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In order to be successful advertising must have a number of key elements. A successful advertisement will appeal to your target audience, it will be positioned in a place where they will see the advertisement and it will have a measurable result. Let’s take a look at each of these elements independently.
Make the most of your advertising by appealing to your target audience. To appeal to your target audience an advertiser must do their research. To understand your audience it’s important to know not only what their problems are but what their fears, desires, and passions are. This means demographic and psycho graphic analysis.

Once you understand your audience then you can craft a compelling advertisement which will address their concerns, needs, and desires. A successful advertisement doesn’t need to capture your audiences’ imagination and sell them your brand image. What it does need to do is capture their attention, make a compelling promise, back it up with some proof or credibility and then provide them some means to act – a measurable call to action. “Buy now.” “Visit www.yoururlhere.com to claim your free report,”

The second phase of making the most of your advertising is by placing your advertisement in a location where your target audience will see it. This involves both research and trial and error on your part. Research complimentary websites in your industry to find websites and blogs to advertise on. Consider what your customer might do before or after they make a purchase from you. For example if own a dating membership site then one thing someone might do before they join a singles website is lose weight or visit a tanning salon or gym.

Also look to find out where your competition is advertising. If they’re advertising on weight loss sites then you know you may have success there too.

The final element in making the most of your advertising is to make sure you can track and measure results. The only way to know if your advertisement is hitting the mark is to make sure you have data to compare. One excellent way to make sure you have a call to action.

A call to action is a statement which tells your reader what to do next. It is the “call now,” “buy now,” or “grab your free pen before they’re gone,” command. If you send people to a unique phone number or URL then you know how many people have responded to your advertisement.

Couple that with the data from the number of people who have viewed the advertisement — this data is usually provided by the place you buy your advertising space — and you have a percentage to compare with other advertisements.

For example, if you place an advertisement in a national magazine with a readership of 100,000 and 500 people respond to the ad then you have a 5% response rate. Compare that to an ad that runs for 10 days on a website that has 10,000 views a day and 1000 click throughs or results in a 10% response rate. If the ads cost the same then you would likely repeat the website advertisement more frequently for a bigger return on investment.

Advertising can be a great way to build your income when it is approached strategically and you keep the three factors for advertising success in mind.