The Internet And Advertising Go Hand In Hand
First of all, everyone is on the Internet. That is where we go to search for solutions for our problems, products for our home and family, presents for birthdays and holidays, etc. If you want to make sure you are reaching a large audience, make sure that you are on the Internet. Secondly, there are many methods that you can use in your online efforts that will give you very specific data about your advertisements and how well they are performing. It's harder to see this with print, television and radio ads. When you place ads on the Internet, you can often measure how many times they are being displayed in addition to how often people are clicking on them and then, of course, how often you are getting a sale out of that click.
The Internet and advertising are a perfect match when it comes to classified ads. The Internet has quite easily surpassed costly newspaper advertising. Newspaper ads can cost more than $200.00 just for one 4- or 5-line ad which is quite a lot in comparison to a 3 line PPC ad which could cost as little as 5 cents per click. And online classified ads can be free.
There are many Internet classified sites where you can place your free classified ads. Some of the best ones are Craigslist, Kijiji (owned by eBay), BackPage, and Hoobly but you can see plenty more if you do a search on any search engine. Sites vary in what the free membership includes and you can always upgrade to a nominal monthly charge if you feel that it is necessary to get the features you want.
In any case, post as many classified ads as the site allows. You should change the headlines up to use different keywords and market areas areas that your business caters to. If you can go in every day and just change one letter or make a tiny adjustment to your ad, it will remain close to the top because the site will view it as something new. You'll probably need to go through a little bit of trial and error with many different ads before you start to see what it really working and what isn't.
Another reason that the Internet and advertising are so compatible is because your ad will feature a hyperlink to your website. So your audience just clicks on the link and they are immediately at whatever it is that you want to offer. Obviously, offline advertising does not offer this easy transition. Even if you capture your audience's interest, they may easily forget about your website when it comes time for them to go online.