Brian Rodgers, Craig Proctor and a host of other million-dollar earners regularly use large editorial-style ads to drive new leads into their businesses.

Why? Because they work!

The power behind this style of advertising lies in the fact that most people will "pass over" anything they deem to be a paid advertisement, yet they will voraciously consume every written word of "news".

The idea, then, is to design your advertisements to appear as if they are simply another news article - an unbiased story of interest.

The secret to optimizing any advertising campaign is to get more people to read the ad.

The secret to making an editorial-style ad work is to make the ad perfectly "blend in" with the editorial copy of the publication - to make the ad appear as news.

Here are 4 rules to optimize your editorial-style ads:

1.      Get your ads placed on a right page, top right hand corner if at all possible. This works because the eyes naturally land here to help guide our hands into position to turn the page (amazing, but true!). If you can't get top right, go for bottom right.

2.      Try to avoid any labeling. You really, really don't want the publisher to post a conspicuous "Paid Advertisement" notice above your ad. The KEY, remember is to cleverly disguise your ad to appear as normal news. The closer you get to matching the exact copy layout, style, font, size, column width and more… the greater your response. If the publisher insists on posting a notice, consider not running the ad.

3.      Don't highlight your name or company affiliation unless you have to. Again, the KEY is subtle disguise. News stories do not normally feature the contact information of the author of the story. Bury your contact information in the body of the "article" if at all possible.

4.      Avoid any and all borders unless the publication uses borders to separate and highlight their news.

Happy Selling!

Brandon Patrick

Dean of Students

Real Estate Toolbox University