Advertising Is Easy!

Okay, you have a product you want to sell. Like most people who go into business, you really haven't taken the time to educate yourself on proper advertising methods. Why? Because it just didn't seem important. But now you want to do some advertising, and you mistakenly figure, "Advertising is easy! All I have to do is write a few words about whatever it is I want to sell, and advertise it on Google or Yahoo, and then lots of people will visit my website and give me money. And I'll get rich and live happily ever after!"

Sound familiar? Let me ask you a question. Suppose you wanted to be a surgeon. How successful do you think you would be as a surgeon if you didn't educate yourself and take it seriously - if your attitude was, "Being a surgeon is easy. Surgeons use a scalpel, and they perform surgery. My friend John has heart problems. Tomorrow, after lunch perhaps, I'll skip on over to John's house with my shiny new scalpel and perform heart surgery."

Sounds ridiculous, right? Why? Because you don't know the first thing about performing surgery. Sure, you have a scalpel and you can cut. Heck, a monkey with a scalpel can cut! But cutting and actually performing surgery are two entirely different things.

Conversely, sure you can advertise. Anyone who can place an ad and pay for it can advertise. But how effective will your advertising be if you don't know where to advertise? How to advertise. When to advertise. How many sales will you make if you don't know what to say? How to say it. When to say it. Bottom line? Your ad will bomb. And make no mistake, this exact scenario plays itself out all over the world every single day.

So what's the the missing element here? Education. You need to take your business seriously and learn how first. You need to educate yourself about advertising and learn what works. You have to know what you're doing. More importantly, you have to have an organized plan.

In that regard, I highly recommend you read and reread what I consider "The 5 Best Advertising Books of All Time."

1. "How To Write A Good Advertisement" by Victor Schwab

2. "Tested Advertising Methods" by John Caples

3. "Ogilvy On Advertising" by David Ogilvy

4. "Advertising Secrets Of The Written Word" by Joe Sugarman

5. "The Ultimate Sales Letter" by Dan Kennedy

Read the above 5 books, and you'll have a valuable advertising education you can fall back on for the rest of your life. And it won't have cost you tens of thousands of dollars to get it!

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Dale King is the owner of GuruKnowledge.org - The Ultimate Internet Marketing Resource!

If you're tired of all the money-making hype, lies and scams...read this!
http://guruknowledge.org/pages/The-Super-Affiliate-Handbook

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Comment #1 (Posted by James Shewmaker)
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Although traditional advertising books are relevant, if the entrepreneur is indeed as ignorant as you portray him in this article, he may not realize that traditional advertising books fail to deal with a very important internet marketing stage.

Unfortunately, the internet is quite different from traditional advertising in one key area. The difference lies in the stage in-between marketing contact and personal encounter.

Let me illustrate this point with a retail example. If a store owner advertised by DM or Newspaper or through broadcast media, there were three basic stages. (There were optional intermediate stages, but I am trying to over-simplify.) Awareness, "Just Looking," and Ready to Buy. The initial "in-person" contact point between the store owner and the prospect occurred when the prospect walked into the store, just to look around.

However, with the internet, there is a second stage which occurs after Awareness and before "personal" contact.

It is now necessary to keep the web visitor visiting your site over and over during the time when she has not yet decided whether she is interested or not in your inventory.

Getting the visitor to click on a PPC ad - does not guarantee that the visitor will keep coming back to your website. Understand how to "flirt" with your prospect before she visits your business for the first time is an essential ingredient in successful Internet marketing.

(The word "visits" in the previous paragraph includes product searches on e-commerce sites and phone calls or e-mails to online consultancies.) http://rainmakerwebsites.com/

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