Classified Adverts Unfair

Am I the only person who thinks the classified advert system is unfair? This topic might of been covered before so apologies if it has. But why is that those who pay the most get the highest listing. I along with many others run a business. The profit of this work keeps me in SL. Yet trying to attract customers is increasingly hard. I don’t have the $100.000L to place an advert that will be seen. My Advert would be on page 100 which seems to me to be unfair. Why can’t Lindens devise a Classified system which is free to advertise, split into sub sections. I.E Shops, Clubs, etc.

Participate in hunts. Create a blog and get your blog added to the feeds. Those are marketing venues not controlled by LL and they work.

thank you for your reply. I am oldish in SL but new to this side how do I partake in hunts. or is that all in the blogs. thank you for any help

Now I do not know if you are the only one, but I disagree about the unfair.
If you have a small shop in RL, you can't afford a front-page ad in a well-known magazine. Neither a TV-commercial. The bigger your company is, the more you can afford.

Myself, I also cannot afford those ads either, but that does not make them unfair does it? Simply do it with the means you can afford and you can be successful. Ann mentioned a few possibilities already, and there are more. List your stuff on XStreet, post new products on the new products forum, there is much you can do without forking over 100K for an ad.

I think you are

Because they have paid the most? Just a guess

I pay the minimum, i'm quite happy for people to find mine by browsing my profile. The stats on it suggests it has traction.

I pay $51L a week, and I do get results. (you can see if ppl tp to your shop from viewing classifieds). I am mainly in there so that if people do a search for me, they can find me.

Yep, that's what I do. It's my impression that in most product categories, L$51/wk is the only rational choice for classified listings; I strongly suspect that for popular search terms such as "animation", getting to the top costs more than the ad is likely to generate in incremental sales. Somebody with deep pockets trying to launch a big product line might nonetheless find it worthwhile in the long run.

Or it requires a cheat, of which there is some history, and rumors that it may still exist. *That* would be (is?) unfair.

Not fair, I only pay L$50, you're stealing all my traffic... i'm going to pay L$52

I don't see it as unfair. If you place an ad in the newspaper, the more you pay, the bigger the ad is and the better placement it receives. Same concept here.

There are some really great creators who sell loads of stuff but have really cheap classifieds - they don't need to spend a fortune on them, their stuff is so good that it 'sells itself'.

I know that seems silly to say, but it really is true. OK, it is much harder to get yourself into that position nowadays, there is so much more competition in SL, and the creators I am thinking of started out a long time ago.

There are other ways of attracting attention though.

Make sure you have a good store - do your best to display your products in an imaginative, exciting way.
Share! Do you make clothes, for example - well, if they are really good ones, then giving some away is free advertising! People wearing them are walking billboards.
There are lots of magazines and review websites out there - again, good products will attract good reviews.
XStreet - make sure your products are on there, make sure you have LOTS of good pictures up, pay for homepage views for a little while - how about a banner for a weekend? Yes, this is a bit of an investment, but just a couple of dollars worth.

It isn't easy to make a splash now, it really isn't - but it definitely is - without paying for classifieds.

Hey, I just realized, I have a handful of classifieds, but mine are really cheap ones, lol - and I have a pretty successful business here - so there ya go - for once I am actually proving myself right, way to go Elgyfu, hehe

If I search through the classifides, I scroll though the pages until I hit the L$50 section.
I know I can get what I am looking for cheaper there since these people do not have a million L$ weekly advertising fee to make up.

The unfair thing is not the classified system by itself. The unfair thing is that there are so few options to do good advertising in SL, and the few that are available are lousy.

By itself, the payment of position in the SL classifieds isn't much different than the traditional newspapar method of classifies, which charges more for more words, larger displays, or prominent placement. It's a similar concept to using something like those paid placements in Google search, in which people bid for the search terms for which they want ads to show.

The problem with it is that, in my experience, the SL classifeds are ineffective to use, as either an advertiser or consumer. It's hard to narrow searches such that results are not more dominated by payment than relevance. To me, though, that doesn't make the classifieds unfair; it just makes them worthless.

The classified system is the fairest ranking system I see in SL. The silly part is when people try to compete for a top eight or top page slot by bidding L$1 over the bottom entry, you're not likely to stay there for long, but as ranking systems go, it's pretty damn transparent.

i agree that classifieds are fair...the key for me has been to use words that are more specific in them...i dont try to compete under "furniture" or "home decor" and trying to compete under "fashion" or "women's clothing" will land you on page 12 unless you have big bucks.

i never search for words that broad. if i am looking for red high heels, i search for "red high heels." so for my store, the others can compete under "low prim" or whatever floats their boat...ill stick to names of specific products which has served me well and kept costs down.

Most effective way to advertise is to first understand your customers and where they are and what differentiates your product.

Classifieds are pretty meaningless to me. In fact any advertising which requires that someone do effort to "search" is rather wasted in my opinion.

Get your product full on in front of your target customers. As I said in another thread...Coca Cola does not just have a factory and a listing in the phone book.

Make the right product, find where your customers are, rent the right spot, put the products up for sale.

*shrugs*

The point about transparency is a good point. The classifieds may not be great, but in terms of fairness, a transparent system is a lot more fair than a useless mystery system that provides garbage for consumers and rewards merchants based not upon product creativity, but on their ability to crack the mystery of the system (i.e., Traffic).

Blogs I can agree with...Hunts I don't

If churning out "Freebies" to participate in Hunts is the only way to attract new customers into one's shops.....then Marketing in SL is truly in a sorry state!

I've tried a couple of Hunts....analysed the results therafter...it appeared that most participants were "freebie hunters"...great for Noobs....but not a great way to run a business in SL long term. Flooding the grid with quality "Freebie" products won't do the Content economy any good long term.

Classifieds Adverts is a fair system. Try being creative with Keywords if you have a low budget....don't expect much return on the most popular keywords in your sector, look for good keyword variants and secondaries and popular foreign. Having plotted Clicks per L.....or cost per click over last 2+ years......I can tell you its does not garner the same results as it did in say 2007/8. The dips started to occur around the time the new "All Search" was being introduced....i've cut my advertising costs down by 50% during the last 6 months.

Same reason i'm happy to disgard renting in any area that uses Midnight Mania. Live freebie hunting traffic bots.

There lies the problem ..."find where your customers are". SL doesn't have great advertising or marketing tools to reach out to the masses (e.g Radio, TV or National Newspaper). Where are these right spots?....even the very best locations are only visited by a minute part of the SL population.
A sim can only hold 100 avies max....it starts lagging with just 40/50. You still need some form of marketing or advertising to attract people to that SIM. It's not just a case of just building or opening a Shop......."and then they will come"

Coca Cola is a renowned world brand name....it sells itself....the logo alone!

It's legwork. Identifying where they'll be, go find them... put products in front of them litereally. Have to identify what the product is and how it fits first. There's no point trying to reach out to the masses. My worst sales come largely from the high general traffic places. The tools are just fine, if they're used properly. For example, even if there were "SL Radio", there's little value in advertising "I have a new dress available...it's the sweetest dress you ever did see in SL". Radio.. no pictures

There are plenty of locations, forums etc. if it's not working, either the product is wrong, the market is wrong or the methods are wrong.


and they didn't get there by having a factory and an entry in the phone book

I don't think it's as easy as you make out...and i've tried most forms of advertising & marketing over the last 3 years.....at it's peak in 2007 i was making sales of 600-700k p/mth. I'm not involved in Fashion, but from what I understand it's the largest sector, probably the most competitive and cut-throat around!

I've rented in 100's of malls over the years....the concept has gone to pot in the last year!
I still do the Forum thing. I've tried Hunts and other gimmicks....always looking for the next marketing trick.......most really don't work, but yet i'm willing to try new concepts.

I've done radio advertising on several occasions...but that was for my Mall as opposed to my products.

Yeah SL brand names do have some longevity, also helps if LL markets them via Dashboard or Showcase (free advertising to a large audience)..but even mapping some of the A-Listed places you won't find it swarming with Green Dots

This. SL Classifieds is like the Yellow Pages. If I'm looking for a provider then I look in the Yellow Pages. I could look in the White Pages (SL People) for stuff but I don't.

I just pay the minimum for the ad and not worry about it. With the advent of the traffic bot, a lot of people started going towards the lower priced/traffic places and shopping there.

I am cheap.. I like to let word of mouth get my business out there.

I didn't say it was easy, I said it's what to do...

Not rely on spamvertising but to get out there and identify customers and put product in front of them and engage them. That's just pure sales.

If people just expect to put up an advert, classified, or create a shop in an unknown obscure location selling "SL's bestest cutest miniskirt and crop top" and then wonder why they're not making millions should go shopping and look around.

Again...unique product in demand, with valued USP's, in front of the right customers will yield sales.

If the merchant cannot identify their Products USP's or cannot identify their precise customer demographic then expect nothing and be pleasantly surprised with a sale now and again.