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Ever notice that some businesses get amazing response from their advertising, while others get very little -- even though they're advertising in the same places.

Research shows that for many of the big online advertising venues, you largely get other advertisers reading each other's ads. That's true for most other advertising outlets, including newspapers.

While that phenomenon upsets a lot of business people, YOU can take smart advantage of the situation. Instead of advertising your usual product, service, or opportunity, promote something all the other advertisers need.

One of the first small businesses to make a huge splash on eBay was the woman who dropped all her garage sale items to sell bubble wrap. She correctly guessed that all the other sellers on eBay needed discount bubble wrap to ship their products. She was right. Within a few months her home-based business had expanded to a warehouse with a dozen employees.

A recent check of the online advertising phenomenon TrafficSwarm showed 87% of the thousands of ads are promoting MLM-like opportunities. Instead of advertising your opportunity, you can offer to train others to succeed, no matter what their business is. I'm currently on TrafficSwarm offering to re-write people's ads (boy, do some of them need it!)

Are you writing articles and submitting them to ezines? Try offering something ezine editors can use to make their jobs easier. You'll be surprised by response.

Put your imagination to work and think what YOU could offer the other advertisers whose ads sit beside yours. Think in terms of what makes their job easier. Can you save them time or hassle or help them relax?

Even more powerful, try to save other advertisers money. Many business owners would rather save money than make more money. Finally, can you make your prospect LOOK good? That often leads to a sale.