Ezine Advertising

Almost anyone knows that the solo ads are the best form of ezine advertising. However, many marketers have only some vague ideas on how to properly use them. Part of them understand that something is wrong in what they did only after they fail. Others never understand the reality (it’s easier to blame all the other people but not themselves!)

Today’s article is a mini-guide for email advertisers looking to improve the results of their solo advertising campaigns. For an easier reading and understanding, the essential principles I will talk about today are shown in a Q & A (Questions & Answers) format.

Q: Paid vs. Free Solo Ads. Why should I pay for a solo advert if there are so many places (safelists, text ad exchanges) where I can get them for free?

A: Why do you think that so many online businesses fail? No offence, but where there is a crowd there are also a lot of losers. Choose your model carefully and don’t lose the contact with the real world. When was the last time when a stranger gave you something valuable for free? … No one gives away something really valuable. No one. Most of the online freebies value exactly what you pay for them (nothing, to be more specific). If you have something of value, what do you do with it? Do you keep it for yourself or your family, do you sell it, or do you give it away to a stranger?

Q: Where shall I buy solo ads from? Can you recommend a responsive newsletter or a good email marketing service? Shall I type “solo ads” in my favored search engine and buy from the places listed on the first page?

A: All such approaches are wrong.

First you need to understand the difference between targeted and untargeted advertising. Let’s say that you want to promote the latest SF book you wrote. If you promote it in a newsletter distributed to the members of the association “We hate books”, then you will fail. That’s not targeted advertising, neither untargeted advertising, but dumb advertising. If you promote it in a health newsletter, then you shoot in the dark. The people have subscribed to that newsletter because they want to get health info. Some of them may like to read a book from time to time, others may hate the books. You don’t have a clue. What you know for sure about them is that they want something you do NOT offer (health info). That’s untargeted advertising. Finally, if you promote your book to the newsletter distributed to the members of the association “We love SF” … then it’s obvious that you have serious chances to sell your book. That’s targeted advertising.

Now let’s come back to the original questions…

I don’t know what you will promote tomorrow, neither what you will promote next week. If I recommend you a very good health newsletter and you’re gonna promote your SF book, will this help you in any way? Nope …

If you type that keyword in your search engine, what results will you get? The best newsletters in the niche you’re interested in? No way. You’ll get a list of sites arranged by that search engine using a formula that does NOT involve factors like the quality or the topic of the newsletter.

Then … What to do? Be specific, refine your research and always look for ezines that have the same topic like the product or service you plan to promote.

Q: I’m not interested in reading the newsletter I plan to publish my ad in. Do I have to waste my time and subscribe to it?

A: That’s a must. You’re not wasting your time, you’re avoiding a potential failure. What if that newsletter doesn’t exist? Or what if there is published only poor content? What if the subscribers are bombarded with ads? What if … You’ll never find the answers to these questions and many others unless you subscribe and read the newsletter. Then decide whether you place the order or not.

To Your Success!
Adrian Jock

P.S.

Last Question: What’s that NOISE?

Answer: Ughh, hmm, sorry, it was me. I was happy that you read this article and you’ll improve your results if you follow the essential principles I described above. Then my smile disappeared and it was replaced by that noise … I have so many other important things to teach you and the space for this article is so limited … If you want to discover more, why don’t you subscribe to my Ezine Advertising Info Newsletter? Or get my ebook The Ultimate Guide to Solo Ads

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Since no traffic equals no sales, hits to his website is the goal of any email marketer. However, many email marketing campaigns fail by delivering few clicks. The reason is simple: this type of marketing is not that easy. You need an attention grabbing subject line, a good ad copy and more. What if someone guarantees you hits?

All hard work is simply skipped. The prospects land on your salesletter without you wasting your time on copywriting and testing. Doesn’t sound great? Yes, it would be nice, but … how true (and effective) are those guaranteed clicks on your link?

Let’s see. So what actually means to get guaranteed hits? Well … No matter how bad my subject line is, no matter what I write in the ad copy, no matter anything, someone (let’s call it from now on the seller) will make his opt-in subscribers click on my link. Wonderful! But how can the seller “force” his subscribers click on my link?

Maybe his subscribers are all dumb. Maybe they don’t do anything all day long but wait for the seller to send emails so that to click on the links from the emails and make happy the seller and the advertisers. How does this sound? Quite unreal, right?

Then … if the subscribers are not dumb but they still click on links no matter how bad and not attractive is an ad copy, then it means that there is something the advertiser doesn’t know… What can it be? An incentive for subscribers! Something to make them click on links, no matter the content of the email. In comparison with the first assumption, this one looks very possible, right?

What if behind the seller’s mailing list there is actually a get paid to read emails program? What if there is a credit based safelist, or a similar program, or a combination of such programs? Wow! That’s it, right? This sounds very real and it seems that we found out how can someone guarantee hits. OK, but this is not what it was advertised when I placed my order, right? Not so nice practice, but … at least is it effective?

Let’s see … Who are those people clicking on my link? Hungry buyers? Hmm … I doubt … a) they waste their time clicking on links because they cannot afford a serious and professional promotion way (or they are freebies hunters) and b) they are looking for credits in order to blast their own ads – they are sellers, not hungry buyers.

Will they at least take a look at my salesletter? No one can tell exactly what other people will do, but … we can estimate their actions by asking ourselves “Why did they land on my page?”. Because they were interested in my very bad subject line? Because they were interested in my ad copy that they did NOT read? Nope! They landed on my page in order to get credits (Most of them are wasting their time, but that’s another story) and right after that will close my page and go to the next email to continue their job. To be honest, if I’m lucky, maybe some of them will take a look at my page, but … hey, did I say lucky? Is this email marketing or gambling?

What is the conclusion? Hmm … No further comments from my part. You know my opinion and actually you know my conclusion. It’s your turn … Be wise!

To Your Online Success!
Adrian Jock

P.S. If you want to read more interesting internet marketing tips that will help you improve your online marketing campaigns, you’re invited to subscribe free to the Worst Newsletter in the World. Why would someone call his own newsletter “the worst”? There is no mystery. Click now on the link above and you’ll see

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Ezine advertising seems to be a simple way of promoting online your products or services. However, the truth is that reality has shown that most of the advertisers actually don’t know what they are doing. Frequently advertisers can be seen spending only a few minutes for complex activities like writing an ad, finding an ezine for placing the order with and then assessing the result. Today’s article deals with an aspect regarding the assessment of the results of an ezine advertising campaign.

The biggest mistake usually made in assessing the results is that many advertisers don’t even think to perform such activity. Their judgment is simple: if they get enough sales (or signups), great. However, if the number of sales is not satisfactory, the conclusion comes within seconds: the ezine is not good, the publisher is a scammer or simply ezine advertising doesn’t work. Usually there is no other alternative in their minds. The failure is always due to other people or other things. Really?

It’s true that some ezines are not good and it’s also true that some publishers are scammers (or only amateurs – it’s a difference though). Discover them before placing an order with them, otherwise your failure will be due to you too.

It’s true that advertising in ezines doesn’t always work (that’s a complex topic and I won’t develop it here).

However, it is very much true that the outcome depends a lot on … the advertiser. Yes, many things depend on the advertiser and this means that the result itself depends very much on advertiser’s actions or inactions. That’s why looking only for the number of sales won’t help advertiser understand what was wrong, who is at fault and what to do next in order to avoid another failure.

First thing you have to know is that the number of sales depends also on the landing page, on the price (affordable or not), on the product itself (good or not, or simply not competitive), and on other factors, all of them having absolutely no connection with the ezine, its publisher or the ezine advertising itself. That’s why when you asses the result of an advertising campaign in a certain ezine (or groups of ezines), never ever look again for the number of sales. It’s not relevant even if selling is your final target.

Then … what to look at? The clicks! That’s the magic answer: the number of unique clicks on the link from your ad. For example if there will be a lot of clicks on your link and no sale, then you know for sure who is not at fault. The ezine, the publisher and your ad copy are OK. Check what’s wrong with the other factors (landing page, price, etc).

To Your Success!
Adrian Jock

P.S. For more ezine advertising tips, subscribe free to Ezine Advertising Info newsletter. Then discover the free resource that will soon become the No. 1 exclusive collection of ezine advertising articles in the world.

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