Sometimes when you go to sell your car you are stumped as to how to
write your classifieds ad. If
you've never sold one before you just don't know what
gets a response.
This is where a few pointers can put you in the success lane straight
away.
Let's cover a few quick basics first. Like any sort of advertising
there is a physical
response at the other end of your auto
classifieds ad.
For example, say you are reading a piece of junk mail. The advertiser
has only a few seconds to grab your attention before you throw it in
the bin.
His mission is to get you to read it.
It works like this. Say he prints 1000000 pieces. 1% read it and out of
those 1% 10% buy. He has just sold 1000 units, which is pretty good.
Now if he can get 2% to read it and increase the buying rate by 2
times, he has just sold 4000 units - even better.
When you are advertising your car in auto classifieds, you are
competeting with other
advertisers who are advertising similar vehicles in that price range.
Your mission is to get qualified buyers to call.
Imagine a buyer, he scans down the page and marks off advertisements -
say every Toyota in the $10000 range in the model he wants.
Now that is if he is particularly thorough person.
But is everybody like this. No, they are not. People have lazy eyes. We
are conditioned to have advertising thrust into our faces.
We are also conditioned sub-consciously to evaluate the quality of
advertisements and make some sort of value judgement about the product
at the other end.
It is only my opinion, but I believe we all pride ourselves on our
ability to 'suss' out
whether we want to follow something up or not.
Therefore you advertisements should be of sufficient quality to reflect
your vehicle in it's best light.
The Car Classifieds Ad Mental Checklist
A buyer usually has a mental checklist in his mind when he is looking
for a car.
E.g auto, low kilometers model, color maybe, what the wife wants.
Reliable.
It's his checklist. Some of these things he would like to be able to
isolate from the ad.
If you've ever looked through advertisements, you would be familiar
with that spinning feeling where there are so many things on offer.
It is frankly a relief to settle on something you see and tick it off
as something you are interested in.
The Easy Way Out - The Usual Practice When Someone Reads An Auto
Classified Ad
Regardless of the better side of life and even with amounts of
thousands of dollars, people are basicly still lazy. If you make your
advertisement clear and answer as many details as you can you have done
work for them. You have saved them time. Now they are ever so slightly
in your debt and your rating goes up.
Generally people will take the easy way out.
Saving them time is money in your pocket.
Bigger Ad, Bold Lettering for Your Ad
No,it's not a myth and an attempt to bilk money from you by the
newspaper. In my experience it works. It's based on solid principles.
First you must get the buyer's attention and only then can he evaluate
your ad.
Even when people see the big ad and they think they have worked out
your strategy.
'Aha, he's trying to sway me with those bold letters. I'm not going to
fall for that"
It doesn't matter. They still come back and the next thought they have
is.
"Yeah, but what if that's because it's a great car. I better not miss
out on that"
The fact of getting someone to see your ad is half the battle. What
they do after that is mostly internal wackiness anyway.
The killer combination is to get your ad seen and write a killer ad,
which answer's their mental checklist.
Mistakes advertisers make when writing a car classifieds ad.
Leaving key information out - like whether it's auto or manual.
Apparently some people do this to encourage people to call.
Look guys, you don't want people to call to ask silly questions, you
want the qualified and interested buyers to call - don't you?
This is just plain stupid. You will miss a lot of people just because
you have annoyed them.
When they do call, you have a little hump to get over before you can
close them to come and see your car.
Use of abbreviations in your ad
This is fine, so long as the abbreviation is decipherable. Use other
car classifieds ads as a guide to see what others use. Don't make up
your own
language as there is no way anyone can figure it out.
That's the end of part 1. In part 2 of this article series, I'll give
you some example
auto classified advertisements as well as reveal some killer little
lines that can
prompt people to call.
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This article may be reprinted provided this resource box is included
Copyright © 2005 Graeme Sprigge
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Go to part 2 of this article - Car
Classifieds Ad Part 2