I began playing around with personal ads about 6 years ago, making many mistakes along the way. Like most guys, I rarely landed any replies on my ads and spent all of my time e-mailing woman after woman only to never hear from most them, losing the rest after only an e-mail or two. As time passed, however, I learned and revised my tactics. I began to discover ways to get more and more responses and eventually I had reached a point where I no longer had to write to women at all. They were writing to me, allowing me to become more and more selective. I am now getting pictures and phone numbers very quickly from highly educated women that travel the world, and I'm doing it without even asking them for these things. So how am I doing this? I'll begin with the fundamental approach in a nutshell.
The approach is simple, and that is not to approach at all. The entire goal here is to appear to be the guy that does not need to use personal ads to begin with. The only reason you're chasing and sending out so many e-mails instead of receiving them is because you're not doing this effectively. There is no reason why an average to slightly above average looking guy has to do all of the work here. I'll get into this soon, but first let me begin with the crucial linchpin in making my whole approach work for you:
Never use sites that require fees to contact other members.
There are several reasons for this. For starters, over the years I've discovered that the best women to be found online are not the ones placing personal ads at all. A large number of fairly attractive, successful and educated women love to browse men's ads if for no other reason than the tragic comedy of it all, never participating, and they often do this while bored at work. It just so happens that free personals sites are often most saturated with poor souls placing absolutely horrible ads while simultaneously being the easiest to access and browse through.
These are the women I target when I place an ad, and these free personals sites are where I find most of them knowing it is very easy for them to contact me. While twice as many men are chasing and competing with each other over half as many women's ads, I'm pulling in the best ones with with very little competition at all. I don't have to write to them to gain their interest because I already have it. All I have to do is maintain my first impression in responding and everything is offered to me: pictures, phone numbers and dates. Often I get at least one or two and sometimes all three before I even get a chance to respond. If they aren't writing to me? Who cares? I'm out there in the real world and it makes no difference to me anyway.
Free sites also offer another advantage, and that is contrast. With so many bad ads from bizarre and desperate men who flock to these free services, my ad and picture always pop out as unique in many ways. In summation, free sites allow you to 1) Find your target group 2) Stand out better so they notice you, and 3) Allow them to easily contact you. So from here, I'll get into the content of my ads and the picture guidelines I use to take these advantages and put them to best use.
Let me begin with pictures, as they are usually the first thing noticed in any ad. Take all of those pictures of yourself with your shirt off and trash them. You're not a male model, and if you do look like one, you just put yourself into the horn-dog/spam category. The ones where you took your digital camera and snapped a shot of yourself in the mirror or with your arm stretched out, toss those too. While you're at it, get rid of the web cam shots as well. Only use pictures of yourself that were taken by other people. If you don't have any, get some. At the very least use the timer option on your camera. Do not pose. Leave the social proof for real life. Have a clear face shot. This is fundamental sh-t, so I'm going to leave it at that.
Lets get to the meat of your ad.
1) Be realistic, keep it real. Your only expectation out of all of this is to set up a date over a drink or something equally as simple.
2) Avoid the habit of constantly saying you are something. Although a little of that is fine, always try to show it or imply it as much as possible. The biggest mistake many guys make over and over again is they do not realize they are taking away their greatest asset when they try to describe themselves. That asset is believability. Who are you more likely to believe, someone who says they are funny or someone who actually has something funny to say?
3) Avoid all of the typical keywords and concepts: Laid back, down to earth, fun, good looking, fit, professional, blah blah blah. All of these terms are relative and everyone defines them differently. This goes back to the believability concept. Saying it doesn't make it so.
4) Do not go into great detail about what you are looking for. You do not need to eliminate people with your ad. You simply eliminate them by ignoring them. If she's too old, don't respond. Too fat? Don't respond. Too ugly? Don't respond.
5) Some more fundamental stuff right here: Spelling, paragraph structure, capitalization, punctuation, etc. The only time I would let this stuff slide is if you're a 16 year old talking "homie" slang with another 16 year old. Also pay attention not to start every sentence with "I". It gets very annoying.
6) Say something that's not only different, but most people can identify with.
Lets take a look at what kind of ad I might write myself:
"So I'm this 33 year old, monogamous sort of guy with a career, a nice vehicle and a place of my own a block from the beach. Basically got my thing together. Although I pretty much stick with jeans and ball caps, I do know how to lose them for something a little more upscale. A few friends have recently transformed me into a beer snob, so drinking mule piss is pretty much out for me these days. And to be honest with you, I'm starting to find traditional dating to be boring. Seriously, is there anything about dating that really puts the butterflies back in your stomach? Although I definitely enjoy dinner out on the town or wine on the couch with a movie, I would rather do those things with someone that I know for a fact I enjoy being around. Wouldn't you?
Lets dump all of the dating rules and etiquette. Lets get to know each other a little, and if we decide we would like to meet, we can do some laundry or go food shopping together. If you can have fun doing that, you can have fun doing anything. And if it doesn't work out? Hey, we both make a potential new friend and get some chores done at the same time, right?
So if you're talkative, a little bit of a sarcastic smart ass and know how to keep things light and playful, get in touch."
Alright, this isn't just an ad I might place. It was an ad I did place. From this ad alone, I had received over 10 e-mails within the first hour it was published and dozens of responses within the first twelve 12 hours. I had used Craigslist.Org as a launching pad for this. The only problem with this site in particular is that after so many hours the responses virtually stopped because so many men place ads daily that I was pushed back on page 8 and forgotten very quickly. No big deal though, I had about 25 women to chose from and I had their full attention since they wrote to me and not the other way around. Several of these women not only traveled overseas, but also lived overseas: A British woman that got her degree in England, moved to Thailand for 7 years then came here for her graduate education. Owned her own business. The works. Another was South American, worked for a company that sent her all over Europe and South America. Home owner and so forth. A Russian woman, an Asian woman. All educated, good looking and well traveled.
This is the target group I'm talking about. You end up walking away with quality women without ever doing a cold approach. All I had to do was place one little ad. No hunting. No endless e-mailing. No browsing profiles and all that sh-t. I spent about a half an hour in word pad editing the ad itself and another 5 minutes tops actually placing the ad. Then I was out the door to have my fun. I come home, I pass out, I wake up the next day and start setting up a few dates for next week. Easy. I'm able to achieve this as a guy that would probably rate a 7.5 on the 1-10 scale of looks.
The only thing I will admit here is that this might not work for you if you're one ugly mofo or live in a one horse town. But being an average to above average looking guy in a city or the suburbs of one, it works very well.
The approach is simple, and that is not to approach at all. The entire goal here is to appear to be the guy that does not need to use personal ads to begin with. The only reason you're chasing and sending out so many e-mails instead of receiving them is because you're not doing this effectively. There is no reason why an average to slightly above average looking guy has to do all of the work here. I'll get into this soon, but first let me begin with the crucial linchpin in making my whole approach work for you:
Never use sites that require fees to contact other members.
There are several reasons for this. For starters, over the years I've discovered that the best women to be found online are not the ones placing personal ads at all. A large number of fairly attractive, successful and educated women love to browse men's ads if for no other reason than the tragic comedy of it all, never participating, and they often do this while bored at work. It just so happens that free personals sites are often most saturated with poor souls placing absolutely horrible ads while simultaneously being the easiest to access and browse through.
These are the women I target when I place an ad, and these free personals sites are where I find most of them knowing it is very easy for them to contact me. While twice as many men are chasing and competing with each other over half as many women's ads, I'm pulling in the best ones with with very little competition at all. I don't have to write to them to gain their interest because I already have it. All I have to do is maintain my first impression in responding and everything is offered to me: pictures, phone numbers and dates. Often I get at least one or two and sometimes all three before I even get a chance to respond. If they aren't writing to me? Who cares? I'm out there in the real world and it makes no difference to me anyway.
Free sites also offer another advantage, and that is contrast. With so many bad ads from bizarre and desperate men who flock to these free services, my ad and picture always pop out as unique in many ways. In summation, free sites allow you to 1) Find your target group 2) Stand out better so they notice you, and 3) Allow them to easily contact you. So from here, I'll get into the content of my ads and the picture guidelines I use to take these advantages and put them to best use.
Let me begin with pictures, as they are usually the first thing noticed in any ad. Take all of those pictures of yourself with your shirt off and trash them. You're not a male model, and if you do look like one, you just put yourself into the horn-dog/spam category. The ones where you took your digital camera and snapped a shot of yourself in the mirror or with your arm stretched out, toss those too. While you're at it, get rid of the web cam shots as well. Only use pictures of yourself that were taken by other people. If you don't have any, get some. At the very least use the timer option on your camera. Do not pose. Leave the social proof for real life. Have a clear face shot. This is fundamental sh-t, so I'm going to leave it at that.
Lets get to the meat of your ad.
1) Be realistic, keep it real. Your only expectation out of all of this is to set up a date over a drink or something equally as simple.
2) Avoid the habit of constantly saying you are something. Although a little of that is fine, always try to show it or imply it as much as possible. The biggest mistake many guys make over and over again is they do not realize they are taking away their greatest asset when they try to describe themselves. That asset is believability. Who are you more likely to believe, someone who says they are funny or someone who actually has something funny to say?
3) Avoid all of the typical keywords and concepts: Laid back, down to earth, fun, good looking, fit, professional, blah blah blah. All of these terms are relative and everyone defines them differently. This goes back to the believability concept. Saying it doesn't make it so.
4) Do not go into great detail about what you are looking for. You do not need to eliminate people with your ad. You simply eliminate them by ignoring them. If she's too old, don't respond. Too fat? Don't respond. Too ugly? Don't respond.
5) Some more fundamental stuff right here: Spelling, paragraph structure, capitalization, punctuation, etc. The only time I would let this stuff slide is if you're a 16 year old talking "homie" slang with another 16 year old. Also pay attention not to start every sentence with "I". It gets very annoying.
6) Say something that's not only different, but most people can identify with.
Lets take a look at what kind of ad I might write myself:
"So I'm this 33 year old, monogamous sort of guy with a career, a nice vehicle and a place of my own a block from the beach. Basically got my thing together. Although I pretty much stick with jeans and ball caps, I do know how to lose them for something a little more upscale. A few friends have recently transformed me into a beer snob, so drinking mule piss is pretty much out for me these days. And to be honest with you, I'm starting to find traditional dating to be boring. Seriously, is there anything about dating that really puts the butterflies back in your stomach? Although I definitely enjoy dinner out on the town or wine on the couch with a movie, I would rather do those things with someone that I know for a fact I enjoy being around. Wouldn't you?
Lets dump all of the dating rules and etiquette. Lets get to know each other a little, and if we decide we would like to meet, we can do some laundry or go food shopping together. If you can have fun doing that, you can have fun doing anything. And if it doesn't work out? Hey, we both make a potential new friend and get some chores done at the same time, right?
So if you're talkative, a little bit of a sarcastic smart ass and know how to keep things light and playful, get in touch."
Alright, this isn't just an ad I might place. It was an ad I did place. From this ad alone, I had received over 10 e-mails within the first hour it was published and dozens of responses within the first twelve 12 hours. I had used Craigslist.Org as a launching pad for this. The only problem with this site in particular is that after so many hours the responses virtually stopped because so many men place ads daily that I was pushed back on page 8 and forgotten very quickly. No big deal though, I had about 25 women to chose from and I had their full attention since they wrote to me and not the other way around. Several of these women not only traveled overseas, but also lived overseas: A British woman that got her degree in England, moved to Thailand for 7 years then came here for her graduate education. Owned her own business. The works. Another was South American, worked for a company that sent her all over Europe and South America. Home owner and so forth. A Russian woman, an Asian woman. All educated, good looking and well traveled.
This is the target group I'm talking about. You end up walking away with quality women without ever doing a cold approach. All I had to do was place one little ad. No hunting. No endless e-mailing. No browsing profiles and all that sh-t. I spent about a half an hour in word pad editing the ad itself and another 5 minutes tops actually placing the ad. Then I was out the door to have my fun. I come home, I pass out, I wake up the next day and start setting up a few dates for next week. Easy. I'm able to achieve this as a guy that would probably rate a 7.5 on the 1-10 scale of looks.
The only thing I will admit here is that this might not work for you if you're one ugly mofo or live in a one horse town. But being an average to above average looking guy in a city or the suburbs of one, it works very well.
