How To Design An Effective Banner Ad

Banner ads used to be all the rage when the Internet first started to really take off in the world of the consumer. There used to be quite a wide variety of banner ads ranging from the basic ones with just a line of text and a link below to all kinds of fancy ones with animation and text and even drop down boxes. But as email and search engine marketing began to evolve and develop, banner ads began to fade from the Internet marketing arena. Although banner ads have very much declined in use of recent years , they do offer advertisers an inexpensive medium to increase the overall exposure of the business and services. Here are a few tips to help you build effective banner ads: The basic rule with banner ads is they simply must have a call for action. Maybe a simple 'Click Now' will work but

in todays more sophisticated marketplace you may need to add a little more incentive. You could try saying 'Click Now To Receive Your Discount' This is fairly basic but it not only prompts a call to action but it also offers motivation to the viewer to take action.

You need to get to the point by using the minimum amount of words as possible. Lets be honest, people are not really inclined to click on banner ads in the first place so in reality you have only only a second or so to capture the attention of the reader. You really need to make this very small window of opportunity count so do not waste valuable time of long 'wordy' ads. There is not time here for explanations. You just need to get the person to click on the ad. The explanations of the service benefits can come later on the website. The most important job of the banner ad is to get the viewer there so you have an opportunity to promote your business in full.

And it is indeed the benefits that you need to stress. The features that your company offers can readily be explained in detail on your site. In a banner ad, you need to tell people how your product or service is going to affect their lives in some positive manner. For instance, if you are a staffing company you may offer resume writing assistance to applicants. But in a banner ad, you just want to say something like, "For a great job today, click here!". See the difference? People don't want to know about the details or how you get a great job. They just want to know that clicking on your link is going to get them a great job. Tell them about your resume writing services in the proper venue, not on the banner ad.

Banner ads actually do work. But without a doubt the most effective banner ads are the simplest ones. These are the static banners with a simple call to action that displays a benefit to the targeted audience if they click the ad. Obviously, you should not rely on only one form of marketing but there is little doubt that for sure you will attract visitors by using banner ads correctly. And in any case, banner ads are now amongst the cheapest forms of advertising on line and if they work for you then why not use them to the fullest extent?

Desmond Mantor is the Marketing Manager for Have Traffic that specializes in providing highly targeted traffic for commercial websites. For further information on how to drive highly responsive traffic to your site today visit: http://www.havetraffic.com