How to Use Simple Classified Ads (Offline and Online)To Bring in an Endless River of Super-Hot Leads Who Want to Buy from You

(This is one of the most powerful of all lead generation tools)

By Ben Hart

This is another installment in my list building series.  There is no piece of marketing knowledge more important than knowing how to build your list of leads — of people who are interested in exactly what you are selling. Your list of super-hot, ready-to-buy-from-you leads is your most valuable asset.

Even if you never use classified ads, the principles outlined here apply to all marketing.  So you should keep reading regardless of whether you ever try classified ads.  I have made millions of dollars by following exactly the strategy I’m describing to you here. This is one of the very best strategies there is for building your list of super-qualified leads.  I first got started in direct marketing about 20 years ago by spending $150 on some classified ads. I used classified ads to build my lists of qualified leads – that is, my mailing lists.

Since that time, a little over 20 years ago, my direct marketing letters, ads and programs have generated nearly $1 BILLION in sales . . . largely because I understood how to build a big list of qualified leads – a big chunk of it by using classified ads.  And I still use good old fashioned classified ads as a major weapon in my marketing arsenal.  What I usually do in my classified ad is offer a free book.  Here is one example:

FREE BOOK - “How to Write Great Sales Letters” One of America’s top mail-order copywriters reveals all his secrets in this 236-page book. To get your free copy, call: 1-800-XYZ-XYZX - Or go to www.xyzxyzxyz.com - And that’s it.  Pretty simple, isn’t it?  I run this ad in the “Business Opportunities” section of Entrepreneur magazine, The Wall Street Journal and other business publications.  The reason these leads are so productive and profitable for me is I know that  anyone who answers this ad is motivated to be successful in business.  I know this  because:

 1.      They read Entrepreneur magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

 2.      They are looking in the “Business Opportunities” section

 3.      They answered my ad and clearly want to learn

 And I run an Internet variation of this ad on Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and other pay-per-click programs on the Internet.  I run this ad on Craigslist, Yahoo Classifieds and other classified ad sites. I run this ad in ezines that are read by entrepreneurs. I even run a version of this ad on eBay.

Here’s something else I know about people who answer this ad.  I know that anyone who answers this ad will respond to direct marketing offers . . . because they just answered my ad.  This is extremely important to know.  Many people (about half the population) will never answer an ad or a direct mail marketing letter. Half the population are not “direct marketing responsive” (to use industry jargon).

They go to stores to buy their stuff.  Of they only buy if they are actively searching for a specific product or service.  So you need to know whether your prospects are “direct marketing responsive.”

I also know that these names and addresses are current (which is not the case for many lists you rent).

So I know a lot of key information about anyone who answers a little classified ad like this. I have built lists of hundreds of thousands of super-qualified leads by using this exact approach over and over again for two decades.  A big portion of these leads became buyers – have, in fact, bought tens of millions of dollars in books and other products from me over the last two decades.  I also built a big portion of the Christian Coalition membership list this way during the 1990s.

I started by running a classified ad offering a free copy of my bestselling book Faith & Freedom: The Christian Roots of American Liberty.  The ad said this:

 FREE BOOK: Faith & Freedom: The Christian Roots of American Liberty, Documents the strong Christian faith of America’s Founding Fathers.  To Get Your FREE Copy Call: 1-XYZ-XYZ-XYZQ.  I did not use a toll-free number for this ad because I could not afford to at the time. But this tiny little ad worked great.  I ran this ad is Christian publications and built an enormous mailing list.  I was also able to distribute hundreds of thousands of copies of my book.  And classified ads are super cheap. 

I used this list to build a large portion of the Christian Coalition’s membership base of 2,000,000 members and supporters – a list that generated $27 MILLION per year in membership fees and donations for the organization.  Classified ads are a great list building tool.  There continues to be a unique fascination with classified ads.  People love reading them.  People read them even if they are not looking for anything specific.  People will read a classified ad before they will read a big display ad run by a department store, produced by a big ad agency.  I think people like reading classified ads because these ads are written mostly by real people – average folks – not ad agencies (and also by some direct marketers like me who understand how to use classified ads).  It’s sort of like the “Letters-to-the-Editor” section of the newspaper.  Many people will read the “Letters-to-the-Editor” before they will read the articles.  The “Letters-to-the-Editor” section is one of the most popular sections of any newspaper – because people like to read letters written by average folks (real people) who are not professional writers.  Same with so-called “reality” shows on TV.

People prefer to watch real people rather than actors and slickly-produced, highly-scripted shows.  I think that’s what’s going on with classified ads.  Most classified ads are written by amateurs. So people like to read them.  And the classifieds are broken down by category.  So readers can go directly to the category that interests them.  There’s really no easier way to build a huge list of super-qualified leads than by using classified ads exactly as I have described here.   And there’s no easier way to make money.  The Yellow Pages operate basically the same way.  So you can often adapt a successful classified ad campaign for the Yellow Pages.  By the way, EBAY is really just a jazzed up classified ads service.  That’s all it is.

 All those programs you see advertised about how to make money on EBAY are almost exactly the same as how to make money with classified ads.  In fact, that’s what the entire Internet is.  It’s just a big classified ads listing service.  People type in keywords and keyword phrases into search engine browsers that best describe what they are looking for.  Those are your categories.  It’s no different in principle than the old fashioned classified ads or Yellow pages – just a whole lot more efficient, targeted and detailed.  So start thinking of your Internet marketing that way – like a gigantic classified ads service – classified ads on super-steroids.

Classified ads are huge on the Internet. Craigslist.org is one of the biggest and most famous.  Classified ads on Craigslist are free.  MySpace.com and  Yahoo have huge classified ad sections. There are countless others, most free on the Internet.  But don’t forget about good old fashioned print for your classified ad lead-generation and marketing campaign.  Remember, advertising  that’s printed on paper still has far more impact than digital advertising – I think because print is still just more real to people.

Key Steps To Success For Using Classified Ads

STEP #1

Start studying the classified ad sections in magazines and publications (online and offline) that reach your target audience – the more targeted the publication, website or ezine, the better.

STEP #2

Study the categories to see if any category fits your product niche.  Or (even better) study the categories to figure out what product you should consider selling.  That’s what I prefer to do. I prefer to figure out first if there’s a market for my product before I go to the trouble and expense of developing it.

STEP #3

Look for categories that have lots of ads.  When you see lots of ads selling the same kinds of products, that means the ads are working and these kinds of products sell well.

STEP #4

Select a category in a niche that you love doing anyway.  If you love golf, consider selling golf stuff.  You won’t have much fun or success if you are not selling something dealing with a subject that you don’t love, or at least like a lot. Sell something that you are passionate about and that you believe in – not something just because you think you can make money selling it.

STEP #5

Go to your public library and ask for the Standard Rates and Data Sservices Directory of Trade Publications.  If it’s a decent sized library, they will have it.  Here you will find all the business and industry publications in existence broken down by category.  Focus on the trade and industry publications that most suit your market niche. 

STEP #6

Make sure you are able to deliver your promised product the instant people call . . . or who fill out your form on your site’s “landing page.”  Those who request your free product will be skeptical of your ad’s claims.  You want to exceed expectations by a huge margin.  If you do that, you’ll have no trouble making subsequent sales with your follow-up communications.

STEP #7

Be sure to track the performance of your ads. You’ll find that ads will perform much better in some publications and websites than others.  And the headline on your ad can make a 1,000% difference in your response.  Each ad should have it’s own phone number and landing page so you can track an ad’s performance. 

STEP #8

But don’t worry so much about the tracking mechanics when you first start out.  Just start running your ads.  When you find one that works, then start testing different ads and tracking results precisely.  But just get started.  As the Nike ad says, “Just do it.”

STEP #9

Don’t be discouraged by ads that fail.  You probably will fail at first.  It takes some trial and error to get the hang of it.  But classified ads are super cheap, so failure is no big deal.  All you need is for one ad to work and you’re off to the races.  If 10 ads fail and one works, you’re far better off than if you win the lottery.

STEP #10

Once you find an ad that’s working, keep running it until it stops working . . . which might be never. That is, a successful classified ad can often run profitably forever.

 STEP #11

Once you achieve success with a classified ad campaign, experiment with direct response display ads that follow the same theme – just more detail.  So the display ad version offering the free book would include a picture of the book and more bullet items on the big benefits of getting this free book.

STEP #12

Test the same offer using different media – direct mail, radio, even TV (if you hit a home run).  Very often a successful classified ad campaign transfers over to other advertising media.  Experimenting with classified ads is a great way to launch your education in direct marketing for very low risk – and can even be the start of a big new career for you in direct marketing.  In a big publication with hundreds of thousands of readers, your 25-word ad might cost $35.  A 25-word classified ad in the Washington Post will cost you about $65, with its million-reader circulation.  It gets cheaper if you run the ad for a week or a month . . . or perpetually until you decide to stop it.  So you don’t need many responses for your ad to pay off.

Your classified ads will usually work best in specialty publications that specifically target your niche market.  Will classified ads work for any product or service?  Nope.  No advertising medium will work for everything.  A saw is a great tool, but not if you want to hammer a nail into a piece of wood.  But classified ads are a great tool for the right product.  Classified ads can be a great tool.  And understand this.  Not all classified ad sections are alike.  The classified ad section in the Washington Post will be very different from the classified ads section in Popular Mechanics.  You will find entirely different categories of products being sold in different publications targeting different audiences.

 That’s why it’s so important for you to study the SRDS Directory of Trade Publications.  That’s where you will find all the publications that target your specific market. That’s where you will find the best classified ad sections for you.  You can also just type “classified ads” into Google — or better, “classified ads” plus the category of product or service you are selling.  So,  for example, if you are selling golf equipment, just type “classified ads golf.”  You’ll come up with a big list of places to test your ads.  Then offer something of value free designed to appeal to golf fanatics — perhaps a free book titled “Three Steps to Long Straight Drives” or “America’s 50 Golf Destinations for Those on a Budget” or maybe a FREE sleeve to Titleist golf balls.  Whatever it is, you need to offer something of value free to build your big list of hard-core golf fanatics so that you can keep coming back at them later with golf offers.

Remember, you don’t primarily use classified ads to sell.  You don’t have enough space for that.  You use classified ads to build your list of leads by offering something of value free that will appeal to your target market.  I’m not sure success in business can get any easier or simpler than this.

www.MarketingRocketFuel.com

How to Generate a Never-Ending Avalanche of Super-Qualified Leads Who are Looking to Buy Exactly What You Are Selling

Two-thirds of these sales are generated through a two-step process. The first step is to collect a qualified lead. The second step is to deliver your sales pitch.  Maybe you will deliver your sales pitch with a follow-up sales letter.  Or maybe you will deliver your sales pitch with a personal spoken sales presentation – either over the phone, or in person. That will depend on the type of product your are selling. The point is, you want to collect your qualified leads as cheaply as you possibly can.

But before I launch into how you do that, let me note that lead generation programs generally will not work well for low-priced items with small profit margins,  such as magazine subscriptions – because the economics don’t work out.  But if your profit margin on the product you are selling is $100 or more, a two-step or multi-step sales process is usually best . . . because once the item you are selling crosses this price threshold, you’re going to lose most of your impulse buyers. Plus, your bigger profit margin means you can now afford a multi-step, drip, drip, drip marketing approach. Okay, so let’s cover first the classic way this has been done in direct marketing for decades – even before we had the internet and before we had computers.  

What you did – and what you can still do very profitably right now – is run a little ad that says something like this:

Get Your Free Book

Faith & Freedom:

The Christian Roots of American Liberty -  Just Call 1-000-000-0000 - This 354-page book documents the strong Christian faith of America’s founding fathers. More than that, this book proves that the source of America’s heritage of liberty is the Bible and Christian theology.  This book refutes the myth promoted by the ACLU that Christianity is the enemy of freedom and proves that Christianity is the source of our civil liberties

This ad also had a little photo of my book.  And notice that the word “Free” was in red.  This was small ad — about 3 1/2 inches by 2 inches.  Nothing at all fancy about it. I ran this little ad in Christian magazines and publications.  And I built a very large mailing list this way.  In fact, I used this list to help me build the Christian Coalition in the 1990s . . . which grew into one of the most powerful political organizations of that decade, raising $27 million dollars a year.  Plus . . . I used (and continue to use) this list to market all kinds of books, products and causes that are of  intense interest to Christians.  This list has generated tens of millions of dollars over the last 15 years or so.

Now . . . let’s check on the economics on what a lead generated this way can be worth.  Let’s say it costs me $500 to run the ad.  I then would receive 1,000 requests for the book.  So it cost me about 50 cents a lead, factoring in just the cost of the ad.  But I had some other costs as well.  I did not use a toll-free number, so I did not have that cost.  But, once the volume of calls got too heavy, I paid a service bureau $1.50 to capture the name, address and contact information.  It also cost me $3.50 to fulfill on the request . . . because there was the cost of the printing the book, the book-rate postage, envelope and cover note.  So the cost of generating the lead was $5.50. 

But . . . look at all the ways I can use this lead.  I can market all kinds of similar products to this name.  I sold, for example, a video series on America’s Christian heritage for $97.  With follow up sales letters, I was able to persuade about 20% of these names to buy this video series.  I was able to build a big part of the 2,000,000-member Christian Coalition with these names.  I was able to rent these names to other Christian organizations and businesses about once a week.  In all, I calculated the one-year value of each of these names to be about $50.

 In other words, I would pay $5.50 for the lead.  And on average this lead would return $50 in profit to me during the course of the next 12 months.  And, over time, each of these names would return on average about $100 in profit to me.  So that’s a pretty good way to invest $5.50.  $5.50 turns into $50 in 12 months . . . and $100 eventually.  Probably a lot more than that.  But I stopped calculating.  That’s a whole lot better return than I ever got by investing in a stock.  Mutual fund managers boast when they can return 15% a year on their investments. So that’s the classic way lead generation programs work in direct marketing.  And, by the way, this still works just as well today.

Now . . . think about this. Suppose you use this exact same approach, but you remove the $3.50 it costs to fulfill on the book . . . because you fulfill the book electronically over the internet.Instead of delivering a printed book by way of snail mail, you deliver it in the form of an ebook over the internet. So now, instead of your lead costing $5.50, your lead costs only $2.00 – the cost of the ad plus the cost of capturing the name over the phone.  But now, let’s say you eliminate the cost of the phone answering service and instead send your lead to a landing page on the internet that you have built specifically for this purpose.  So now, instead of a lead costing you $5.50 each – a lead costs you 50 cents each.  Now – even at $5.50, these leads are extraordinarily profitable.  But at 50 cents a lead . . . well, you can do the math.  Your lead is now just one-tenth the cost it used to be in the old days, before we had the internet.  Can you see why online marketing is so lucrative and frankly, so easy?

Now, the one cost you really can’t get away from is the advertising.  You have to pay for that – whether it’s with print ads, or online advertising, or with direct mail . . . or with sweat equity delivering fliers door-to-door or or doing PR campaigns to generate free media coverage, or whatever.  But the point is, you’ll have to pay for advertising one way or the other to generate your leads – either with cash or with sweat equity.  But once you’ve figured out how to capture the names, addresses and contact information of your qualified leads cost-effectively (just like I described), you now have a near limitless resource for future profit.   You now have a business that can grow almost infinitely.

Now this is essential.  You need to keep offering your qualified leads products that are very similar to whatever the free product was that brought them in to start with.  Okay, now let’s go back to my little ad that offered my book for free – FAITH & FREEDOM: The Christian Roots of American Liberty.  Let’s look at what it is that made these leads work for just about any Christian product or cause that I wanted to sell to these leads.  Specifically, let’s look at what we know about people who answer an ad like this:

1)     We know these names are committed Christians because I am running this ad only in publications that are read by committed Christians.

2)     I know that they are responsive to direct marketing offers because they have just answered my direct marketing offer.

3)     I know that this is a new name.  Remember, your strongest names are always your most recent names – those who have responded to an offer recently.

4)     I know they have bought something through the mail because that’s how Christian magazine subscriptions are sold.  They are sold by direct mail.

5)     I know they wanted my book because they just went to the trouble of picking up the phone and ordering it, or they just spent time to go to a computer and landing page and have filled out the information.

6)     I know that their address and contact information is accurate because they want to receive my book.

In other words, these are just about the most qualified leads you can get if you are selling information products aimed at Christians. And it turns out these names were also great for building the membership list of the Christian Coalition . . . and for many other conservative and Christian organizations as well.  Plus, I never need to pay to rent a list.  Renting a list, remember, can be pretty hazardous.  Unless you have a lot of experience, it’s very difficult to really know what it is you are renting.  You can get burned by renting lists if you’re not an expert.  So this method of building your list of super-qualified leads is just about the safest system for building your list known to man.  And it’s pretty simple and easy, as you can see.  In fact, I don’t think life gets a whole lot simpler and easier than this.  Okay, so how do you start out if you don’t have a big advertising budget – which most of us don’t when we are first starting out?  And what businesses might this work well for.  Well, let’s say you are an attorney, or an accountant, or a realtor, or a dentist.  Let’s say you put an ad in the Yellow Pages where all your competitors are running their ads.  By the way, one of the best ways to figure out where to run your ad is to find out where your competitors are running their ads.

You then run your ad there. This allows you not to have to re-invent the wheel. Your competitors are running ads in those places because their ads are probably working. So now your market research is basically done.  For the purpose of this illustration, we’ll say you are going to run your ad in the Yellow Pages – right where all your competitors are running their ads. But your ad is not going to look like an ad that’s run by your competitors.  And your ad is not going to look like all those high-design ads that are produced by ad agencies.  Those ads do not work very well. 

Your ad is going to say something like this.

 The Nine Most Common Costly Mistakes

People Make When Hiring An Attorney

 Call 1-000-000-0000

To get your FREE special report

Or get your special report online by going to:

www.xyzxyz.com

And you can have your report right now.

 And that’s it.

 Now you know the following things for certain about people who answer an ad like this:

 1)    They are actively interested in finding a lawyer.

2)     They probably need to find a lawyer right now.

3)     You now know how to reach this person.

 You can now get on the phone with this person and start a conversation.  You can also put this person on your list to receive your monthly newsletter – which will be packed full of useful information on how to avoid costly legal problems.  Now . . . your ad will be even more effective if it zeros in more precisely on exactly what it is your searcher is looking for.  Most people are not just looking for just any lawyer, they are trying to solve a particular legal problem.  So if you are a divorce lawyer, and if you only want to hear from people who need a divorce lawyer, then the headline of your ad should say . . .

The Nine Most Common Costly Mistakes

People Make When Hiring a Divorce Attorney

Something like that.

By the way, your competitors are going to hate you for running ads like this because they will interpret these ads as criticizing them.  But who cares?  An ad like this will pull at least five times better than all the other ads for attorneys you see around it in the Yellow Pages.  

If you’re a realtor, the headline on your ad would be . . .

The Nine Most Common Costly Mistakes People Make When Hiring a Realtor

And you should test this headline against . . .

The Nine Most Common Costly Mistakes People Make When Buying a House

     Call 1-000-000-0000 To get your FREE special report.. Or get your special report online by going to: www.xyzxyz.com And you can have your report right now.

The reason you’ll want to test these two headlines is that “people by results, not features.”  They don’t by drills, they buy the holes that drills make.  So, yes, people do look for realtors, but only because they want to buy or sell a house.  Notice that there are really only two things that matter in these ads:  1) the attention-getting headline and 2) the offer of the Free report.   “Free” is just about the most powerful word in advertising and marketing.  If people are looking for the information you are offering, free is the right price for everyone.  That’s how you build your list of super-qualified leads.  Now, keep in mind  that some products and services are “need it now” products and services.  Others are not.  If someone is looking in the Yellow Pages for a lawyer, or a plumber, or a dentist, they need it or want it now.  People look in the Yellow Pages for services they need or want now.  So if you are a “need it now” businesses, you must be set up to follow up instantly with your lead with a phone call and with email.  And have a letter ready to mail that day.

And, as always, be sure to add your leads to your printed monthly newsletter list that arrives by postal mail – the cheapest, most cost-effective and most productive marketing you will ever do.

To Your Success in Business and Happiness in Life,

Ben Hart - Your 21st Century Marketing Coach . . .because everyone (even Tiger Woods) needs a coach

www.MarketingRocketFuel.com

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