If you have run an expensive ad with little to no noticeable results, you are not alone.

You probably don’t know why your ad failed, or what you can do better next time, all you know is you didn’t get the ROI you hoped for.

The good news is that you can dramatically improve the effectiveness of your online and print ads by avoiding these colossal cash killing mistakes.

1. Selfishness

If you are trying to sell your prospects with an ad, stop being so selfish.

“A single ad, no matter how well produced, no matter how compelling, is almost never enough to sell your product,” says Seth Godin in Permission Marketing.

Instead, open a line of communication by offering something of value with no strings attached.  Focus on what’s in it for them.  I’m not just talking about benefits here, I mean give them some immediate gratification.

Hooked on Phonics went from $0 to $100 million in revenue without selling anything in their ads.  Instead, they asked customers to call their toll free number for free information about the benefits of their product.

No cost, no obligation, no selling.

What can you give away that will communicate the benefits of your service?  A free 1 hour consultation?  A copy of your latest book?

2. Dead Beat Dad

Do you follow through with your customers, or are you a Dead Beat Dad?

Once you open up a line of communication, you have to follow through.  Keep the dialogue going until the customer is satisfied that you are trustworthy.

Frequency builds trust, and trust = sales.

3. Blindness

If you ran 3 different ads at the same time, how would you know which one worked best?

If you can’t test your ads, every new ad you run is a guess.  And if you are guessing whether you can put food on the table each month, you are simply delaying starvation.

Use tracking software like Google Analytics to test different ads online, and you could double your revenue pretty easily.  Never stop making tweaks until you get a 100% response rate.

In summary, give your prospects something of value in your ads instead of a sales pitch.  Open a line of communication, and keep it open by following through.  Then test your ads to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Now I own a multi-million dollar company, and I live a pretty good life.

I want to share with you the highly effective marketing techniques that made me successful, so that you can do the same thing with your business.

You’d be surprised how many people I run into on a daily basis that have no idea how to do this stuff. It is SO important that you learn these valuable marketing strategies.

I’ve never shared any of this publicly before, enjoy!”

Click the link below for the audio interview, or right click and save it to your computer.

John Spencer Ellis’ Success Secrets

You can get more clients and sell more products, but maybe not in the way you think. So how do you do it?

Click here to download my free report, and find out The Secrets of Social Media Marketing

Here are a few traffic strategies you can use right away to open the flood gates.

Easy Content Creation

Instead of slaving over a 50 page free report, interview someone in your industry (preferably a well known person) about an interesting or controversial topic, and put the audio or video on your website.  Make sure the interview is really good, and in your questioning, always think about what’s in it for the audience.

Tell everyone you know about your groundbreaking interview, and ask the person you interviewed to do the same.

Email other prominent figures in your industry about your interview, and offer to let them put it on their website, as long as they credit you.  (i.e. Video by Scott Bolinger at http://www.theclientgenerator.net/)

Guest Posting

Offer to write a guest post on the blog of someone with a bigger list than you.  Write something new, different, and exciting, make it good.

Do as many guest posts as you can, and make sure you provide a link back to your site at the end of the post.

Become a Part of the Community

Nobody likes a freeloader, so give more than you take.

Comment on other people’s blogs in your industry, and add something to the discussion.

Link to other good blogs from your blog, and reference other people’s posts in your own posts.  People will notice who is linking to them, and they might even give you a link or two in return.

Don’t like selling?  Good.

Selling doesn’t work anymore.

You are exposed to around 3,000 advertising messages per day, and most of them don’t get through.  Your defenses go up, you don’t like to be sold.

You have no problem buying, it’s being sold you hate.

So why are you trying to sell everyone else on your product or service?  They feel the same way.

“Teach, don’t sell.”

What is advertising after all, but educating the customer about your product or service so that they are compelled to buy it?

Ads need to be dressed up in bright colors with sexy models so that we don’t ignore them, but essentially, they are teaching you about the benefits of their product so that you will see the value and want to buy it.

I’m guessing that you don’t have millions of dollars to run a great advertising campaign that attracts attention and tells people why to buy your product.  I don’t either.

So how do you communicate value to strangers?

Your services have real value, right?

Then teach your potential customer about your product or service by showing them the value, instead of selling them on it.

Let me give you an example.

Let’s say you offer life coaching.  Write a 5 part email course on the best ways to improve your life right now.  Deliver it in exchange for an email opt-in.  You could also put all 5 parts in .pdf form, and let new customers download them.

Don’t know what an email opt-in is?  Here’s another way using regular email instead.

Tell your customers to email you if they want your free report, store their emails, and reply back with your free life coaching report or course.

Now you have the email address of a potential customer that is educated about how valuable life coaching can be for their life.  You have opened a line of communication with them, and your free report has done most of the selling for you.  An educated prospect is WAY more likely to buy from you than someone who saw an ad.

Uneducated prospects look, educated prospects buy.

You might think that online business is only for technically savvy people, or people who have lots of money to outsource their techie stuff.

That used to be true a few years ago, but it isn’t anymore.  If you can write a document in Microsoft Word, save it and print it, or use email, then you can make a website.

Seriously.

In fact, if you can do that, you can create a 10-20 page website, sell products from an online store, change the site design, start a blog, and whatever else you want.

It really is that easy nowadays.  (If you can’t do that, you should probably hire someone to do your website )

So why is it that much easier all of a sudden?

Google has teams of the top developers in the world thinking of revolutionary new programs that will make everyone’s lives easier.  They spend millions paying for research and development of these incredibly useful tools, and then they give them away for free.

Have you ever wondered how Google makes money?

Mostly by putting ads in their free programs such as their search engine, maps, free blogs, and free websites.  The bad news is that web developers might have to find a new line of work.  The good news is that there is money in making these awesome free tools easier for you to use.

The software world has embraced this “free” business model, creating amazing tools from free blogs and websites (Wordpress) to open source developer platforms like moodle.  All of this free software has been designed for non-technical people to be able to master quickly, and it is the basis of many very successful businesses.

You don’t have to know html, css, php, or any other kind of code to start your own website.  You don’t have to pay a designer to make a custom theme and install it, now you can get professional turn-key templates that install with one click for free.  (see wordpress.com, or weebly.com)

Sometimes it can be a good idea to outsource your web design needs so you can focus on making profit for your business, or if you need something more complex.

But for most people, getting started has never been easier.

Still don’t believe me?

I’ll show you how to setup a free blog, write your first post, and make your site look professional in less than 15 minutes.  Check out my video tutorial on how to use Wordpress to make a free website.