Advertising For All

Do you think that art is better today or when it was being created in the days of the Renaissance?  Obviously, the works of Michelangelo and his contemporaries has stood the test of time.  The profound strokes by Da Vinci continue to confuse art historians to this day.  The mastery of their mediums could not be disputed, but what about their position in society?  Much of the work was closely related to what the public was thinking about, as religion related equally to governmental policies as it did with spirituality.  However, this is where I begin to falter in my leaning towards the masters.

I’m not sure what art means to an artist and I’m not sure what it means to art historians, but I can offer my personal considerations as someone who passively appreciates the art that is all around.  It seems that art is goes beyond the innate need for beauty by humans.  Art tells the stories and histories of people, gives a voice to the wants, desires, and hopes of the present and for the future.

If this is the case, then art should not exclusively be commissioned by governments and religious leaders.  True history and life happens in the streets to those whose lives are ultimately affected several times removed by decisions made in far away offices by people they will never meet.  This is where the commissioning of art should be made; these are the stories and histories that need to be told now and preserved for the future.

This isn’t to say that its only the underclass that should be producing revolution art.  Everybody has a stake.  Everyone has a piece of the story.  I think the fact that art can be found everywhere and in everything today gives us a profound advantage in a competition with those brilliant artists of the Renaissance.  Aesthetics and art are found in everything from the design of mundane tools to advertising postcards to the painful words told in a poem at a small coffee shop.  The ubiquity of art created by anyone with something to say finally has placed art in its proper place…everywhere.

If you are interested in free advertising you are not alone. The fact of the matter is that more and more people are diving into free advertising because they can save a lot of money. After all, what is the point in taking out an ad in a newspaper if you can do this for free in another place? When it comes down to it, you need to consider free advertising so that you can save money yet still accomplish all of your goals.

Unfortunately, just because you are advertising without having to spend a lot of money does not mean that you are going to sell everything with ease. In fact, there is one thing that you need for sure if you are going to make free advertising work to your advantage? Do you know what this may be? You need to be able to write ads that sell. It does not matter if you know where to find free advertising if you have no clue on how to communicate this with your audience.

The first thing that you should remember about a free ad is that you should keep it simple. Remember, people are not going to take hour after hour to read what everybody has to say. For this reason, your free advertisement should list the benefits and details of what you are offering, without rambling on and on. The quicker you can get to the point the better off you are going to be.

Also, make sure that you write ads that are genuine. Remember, there is a lot of spam that makes its way onto free advertising boards. In order to stay away from this type of ad, you will want to be genuine and accurate with every word that you write. This will give you a much better rate of success.

All in all, you need to write ads that sell if you are interested in free advertising. Without the proper words you are not going to get very far. Luckily, with a bit of practice you will be creating free advertisements that convert!

Talk to almost any advertising agency, or Fortune 500 company exec about advertising and promotion, and you will almost certainly hear the buzz words “fragmented advertising” and “consumer-centric campaigns” and long discussions about the many pitfalls and difficulties of creating effective advertising campaigns today.

What is fragmentation exactly? It’s the increase in the number of available methods for getting your message to your audience.

One of the main difficulties faced by any entrepreneur is that advertising has changed and evolved over the last few years. It now includes visual, audio and electronic media.

In fact, if you do a Google search for advertising, you may feel overwhelmed by all the options available to you now — if you just look at the options for your Website you’ll find popups, popovers, audio messages, flash video, RSS, even animated “sales people” that can be programmed to appear right on your Website and interact with your customers. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

So is traditional advertising — which includes billboards, radio, television, newspaper and magazine — dead?

Not by a long shot. According to one top advertising mogul, traditional advertising methods are still around because they still work.

The trick is to figure out who your target market is, what they want, and how they look for that information.

Mark Twain said, “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”

If you know customers, you can spend your advertising dollars on the mediums they use to look for answers.

If your customers are senior citizens who are not online, then focus the majority of your advertising dollars on the newspapers, magazines, television, and radio that they are reading, watching or listening to.

If your target market are working parents, you need to know how, when and where they get their information. Is it on the Internet? What radio stations do they listen to? What magazines are they reading? Do they watch television? When? Why?

So what are your best options for creating an effective advertising campaign?

Here are some simple steps:

1. Know your audience. What do they want? Where do they shop? What do they read? How old are they? Where do they hang out? Do they need your product or services? Can they afford your product or services?

2. Know your competition. Be prepared to do a little detective work. What are your three main competitors doing to advertise? Where are they advertising? How often? What types of advertising methods are they using? How long have they been running? Are you reaching the same audience? Is your message different?

Look at what they’re doing right, and figure out creative ways that you can make your advertising just a little bit better, or differentiate yourself from the crowd.

3. Next take a look at what the “big dogs” in your field are doing, and see if you can adapt some of their methods to your target audience and your budget.

4. Know your message. What exactly are you trying to say? What do your customers want to hear? Why should they buy from you, and not someone else? Make every word count.

Chances are, your customers are much more tech-savvy than they were five years ago, or even one year ago. The Internet has made unbelievable amounts of information accessible, but it also has contributed to the “information overload” consumers complain of.

Another side effect of the Internet is that your customers have probably become used to getting “instant gratification” when they are looking for information, products or services. They want it, and they want it now. Are you giving your customers what they want, when they want it?

If you want to have an effective advertising campaign, don’t try to be everything to everyone. Think of your advertising as a conversation between you and your one “ideal” customer.
Remember, if you’re giving your customers what they want, they don’t perceive your ads as a nuisance, they see them as a service.

Traditional advertising is not dead and you can use it to your advantage if you pay attention to who your customers are, and what they want.

If you are just starting out as a web developer or have a small budget for advertising, there are plenty of ways to advertise your web site for free.  Here are a few tips.

There are many ways to advertise your web site for free such as reciprocal links, direct links, banner exchanges and posting on blogs. No matter what your site topic is, you can find free advertising easily on the web.  You can easily create articles and distribute them for other sites to post as long as they contain your author name and web site link.  You can find banner exchanges that will allow you to create a banner and place it on dozens of other web sites as long as you reciprocate and do the same for other advertisers.

For people that like to write, you can find plenty of popular blogs and write your opinion or give information.  You can then place your web site link onto the blog.  Many blog developers are extremely against spam blogs, but if you add valuable information, most blog developers don’t mind at all a free plug.  So if you are looking for great ways to advertise, follow the above tips and get your web site.

To many people, fax advertising may seem like an archaic form of advertising. So many people turn to other forms of media for their new entertainment and information about what to buy and what not to buy that receiving an ad via fax may be ineffective. For this very reason fax advertising must be made that much more outstanding to the average consumer when they walk by the fax machine.

When creating a fax advertisement it is important to always keep the customer in mind. Think of things that they would like to see, like pictures and words that will get their attention and come right off the page at them. Making sure that they are able to get there attention and at least read the advertisement is half the battle.

The next step in that strategy is to make sure that the fax advertisement has something that will keep them reading. Incentives are the golden rule for fax advertising. With out something that will keep the customer reading they are most likely going to take the advertisement out of the tray, grumble about it being a waste of their paper, ink or both and then crumble it into a ball and throw it into the garbage. Everyone likes a deal whether it be a discount coupon or a new low rate the customer will want to see something being offered to them for the use of that valued ink and paper.

The final most important note about fax advertising is to make sure that they know how to contact you. Whether it be by phone, fax or website. They need to contact you to take advantage of that great deal that you are offering to them. It would be a complete travesty if they wanted to take up the incentive that was offered through the fax advertisement and then had no way to contact your business. That would be money down the tubes or just nonchalantly given to another competing business that did leave their contact information.

Fax advertising does not have to be a relic from the prehistoric era. There is still life in those fax machines and a great opportunity to spread the greatness of your business. It can be used to its full potential gaining business for your company by keeping customers on their toes so to speak.

So you are an internet marketer and you want to make money right? Or maybe you are just somebody with a product or service to sell that is looking for innovative ways to get your stuff in front of more customers eyes and increasing the size of your market share. Either way you have come to the right place to read about an excellent form of advertising called banner advertising that takes advantage of the wave of the future—the internet. The internet allows your market to instantly be any where in the world that there is a computer and that you can then ship your product or provide your service. Now some of the more traditional type services like doctors, plumbers, etc. will be limited by the geography naturally but this is still a great way to advertise in your area as more and more people are getting on the internet daily.

What is banner advertising you say? Well it is an ad that is placed on a website that is not related to the ad but preferably is one that lots of people will hit. It is an ad that usually is in some sort of image file and often contains typical words and pictures as well as animation and sound which are becoming popular “hooking” techniques. The ad is usually short and wide or tall and narrow and this is why it is referred to as a banner. When a customer wants to see more they simply click on the banner and are taken via an embedded link to another page which is typically the sales page. If the product is something that you can purchase online or download it is done through this page. Otherwise it is just more exposure for the advertiser.

Another good question is why would the host website allow the ad to be on their page? Well just like any form of advertising the advertiser pays for time or in this case space. Most often with banner advertising the deal is worked out according to how many clickthroughs happen in a given amount of time. Usually the cost is five to ten cents per click.

How would I get my advertisement on a page? Well again just like other forms of advertising there are many ways to do it. You could personally contact the owner or operator of the site and work out a deal, or you could hire and advertising firm that does all of that work for you. Most often it is this second form that is used and these advertising companies will place the ad on multiple different sites and collect the fees, and paying the site’s owner or operator.

A couple of things need to be said before I get down to business.  First, it is important to me that I try to practice what I preach as much as possible.  This is not always the case and for that I am at times unhappy with myself.  With that in mind, I am a person who believes in open communication.  I don’t like hidden agendas.  I also believe in the goodness of people and try to give people the benefit of the doubt.  Also, I believe that in order to believe in people, risks must be taken in order for mutual respect to have an opportunity to grow.  With that in mind I am going to take a risk and hope that no one abuses it, but respects a goal of mine and tries not to undermine it.

The goal:  I want to invent a word and have it accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary.  There are a few criteria that need to be met to successfully enter a word in the OED, which you can check on for yourself, but I think that I have my strategy and word all ready.  What I’m trusting is that what I’m about to share will not be taken by someone else, thus supplanting a dream I’ve had for a long time.  I’m going to tell you my idea and I hope that you appreciate it, but that it remains my idea to pursue and turn into a reality.

One of the criteria for the OED is that a word with a similar definition does not exist.  Or in other words, there must be need for the word.  That’s tough, but I think I have it.  The English language has no word that means “A person or thing that is one’s least preferred.  A person or thing that is one’s most hated.”  This is essentially the opposite of “favorite”.  We can get the idea across, but we have no single word that encapsulates “most hated” with the efficiency that “favorite” has for “most preferred or loved”.  The word I think can solve this linguistic gap is “malrite”.

This surprises me, as languages tend to develop words that they need to express.  It seems to me that in the history of English speaking countries there has been enough broad aggression and localized apathy, jealously and maliciousness to have a need to create this word.  But, I began to doubt the need for such a word, until I began looking into online advertising techniques.
Aside from my personal psychotic ranting on online advertising techniques, I wasn’t really sure what the general public felt about the issue and I certainly wasn’t sure if the industry itself gave any consideration to it.  Then I ran across an article headlined “The Most Hated Advertising Techniques”.  Wow, if there ever was reason to recharge my pursuit of “malrite”,  I have found it.  This was an article that looked into a study that examined people’s malrite aspects of online advertising.  But, the whole thing played itself out awkwardly as it lacked an appropriate word to describe the disgust, disdain and hatred felt by the study’s volunteers.  This article indicated to me that the fact of the matter is that in life we all have our favorite and malrite things, and we need to be able to articulate that.

The truth is that there is no magic secret to online advertising. No one method will generate the largest amount of income/exposure for every website or business imaginable – it’s all a matter of trial and error, time and talent.

That’s a pretty weak answer, I know. It would have been much cooler for me to tell you that buying tiny classified ads in your local paper was the key to success and riches. Well, I’m sorry. For the few of you that have been down this road before and are starting to get it, you’ll hear a ring of truth in my words. The sooner you stop looking for a quick fix to make your message stick, the better.

For what it’s worth, these are my thoughts.

1) The internet has only been alive for a few short years, and in that time it has changed dramatically many times over. Remember in 1995 when everyone first discovered the cool little animated envelope .gif that you would click on to send them email? Where was your online bill-pay, instant messaging, and dynamically generated page content then? And only a few short years later you can see how far we’ve come and use that as a measure for how far we can go.

The point is that the internet, like other forms of media, is a rapidly evolving monster. What works for online advertisers today might be completely ineffectual only a few months from now. That’s why the best advertisers are constantly researching and creating their own unique marketing strategies. The trick is to find out what works for you, and to make sure that you revisit it from time to time to tune it up as the market changes.

2) You Have to Spend Money to Make Money.  It’s a tired line, but it’s that way because everyone says it. Don’t be afraid to add fuel to your advertising fire and take it to another level. Try investing (note that I said investing and not spending) five, ten, or fifty thousand dollars in advertising. If you don’t jump out a window the first time you do it, you may walk away with a big smile and a little pocket money!

The hard part about investing a big chunk of money is coming up with it in the first place. If you already have $50,000 laying around for advertising and are just looking for a place to put it, give me a call. If you’re not that lucky, try looking at the Small Business Administration for ideas on how to get a small business loan.

If you don’t want to go farther than your mailbox, examine some of those credit checks your bank keeps sending you in the mail. A lot of people take advantage of their fairly reasonable interest rates to fund projects.

3) Presentation is Key. You’ll find that excellent writing skills and good marketing go hand in hand. As you improve on one, the other is bound to follow. Knowing how to write, and how to write well will give you an extraordinary advantage of the majority of individuals vying for your customers’ attention. I don’t know about you, but I get a lot of spam for people wanting to sell me their “good, cheap, A+ #1 $$$ rolex watch, discount Viagra, H0t s1utz, etc.”

Needless to say, I have never purchased anything from them and most likely, neither have you. If you have, please drop me a line and let me know how it worked out. I’m always wondering how many of those are a scam.

The emails and circulars that I do purchase from come from GoDaddy, buy.com, Google and a host of other professional companies that take a few minutes to earn my trust with good punctuation, grammar, and quality content.

If you don’t have a talent for writing (and you know who you are) you have two choices:

Get better – easier said than done. Like most things, writing is one part talent and nine parts hard work. Take some classes, do peer editing suggestions, or send it to me look over (first ten-thousand submissions only).

Or, get someone else to do it – leaving more time for you at the helm. I like this option not only because it’s a time saver for me, but also because the work generally comes out better than anything I could have done. This article is an excellent example. I provided a detailed outline, some good anecdotes, and the strategies above and the copywriters at danifer.com did the rest. I made a deal with them to write the article for $149 and we share the syndication rights. Not bad for half an hour’s work.

If you can’t afford to hire a pro, be courteous to yourself and your audience by simply re-reading your work, running a spell check, and letting your wife/husband/friend/co-worker look it over. You’d be surprised at how many things invisible to you will stand out to a fresh set of eyes.

A very efficient method to advertise your professional services, the products you are selling or simply to show how educated you are in a particular niche is by using the highly beneficial method of article marketing.

These articles that enclose at the end a short presentation of you or your business can be about various solution to actual problems, about everyday life or any other topic that will interest and inform a reader about the subject. There are many sites to which you can submit these articles to, or if you have a database of your customers’ emails, just drop them an email containing the article and a link to your personal site or professional site. Over time, it is hoped that your article will be syndicated on websites throughout the internet.

The articles can generally be copied from one article submission site to the other as long as the content belongs to you and you are not stealing someone else’s work. There is a huge demand for content on the internet, it’s what keeps the search engines hungry, and with so many website owners and ezine publishers regularly looking for fresh content, chances are that your article will not only be used on article directories but also on several other sites.

The more interesting and informative an article is, the more people will read and remember it. Even if you don’t have experience with writing, there are some benefits that may persuade you to give it a try:

-    It may improve the way you convey your thoughts on a subject.
-    It will bring your website visibility.
-    If it’s written well it will may help someone.
-    You can prove your knowledge in your professional areas.

Publishing articles means they have to contain mostly useful information and just a little bit of advertising. If they don’t follow this rule, you might end up with an un-publishable article. The promotion area of the article is usually meant for the end of that article, known as the “resource box”. As an article directory owner myself, I know that there are many authors who insist on placing links to their website throughout the article, but I would suggest that having an informative article with the links to “futher information” in the resource box is a much clearer and better structured approach.

Articles are meant to inform the reader of a particular subject, and not merely persuade the reader to visit your site with every paragraph written. In fact, should you have a good enough article, the reader will more than likely choose to visit the site in your resource box in any case. I recently received an article that contained 11 links in a 200-word article! This DID NOT include the resource box where a further 4 links were provided. Needless to say the article was rejected, so make sure your articles are interesting and informative with promotion left to the appropriate section.

There are other things you could do with articles if you are willing to spend some money. There are different publicity sites, ranked high in search engines that for a fee will publish your article on their site for a limited period of time. The fee is not high usually, but can provide publicity should you choose this route. But if this choice is the one that appeals to you the most, you must make sure the article is really good, so good that it can compete with all the other articles on that site. The user can see them all at the same time and you must think of ways to make him choose to read yours. If you have tried and you are not confident you can do it on your own, you can always hire a professional.

There was a time when balloons were nothing more than kid’s toys but now they are used for so many different things. One of the most popular uses of balloons is for advertising. Advertising balloons are popular for so many reasons but the most important one is that people notice them. There is something about a balloon that is fascinating to adults and children alike. We all find out eyes drawn to these colorful floating things and we always want to see what they say on them.

Advertising balloons are pretty and they are effective. They also come in many different sizes. Some advertising balloons are gigantic and are as big as a small plane while others are tiny. Some balloons float while others hand from different things, things like walls or poles or flags, anything really.

These days the most popular kinds of advertising balloons are those shaped like different characters. You will see some shaped like giant gorillas or certain cartoon chartacters like Bart Simpson or Mickey Mouse. These are popular and they catch the eye as you drive down the road, some can even be seen from miles and miles away, they are colorful and fantastic.

The vast majority of advertising balloons are filled with helium gas so as to float in air with one end tied to the support that does not allow it to wander away. One good quality about advertising balloons is that they do not burst as they are not made from flimsy material. They have thick skins that keep them from getting poked and exploded by birds.

Though advertising balloons are dying out when compared to other neat things like laser beams that are used these days, they are certainly not going to leave the market anytime soon. Next time when you see a advertising balloon floating in mid air just think what it took to come with to come with simple yet such a brilliant method of advertising.