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Dec23
Learning Effective Ad Copy - 12

The First Ad Copy Weapon of Choice - The Headline - 9

Do all of this in a very SPECIFIC way.

We've talked about the headline we use being unique, creating urgency and useful to the reader. All of this is important in our goal of getting the reader to continue on into our ad copy.

Now understanding all of that, we need to be sure to connect all of it very specifically with those reading it. The key benefit and purpose of the ad copy must be communicated in the headline.

Understand that we're talking concepts here, not specifics in the sense of details. Specific.jpgOtherwise we would have to write a headline the length of a paragraph. For example, you could have "Conquer Dynamic Writing in 4 Months." It very specifically tells the reader that the topic is writing. It conveys something useful, has a sense of urgency and is unique to those that are interested in this area.

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Dec22
Papa John's Internet Growth Shows Power of Web
A growing insight into what seems all interests that Web users have, is that online searchers for information are simply more apt to buy products or services.The strong growth of Papa John's Pizza (PZZA) in this area is a good... Continue Reading
Consumer Internet Research Leads to Offline Purchases
A new study shows that those U.S.shoppers who visit online retail websites are more apt to shop and spend more in local stores. ShopLocal surveyed 37,500 people and they said that continual internet usage drives customers to stores, with a... Continue Reading
Learning Effective Ad Copy - 12
The First Ad Copy Weapon of Choice - The Headline - 8Show that your main benefit is UNIQUE  In the mind of someone reading your headline, they will want to be shown that what it is you have to offer... Continue Reading
Dec21
Learning Effective Ad Copy - 10
The First Ad Copy Weapon of Choice - The Headline - 7Provide Reader with a sense of URGENCYA good headline will provide the reader with a sense of urgency. We all need to remember that we are somewhat lethargic when... Continue Reading
Dec20
Google Continues to Extend its Search Lead
Google (GOOG) scored again as new data by Nielsen//NetRatings revealed that the company received about 3.1 billion search requests last month -  giving it a 31% increase over last year. That brings the overall Google search share to 49.5%, according... Continue Reading
Dec19
Learning Effective Ad Copy - 9
The First Ad Copy Weapon of Choice - The Headline - 6Be USEFUL to the readerWhen writing a headline, the first thing to think of is how useful it will be to the reader. It must be something that directly... Continue Reading
Windex Commercial Most Well-Liked by Consumers
Remember the Windex ad about the birds tricking the man relaxing on the patio? It goes like this: "In the ad, the birds are in a tree watching a man relax on his patio. They decide to play a prank... Continue Reading
Attempt by Big Media Companies to Create Online YouTube Rival Probably Already Over
Citing sources that were familiar with the talks, Broadcasting & Cable said that the talks to create an Internet competitor to YouTube may already be sidetracked before they've barely begun. The various sources said that Viacom (VIA) has already pulled out... Continue Reading
Learning Effective Ad Copy - 8
The First Ad Copy Weapon of Choice - The Headline - 5Understanding Why it WorksWe've talked about a number of aspects of ad copy and what's important in its makeup; especially the fact that there is no one best way... Continue Reading
Dec18
Online Retail Spending Up 25 Percent
comScore released online retail data for November 1, 2006 through December 3, 2006, finding that there 25% gain in spending which included 17% more shoppers and 7% higher spending per person.“Clearly, comScore’s data are confirming that more and more consumers... Continue Reading
Ebay to Announce Joint-Venture in China
According to an anonymous source, EBay Inc. (EBAY) will announce on Tuesday that it is in a new joint-venture targeting the domestic Chinese market.The new site will be run by Beijing-based Internet company called Tom Online Inc. The existing EBay... Continue Reading
Keyword Cost Increasing, So are Conversions
A report from DoubleClick, says that the average cost per keyword from June 2006 to September 2006, increased by 20%. The report called DoubleClick Performics 50 Search Unit Trends Report, took the volume of clicks and combined it with the... Continue Reading
Online Retailers Adapting to get Last Minute Business
With largely male shoppers always putting of their Christmas shopping until the last minute, online retailers have been working hard to tap into that never-changing reality.In the past, the majority of last-minute shoppers will run somewhere to an offline store... Continue Reading
Dec17
What's the True Power of Words in Your Marketing?
When talking about the power or words in marketing, there can be a misconception when thinking about that concept. When one thinks of 'power' words, the mind immediately thinks of things like dynamic, forceful and other similar words. But as... Continue Reading
Google Looking to Expand its Mobile Base
Google, in an effort to shore up its foray into the mobile phone business, has gotten together with telecommunications operator 'Orange,' owned by France Telecom, to discuss a partnership to enhance mobile telephone users' web search experience, according to The... Continue Reading
Learning Effective Ad Copy - 7
The First Ad Copy Weapon of Choice - The Headline - 4You Can't Hide a Good HeadlineThe one great thing about learning about headlines, is that they are one of the few things in writing that can be looked upon... Continue Reading
Dec16
Learning Effective Ad Copy - 6
The First Ad Copy Weapon of Choice - The Headline - 3Making a promiseThe first major point to understand when writing a headline is that it will be it's nature be compelling, while at the same time a sifter.What do... Continue Reading
Advertising.com, PointRoll in Partnership to Increase Targeted Ad Performance
AOL's Advertising.com is getting together with PointRoll, a rich-media technology provider to offer companies a better chance at optimizing rich-media interaction rates. The advertising interaction rates represent the percentage of times that an ad has be clicked or rolled over... Continue Reading
Dec15
Consumer-Generated Media Huge Factor in Deciding Purchases
Compete recently performed a study that revealed 50 percent of respondents use consumer-generated media to help make a decision for travel or buying a car. The 50 percent relates to either making a choice of narrowing down their choice. Almost... Continue Reading
Online Display Ads Continue to Grow
Online display ads were up to 259.6 billion by online marketers for November 2006 - an increase from 254.2 billion in October, according to Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance.The most prolific advertisers were the financial services sector, accounting for 25% of the diplay... Continue Reading
Dec14
Proctor & Gamble's Mockumentary a Wild Viral Success!
Proctor & Gamble (PG), not one you think of to create fun, compelling viral marketing campaigns, has did just that with its hilarious depiction of the fictional effect of male menstrual cramps throughout the ages.The campaign cost around $1 million... Continue Reading
Online Phone Usage, Blog visitation and Web Video - Fastest Growing Online Activities
A new study by Mediamark shows the largest growing areas that internet users are using to interact with. The results show that going to blogs, online phone usage and watching Web video are the fastest growing areas furing the last... Continue Reading
Learning Effective Ad Copy - 5
The First Ad Copy Weapon of Choice - The Headline - 2One more consideration when thinking about writing your headline, is what it is you're trying to get your reader to do. Are you writing articles for the sole purpose... Continue Reading
Learning Effective Ad Copy - 4 - The First Weapon of Choice
The First Ad Copy Weapon of Choice - The Headline - 1The headline exists for one reason alone, to grab the attention of the potential reader. That's one reason why we talked before getting into the structure of ad copy... Continue Reading
Dec13
News Corp., MySpace Most Viewed Internet Sites
News Corp.(NWS-A), with the help of MySpace, has taken over 1st place from Yahoo (YHOO) as the most viewed web site in the U.S. Citing comScore Media Metrix data, the Fox Interactive unit said that their page viewing rose from... Continue Reading
Yahoo Says 40% of Major Purchasers Like to Spread the Word
Yahoo (YHOO) conducted a study that shows a large number of people like to share with others about the products or services they have purchased.They interviewed 2,261 consumers who had made major purchases in the last half year. Things like... Continue Reading
Dec12
Wikipedia Founder Offering Free Service
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, announced on Monday that the for-profit arm of the company, Wikia Inc., is set to offer for free, "all the software, computing, storage and network access that Web site builders need to create community collaboration... Continue Reading
Online Holiday Spending Dynamic So Far
In good news for online retailers, Nielsen//NetRatings reported their latest research saying that their holiday e-shopping index grew by 43% from late October to the first week of December. Toy and video games were especially selling well. They've increased by... Continue Reading
Online Ad Spend Continues to Grow Faster Than Predicted
New information has come out that confirms what we talke about here at the alphamarketer, that online ad spend is growing fast than expected, according to a report by Business Week.Citing a eMarketer study, the research company has now increased... Continue Reading
Second Life Virtual Tour for Marketers
If you're considering marketing in the growing virtual world space, MarketingProfs is offering a virtual tour of Second Life on January 11, to show what this means to interested marketers. The DailyFix blog mentions that it will be a called,... Continue Reading
Dec11
YouTube and CBS Filtering User Comments
When I heard that YouTube (GOOG) has been working with CBS and others on changing its layout so that the comments that are normally below the video, in some cases, are moved to a separate page that opens up in... Continue Reading
When you Write Ad Copy, Adapt it to Your Specific Niche Audience
Learning Effective Ad Copy - 3In this series on ad copy, I'm going to give you a number of things that you can do, and they will work. The problem is, like everything else, these methods can be copied easily,... Continue Reading
Dec10
Structure and Content: The Two Keys to Ad Copy
Learning Effective Ad Copy - 2There are two things to think of when writing ad copy. One, is the basic structure of the ad, and the second is the content itself.While we talked about there being no set rules, and... Continue Reading
Dec 9
Every Ad Copy Rule can be Broken
Learning Effective Ad Copy - 1When it comes to writing effective ad copy, the one rule that can be counted on is that there "are no rules." Of course this is only partly true. Where it's true, is when you're... Continue Reading
Google Adwords Offering to Host Small Business Landing Pages
Google has added a service in its Adwords Starter Edition that can help local businesses that have been hesitating to get online, to go ahead and begin the process.In the new service they are offering a free landing page that... Continue Reading
Dec 8
Virgin/EMI Offering Online Concert with Stacie Orrico
The Virgin/EMI label, for the first time, is promoting an online concert with pop/R&B singer Stacie Orrico. It will be featured on the virtual world site of Whyville.com."We're excited about it. We think it's a perfect target to hit Stacie's... Continue Reading
The Internet and the Removal of Gatekeepers
With all the endless talk about how the Internet is changing everything, a lot of people get so caught up in the excitement, that the underlying reason for the disruption is rarely really understood. But for online marketers, we really... Continue Reading
Teens Spend 72 Hours a Week Using Electronic Media
The Harrison Group, which conducted a 2006 Teen Trend study, found that Americans in the age group from 13 to 18, consumed a huge 72 hours a week of electronic media. Electronic media was defined as the Internet, music, television,... Continue Reading
Microsoft Entering into Online Library Competition
Microsoft (MSFT) revealed that it is entering into the digitizing of the world books, a challenge directly aimed at Google (GOOG) who has set as their goal in this space to digitize all the books in the world.Microsoft project director Cliff Guren... Continue Reading
Dec 7
The Psychology of Free
What is one of the biggest reasons marketers resist giving something away for free? You're probably not going to like the answer: It's because they think like an hourly wage earner or in getting paid by the piece.This has always... Continue Reading
The Importance of Giving Something Away for Free
To reinforce what we've been talking about in the power that giving away something free does for someone. I want to use an example of a colleague of mine. He was a disc jockey in Houston quite a few years... Continue Reading
Cory Doctorow Gives it All Away Free
If you're a science fiction fan, or for that matter, an Internet fan, you've probably heard of Cory Doctorow. Not only does has he written a number of science fiction books, but he's also an editor of the popular Internet blog... Continue Reading
Social Networking Sites Driving More Traffic to Online Retailers
Internet research firm Hitwise, which tracks about 19,000 online retailers this year, says that social networking sites are becoming an increasing power in driving traffic to retail Web sites. Last year it was 2.9 percent of traffic, this year it... Continue Reading
Internet Video Revenues to Pass $7 Billion in 2010
The revenue from all participants in Internet video services - including TV show, movies and consumer-generated content, will grow to over $7 billion by 2010, according to a Park Associates study. The report added that there will be a continuing... Continue Reading
Broadband Users Prefer Niche Sites' Ads
In a study to be released next week, Media Screen found that broadband Internet users will be more apt to look at ads on smaller, niche Web sites than they will with larger sites that attract over 1 million uniques... Continue Reading
Dec 6
Know More Media Launches "User-Powered" Website and Community!
Targeting the people that are intested in business and business news, Know More Media started a new "user-powered website and community that offers content focused on business news and information."The service called "Bizzbites.com," offers visitors to submit business related articles... Continue Reading
Yahoo Partners with Reuters for "You Witness News"
In an interesting twist on user-generated media, Yahoo (YHOO) and Reuters has teamed up to empower amateur photographers to put their photos of newsworthy events on the online news sites of the two companies.Those photos picked to be on the... Continue Reading
Large U.S Companies Slow to Adopt Internet Advertising - Not Smart
With the Internet being the fastest growing advertising platform, big companies are not participating like small and medium-sized companies are.TNS Media Intelligence - CEO Steven Fredericks said that he thinks that the slower adoption of Internet advertising by the big... Continue Reading
Internet Retail Sales Leading Europe's Christmas Season
Contrary to popular opinion, in a number of European countries Internet retail sales are surging this year; especially in the three largest European economies - Germany, France and Britain. Offline stores are performing poorly.“Internet is booming at the expense of... Continue Reading
Dec 5
Regular Corporate Websites Drawing More Visitors than Major Media Sites
In an enlightening study by ComScore Media Metrix, it was found that regular, uneventful Websites, like Proctor & Gamble (PG) and Unilever, get far more visitors than their animated and video intensive counterparts - the major media Websites, according to Ad... Continue Reading
David Katz, Yahoo Top Sports Exec. Leaves the Company
The leading executive of Yahoo's (YHOO) sports and programming, David Katz, left the company last week without anybody really getting wind of it till now, according to Online Media Daily.In other company news, the partnership with Al Gore's Current TV... Continue Reading
BlogBurst - New and Improved
Pluck has adding a number of addition to their BlogBurst site that will make the service easier for publishers to use. Some of the new tools added are "Burstwires," which collect blog posts on similar topics, widgets to incorporate the... Continue Reading
ValueClick Inc. Adds New Video Ad-Serving Platform
Responding to a growing demand for ads connected with or to video, ValueClick Inc., the No. 2 Internet ad network, announced that it now will offer a new video ad-serving system that will allow ads to run before and after... Continue Reading
Dec 4
The MySpace Local Niche Focus
There was an article in Business Week asking the question on "What's Next for MySpace?" Sandwiched between a lot of talk was a couple of sentences that touched on something that I've mentioned several times concerning local marketing and niches,... Continue Reading
Britain Leading the World in Adopting Web Advertising
In a few short years, British advertisers have embraced the Internet and forged ahead of everyone else in the world in adapting it so quickly to their marketing strategies. In 2002, the British only had 1.4 percent of their advertising... Continue Reading
Yahoo TV and its Latest Changes
With the cost of launching an online video web site becoming less expensive all the time, companies are continually testing and revamping their sites to better service their viewers; Yahoo (Yahoo) is no different.Karin Gilford, general manager of Yahoo Entertainment... Continue Reading
Google, YouTube, and the Issue of Time
I cover this a lot more in detail on my show business blog, but the deal that Google is dangling in front of the big media companies has a lot interest to Internet marketers.The first thing to learn from it,... Continue Reading
Dec 3
Google in for the Fight of its Life with China's Baidu
There's a lot at stake for Google (GOOG) in its battle for market share in China. It's not so much the money side of the equation as it is the future. Growth for the huge company must come from the... Continue Reading
BitTorrent gets $20 Million in Series B Financing
With BitTorrent become an increasingly important part of the delivery of digital content, they have now been offered the chance to grow even more as they secured $20 million in series B financing. The company says that it plans to... Continue Reading
The Blendec Viral Marketing Success
If you hang out at online video sites, I'm sure you've seen the hugely popular Blendtec video that takes a number of objects and shows the power that the machine has carving them up into bits. Its went totally viral... Continue Reading
Newspaper Writer Makes Assertion that Mainstream Media is About to Take Back the Internet
In an article designed to make people believe that the mainstream media is ready to take back the Internet video market from the "amateurs," Scott Kirsner, writing in the Mercury News tries to prove too much in my estimation.For example,... Continue Reading
Dec 2
Barry Diller says News has Great Online Potential
Barry Diller, CEO of InterActiveCorp. (IACI) communicated to Reuters that because news is increasingly moving from print newspapers to the Internet, it has tremendous upside online potential for the foreseeable future.Diller said: "I actually think that there's going to be real... Continue Reading
Napster's Shawn Fanning Building Online Community for Gamers
Founder of Napster, Shawn Fanning, is reportedly working on a new "virtual social community for online gamers," that he plans on releasing in the near future, says Gamespot.com citing BusinessWeek Online.His first target is the popular role-playing game World of... Continue Reading
Where are the Young People Going Online? To Facebook!
With the recent data showing that both YouTube and MySpace are now catering to audiences 35 and older, it's not surprising that they've started to gravitate toward Facebook as their online community of choice.Among young people between the ages of... Continue Reading
Clear Channel and Reuters Make Content Deal
In a deal with Clear Channel, Reuters will provide news and video content to their 200 sites for its news-on-demand service.The result will be that Clear Channel (CCU) will combine its current news coverage with reuter's video and text feeds,... Continue Reading
Dec 1
Yahoo Creating Brand-based Sites to Attract "Passionate" Fans
It's quite possible that Yahoo! (YHOO) has come up with a real winner as they plan on building a number of niche sites built for the purpose of attracting quality advertising.Their general strategy is to offer up the types of brands... Continue Reading
Sling Media Scores Former MTV Executives Jason Hirschhorn and Benjamin White
Sling Media, recently forming a new media entertainmeent group, signed up former MTV digital executives Jason Hirschhorn and Benjamin White, to lead the division. Hirschhorn with be the president and White the chief creative officer, according Media Online Daily.The company... Continue Reading
AMA Research Shows Internet and TV Complement One Another for Some Users
Research by the American Marketing Association seems to say that the Internet and TV complement one another. One writer, commenting on this, seems to draw the conclusion that complementing implies that there is no impact from the Internet.In reality there... Continue Reading
Peter Jackson, The Hobbit, Niche sites and a Changing World