning, you won’t know which ads are working, where you’ve posted or anything else.

To make sure that you get the most from ad writing, you need to develop a system. If you are using classified ads as a bum marketing technique, then this is crucial because you will write and post a lot of ads.

Once you get your system in place though, then it will only take you a few minutes to a couple of hours a day to maintain it.

Here are four things you need to decide:

1. How many ads will you write each day?

The more ads you write and post, the more money you can make. It’s the Law of Averages. Setting a quota of ads each day will help you reach your goals, as well as help you consistently market your business.

I would recommend that you try to write and post at least five ads per day. This is called the “Internet Marketing Rule of 5.” Once you get started, it won’t take you very long each day to write and post your ads.

2. Where will you submit your ads?

There are tons of classified ad sites where you may submit. You want to select those ads sites that will help you get the most traffic and sales. Although you’ll need to do some research here, it will be worth it because you won’t waste your time posting your ads to the wrong sites.

3. What tools will you use to post your ads?

Use a good text editor to write your ads and include those things you need to post to the classified site within the text file.

If possible, find software to help you post your ads and speed up the process. Search for ebooks that teach you how to write and promote with classified ads. The more you know about writing and promoting ads, the more likely you are to succeed with this promotional technique.

4. Use ad tracking and testing tools.

Don’t waste your time on ads that don’t work. Test each individual element of your ad from your headline to your call to action. Find out what is working and what isn’t.

It will take you a little time in the beginning to get this right, but it is worth it because you will get a better conversion rate on your ad. Once you have your system in place, you’ll earn more money without any extra effort.

Pay per Click Advertising, or its short form, PPC, is a good way to promote your business or website on the internet, since it will help you to get targeted traffic to your site, and, therefore, increase your sales.

The leading PPC platform, with approximately 75% market share, is Google AdWords. It works in two different sections, the search network and the display network. The first one permits you to announce on Googles result pages. The Ads will be displayed either on the right hand column or at the top of the search results. The main advantage of making your online marketing using the AdWords platform is that you will actually attract for you web site potential clients that are searching for exactly what you offer. This is what makes the PPC advertising different from other types of online marketing. The advertisements are showed in order to fulfill a demand. That is why the results are great and come fast.

The display network, on the other hand, allows you to promote your site or product on hosts’ websites. In this case, the Ads can be published in text, banner or video format. This is also a good way to build your brand on the internet and become famous among the users. In order to get the best of the PPC benefits, you can target your advertisement demographic and geographically. This method will ensure that you are going to promote your services among people who are more likely to become consumers and also to make people know new products or services that they would not search for.

The PPC advertising help you to make your website be displayed on the top of the search engine result pages faster than a SEO service would do. The traffic on your website will increase immediately, but to take the maximum profit of a PPC campaign, it is important to offer users services and products that they are able to buy online or at least enquire about.

This is the best option for ecommerce sites, but maybe a not so palpable choice for the service industries. However, even if the campaign to not represent a immediate profit for the service industry, the increase on the number of access can be turned into real clients if you encourage user to enquire online. Maybe you will have to offer some advantage to the user first to make the deal later.

Advertising in India is going through an interesting phase during the present time. The industry is seeing vigorous activities in both the Offline and Online methods. In the din of the various media promoting themselves as the best, there is a likelihood of the brands getting confused. In the Indian context, a combination of a few media from the Offline and Online sector is the best the strategy that a brand can adopt. This is primarily because some of the traditional Offline Advertising Media have not lost their charm on Indian consumers even while they have opened their minds to the Online Medium. This article discusses the leading media, a mix of which would bring the best results of Brand Enhancement, Visibility, and Brand Recall.

Airport Advertising

Airport Advertising is the king of Advertising in India. Boosting of a top of the line audience, the airport medium is a favorite site for promotions for all the premium brands. This is one of the rare media that has enjoyed popularity throughout the times, ever after its inception in 1987. This media enjoys patronage of all the top brands operating in the country. With the AAI now focusing on the growth of the Tier 2 and Tier 3 airports, the medium is looking at newer opportunities.

Metro Advertising

The advent of the Metro has redefined the transportation sector in India. As the larger metros are all set to follow Kolkata, Delhi, and Chennai to implement the metro in its transportation system, the Advertising sector too has received a high value platform with numerous opportunities. This medium is however a tricky affair and requires skills to turn the opportunities into realities. The Top Delhi Metro Advertising Agencies have however led the way in showing the ways in which this golden egg can be hatched.

OOH Advertising

OOH India or Outdoor Advertising India is still the preferred media of brands looking for high impact campaigns targeted at categorized / uncategorized audiences. The Hoardings, Wall Mounts, Translites, etc. are still effective in attracting the consumers here. Moreover, in spite of the high growth in the Telecommunication sector, certain segments of the Indian demography can be targeted only with Outdoor Medium. The OOH Displays act as static platforms for brand promotion at strategically selected places attracting high volumes of segmented and non-segmented audiences.

Online Advertising

Even though the above media are highly successful ways of investing your budget of promotions, the Online Media cannot be ignored. Doing so will effectively leave out the younger generation riding high on latest technologies. Since the youth form a prominent target group for most of the brands, a substantial presence in the digital world is a must for them. The leading Online Advertising Agencies in India have risen up to international standards within a considerably short time and are adept at providing world class services to its clients. Email Marketing, Viral Marketing, Link Building, SEO, and SMO are the leading services provided by the agencies in India.

Mobile Advertising

India is currently the third largest market for smartphones behind the USA and China. With its growth figures outdoing even China, India will definitely take over the second spot from the USA by the end of 2014 and is predicted to even dislodge China from the top spot in the long run. Therefore, investing in Mobile Advertising in India is an investment in the future.

Many experts define the Indian markets as markets in the transitional phase. Even though the future of Digital Advertising looks wonderful in India, the above mentioned OOH Media will also stay in prominence.

Online business owners know that they need to advertise their business on the internet but often do not know the best methods to use to advertise. There are many different techniques that advertiser use to display and promote their ads over the internet and there are specific benefits that each technique provides a user with. Choosing the right method to advertise is the first step in running a successful online advertising campaign which will increase sales and promote your business.

1. The most inexpensive form of online advertising is posting ads on classified advertising websites. Most of the top classified ad websites allow users to post ads for free. There is no reason not to take advantage of any free advertising space given to you. Although these ads are not going to generate a significant amount of revenue for an online business, they will increase exposure and sales of a business at no cost to the owner.

2. Another very cheap way to advertise on the internet is to post in forums that are of related content to your advertisements. Forums are one of the best ways to target your advertisements towards your target market. Posting in forums and buying ad space on forums that are filled with potential customers is a very effective way to bring new customers to your website and generate more traffic than ever before.

3. Millions of internet users spend hours a day reading articles about various topics online. Advertising on blogs and article websites that will place your ads on relevant articles is a cheap, efficient way to reach customers in your target market. Ads can be in the form of banners, text, video, and other rich media ad forms that will attract attention from a viewer.

4. One last successful method of advertising online is to write a press release that mentions your business. If you can create news for your business, you will be able to bring an unlimited amount of traffic to your website which will lead to making more sales than ever before. More and more people than ever before now get their news online instead of from a newspaper or television so creating news for your business can reach millions of potential customers with one article that will not cost you any funds to release.

These four methods of advertising can be used by any online business and can create a substantial amount of new business for the owner at little to no cost for them.

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INTRODUCTION
The internet has come to stay; it came with it a gradual revolution which has improved the views of men about every aspect of human life and business processes. The use of avatars on the internet is one of the gradual changes that are happening to our world, they are animated computer characters that exhibit human like movements and behaviors. Efraim Turban et al (2008:867) Personalized information is now presented in interesting ways instead of looking at the internet as a communication media, we looked upon it as an information environment very similar to a biological environment Peter Small (1997) Advertisements in electronic commerce can now be done with the use of animated computer characters bringing a kind of naturalness to user experience online.

BODY
Internet users are now getting more addicted to the virtual experience being offered on most sites now. Facebook, Yahoo, Vivaty and more now use avatars to improve social networking and increase the euphoria felt by online users. Come to think of it, people derive so much pleasure by identifying with a winning character in a real world situation in a virtual world.

Daily advancements in technology has gone to the level where e-tailers like H&M, Sears, Speedo and adidas allow customers to purchase avaratised versions of their products for online displays. Thus, the benefits of virtual experience enhanced with avatars cannot be overemphasized, they include:-

Improved online sales
Some Companies have increased their sales exceedingly through the use of avatars, an example of this is Mattel, the maker of Barbie that extended her popularity beyond children and must have made increased profits through the increased online activity courtesy of avatars. Efraim Turban et al (2008)

Improved online shopping experience
The users of online shopping facilities get improved experiences; they now enjoy human interactions and real world feelings when shopping online. This replaces the soulless nature of internet transactions that was previously known.

Improved customer loyalty and better online support
Two companies targeting similar age groups might need to outdo each other in order to prove to customers that they have their interest at heart. This could mean that the best company with the use of avatars might retain more of its online customers while dragging more from the other company.

Simulations of real world experiences in electronic forms
Real life experiences are felt online when avatars react in corresponding emotions to different actions of the user depending on what is happening online at the time.

E-learning gets better
With avatars, e-learning becomes better, for example Noah the virtual instructor

Other benefits of using avatars include:
Improved online entertainment for Children
Improved relationships through online social networking
Branding of individuals and businesses
Removes the soulless nature of human-computer relationship
Advertising done with computer characters
Virtual products are highly promoted
Testing of numerous store designs is possible

The drawbacks of using avatars also includes the fact that they are
Sometimes annoying and intrusive to users
Just like so many appreciate the virtual experience of real world feelings online, there are cases when online customers get irritated because of the unusual nature of avatars that to them are not quite necessary.

Very expensive to create in 3D
The cost of the 3D technology involved in digitizing objects is presently enormous.

Installation of certain add-ons
Sometimes add-ons are needed to be installed before a computer can benefit from the interactive abilities of avatars. This ability is hindered unless the computer user activates the add-ons that are pre-requisite to the functionality of the avatars.

Age differences (Children could get fascinated while adults gets irritated with the avatars)
It should be expected that most children of below their teens will surely appreciate an avatarised shopping while the adult generation might find it uniteresting and annoying.

At the same time
Loading 3D effects might be cumbersome
The idea is not easy to sell to top brands

CONCLUSION
Some examples of avatars are
Les Power in the Flex your power show
Herman the bug
Noah as the virtual instructor
These avatars are not necessarily intelligent; they behave in the ways that have been preconfigured in them. My interactions with different avatars revealed that though some individuals might be indifferent to whether there is life on the internet or not. The use of avatars will continue to increase with more 3D technological advancements removing difficulties on a daily basis.