Hello everyone,

I am quite new to copy writing and a new member of this forum. I have read many books on the subject of sales copy writing and have worked with small ads in mail order before. This will be my first full page ad that I will be running in Small Business Opportunities Magazine this fall. I would appreciate any critiques you can offer on the functionality, design and overall appeal of the advertisement.

You can view the ad by following this link fullpg_ad

I have been working in the telecommunications industry for over 5 years now and I want to share my knowledge of how people can save a tremendous amount of money by using the new digital phone technology (system) out there plus provide them with an opportunity to make money through helping us distribute this new publication. Does this message come through in my ad?

Your comments would be greatly appreciated.

Wayne

If this is going in biz op mag you want to call out directly to those people in your headline.

At the moment there is no mention of a biz op until the second paragraph of your copy.

Basically the angle of the ad is wrong.

These people don't care about saving money on phone bills, they want to make money.

Explain the biz op to them.

It sure looks colorful and very youthful Totally depends on the look of the magazine, and the age/interests of the readers if this layout will work.

1. Get hold of all previous issues of the magazine you can, see what ads reoccur there over time (that means these guys are probably making money from those ads), and compare the look and feel with your ad.

2. I would personally be careful about using the words "step-by-step guide" here. Most people just wants a phone to hold in their hand. How does it work, what system is this, do they need technical knowledge, is it fast to set up, are additional purchases nessecary? Can you put info like this down in a few sentences, and provide a little reassurance I think it would be golden.

3. As I see it you're selling two things. The package, and you're attaching a pretty transparent bonus which is trying to recruit distributors. If you have the opportunity you could split test selling the package alone, and then selling them on the distributor deal as it arrived (or in followup later).

4. Also, this has probably been tested to death by others so a little forum and google digging will probably answer this (my opinion may be wrong) - but sending cash in snailmail? I'd love to go online and be able to get it instantly (I read the phonenumber on the bottom as for ditributors only)

Good luck!
Vince

not wrong

Free Phone Calls from Anywhere! - VoIP News

and a few more HERE.

RE the AD, I would want to know more details before parting with what represents a few weeks of call dialling.

The thing is it is difficult to charge for information now, as information is so freely available on the web.

A better idea is to give the eBook free and then make money by having paid ads in the eBook. In my humble opinion.

Hello Everyone,

Thank you very much for your comments. They have been very helpful to me. From your feedback I refocused the ad towards the target audience of the Small Business Opportunities Magazine readers to help capture their attention and provided them with more information that will be of interest to them. I have also decided to run a split ad campaign where I will sell the distributor opportunity in the Small Business Opportunities Magazine and sell the "Savings" side of it in magazines whose target audience is focused more on business services and economical business solutions.

I have posted the new ad here and would welcome your feedback on the changes I have made to it. fullpg_ad1

This forum is great! and I am glad I have joined.

Thanks again for your help.

Wayne

OK, the angle is better, now let's see about the offer and layout...

The ads that are repeated month after month in the biz op mags I've got (they are Australian, but it's a fairly safe bet they're very similar to the US) are full page long copy lead generators.

I'm talking 6pt text and 3000+ words. They all offer a free 1st step to get people into the funnel.

E.g. Jeff Paul's "How You Can Make $4000 A Day, Sitting At Your Kitchen Table, In Your Underwear!". He's giving away a $29 "book" (i.e. bookalog) as his first step.

When your prospects are deciding which offers to act on, and are looking at a bunch of ads offering free books, promising to make them rich while sitting at the table... and come across yours asking you to pay you just for some information -- for something they know almost nothing about -- which are they gonna choose?

Remember a lot of these people barely had money for the magazine, let alone enough to actually invest in anything.

You've got to build the value of your offer so it's comparable to the other offers in the mag. These people are looking for the easiest, cheapest, most believable offer to act on. Yours is hard to believe and could be all kinds of difficult (theres so little info they really don't know what's involved), and it costs more than all the others.

Yep. The new ad is much better. Now you're speaking to the people who read the title you are advertising in, about the thing they are interested in: making money. Also...compare how the visual (the girl with speech bubble) is working now. In your original ad she was simply a decoration, adding nothing to the headline. In your new ad she is working in tandem with your headline. The user journey now is: i) see the girl, read the speech bubble, think..."OK. People call long distance for free and get pretty happy about it"; ii) Read the headline and think...."Hey. This happiness giver is an opportunity for me to make money!" Nice work!

Hello Everyone

Thank you again for your feedback and helping me with my first full page ad. It is incredible how you can get tunnel vision working on ad copy and how it is really important to have others review your work before you decide to go to press. Your comments have helped me reorganize and spice up my ad and I thank you.

I picked up some new issues of the magazine that I want to advertise in and noticed that most of the full page ads that have repeated for at least a year (as seen in past issues I have) have the cut out coupon and an iron clad money back guarantee incorporated. I have decided to play along and keep the cut out coupon but have included the 1-800 number for easier ordering and and have also spiced up the text on the coupon to tell them about our money back guarantee.

I think with these changes from your comments that I may be ready for press. Am I forgeting anything?

Wayne

Hi my friend I am perhaps too late on this.

I want just to ask you about this:

the call to action is a phone number; I mean people will phone in order to get more information.

so before the lunch is there any script, I mean have you made what would you respond to those people who will call?

we can get a too much call, but if haven't prepared any thing to handle those call, it may result in a less conversion.

Hi Abdellah,

I was thinking of using a 24 hour answering service to answer the calls which I would be providing them with a script. I have not began to write the phone script yet, are there any pointers you can suggest that could help me in writing this phone script? Do think it is wise that I use a service to answer the calls in the beginning or should I try answering them myself?

Wayne