by Gautam Banerjee

Created on: July 08, 2009

There is more to making a purchase than just making the purchase itself. Consumers, whether in a store or on line, go through several decision steps when making any kind of purchase, large or small. Beginning with the state of mind of the consumer, from unawareness of the offering all the way down to when consumers becomes buyers. Advertising can significantly influence the decision making process. Prospective buyers who do not yet know that they have a need are informed by awareness advertising which brings the advertiser at the top of the mind and helps in building mind share Benefits oriented advertising shifts need solution toward advertisers offering.

Classified ads can play an important role in this decision making process as a cost effective format for impersonal communication to reach target audience and to generate quality and quantity response. The format of classified advertising is broadly two; namely, advertisements on line basis and display advertisements, with restrictions on size and content, placed in classified sections. The later can sometime offer certain advantages, for example, color options, company logo and some visuals but at increased cost.

From the advertiser's point of view, the primary aim of any advertisement is to communicate well to the target audience . The matter could be a product or a service which has utility and can be bought. Therefore, the ad matter must arouse the readers curiosity provoking them to take the next step to get more information. People will respond to the ad if they can identify with what has been advertised. The title or heading is the determining factor whether the ad gets read. It should be appealing to the reader and offer some benefit. Short and specific headline which reveal exactly what is in the ad helps. Over used words like free, money, etc. are best avoided. Often reason for poor responses is because people do not proof read their ads. Make sure that contact information works!

Using action words in the headline or asking a question does help to catch the readers attention, for example, using How to, Last chance, Now!, Amazing, Announcing, and others in the headline. They worked in the past and pull in readers even now. To help writing ads that get results, some research can be done by looking at other ads. Ask yourself, what caught my attention? What did not catch my attention? Pay attention to how other ads are being written. The best ads come from people who pay attention to what others

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