BIG PROFITS FROM LOW COST DISPLAY ADS
      
           The Display ad is the sexy side of the written word, and is 
      the area most businesses look to rapidly increase sales.  When 
      developed with care and used with caution, a display ad can be 
      highly effective.  However, running expensive display ads is 
      extremely risky and more often than not, they do not recover their 
      costs.
      
           Of course most people who sell these ads won't tell you this. 
      Instead they'll tell you about their large readership, and how if 
      just a small percentage of their readers respond to you ad, you'll 
      get rich.  It just makes sense.  Run a big ad, make a lot of sales, 
      and get rich.
      
           Except it doesn't usually work that way.  What happens is you 
      pay big bucks for a big ad, and when it runs, nothing happens.  No 
      orders, no calls.  And you're out the entire amount you paid for 
      you ad with nothing to show for it.
      
           Most people who haven't run a large display ad simply don't 
      believe this can happen.  They can't conceive that they won't get a 
      response from a large ad.  But I can tell you from personal 
      experience it happens.  A lot more often than anyone selling these 
      ads wants you to know.
      
           For this reason I strongly recommend that anyone thinking 
      about buying an expensive display ad should consider the risk.  If 
      you can't afford to lose everything you invest in the ad, don't do 
      it.  In most cases, a simple press release will be more effective 
      (and quite a bit less expensive) than a large display ad.
      
           It's true that we have had considerable success with some of 
      our full page display ads, but after several early failures we set 
      up some guidelines to follow when running these ads.  These 
      guidelines are:
      
      1.  We always test ads in low cost publications.  (Rarely do we 
          ever pay more than $300 for a full page ad--even in national 
          publications.)
      
      2.  Our full page ads are always run in highly targeted, limited 
          circulation publications.  We only run ads in places that we 
          know our customers will see.
      
      3.  We always run a break-even analysis before we place an ad so we 
          know for sure exactly how many sales we'll need just to pay for 
          the ad.  If the numbers indicate we'll need more than five 
          sales, we don't run the ad.
      
      4.  We always create the ads ourselves.  That way we have absolute 
          control over the content, the structure of the offer, and exact 
          wording.  It does make a difference.
      
      5.  We always request specific ad placement in the magazine or 
          newsletter.  We usually request a right hand page in the back 
          two thirds of the magazine.  Never let a magazine decide where 
          they'll place your ad.
      
      6.  We always negotiate the price of the ad.  Usually we pay about 
          45% of the printed rate card rate (and sometimes we pay much 
          less than that).
      
           By following these guidelines we are able to reduce our 
      exposure to financial loss on display ads in magazines.  If the ad 
      fails to work, we still lose money and momentum, but not near as 
      much it we had blindly run expensive ads.
      
           Keep these guidelines in mind when running your own display ads, 
      and you'll have a good chance of striking it rich also.  (One of Bill
      Myers' first display ads cost a few hundred dollars to run and 
      brought in over $40,0000 in 90 days!  This ad is in "The Unfair 
      Advantage Letter Book."