Ezine Advertising

“If I don’t invest any money in advertising, then I can’t lose money.” Actually you can! Today’s story tells you how, so that next time you won’t lose money again with free advertising. Now let’s get straight to the point and let me give you an example from the real world …

A few years ago I joined a famous internet marketing forum (Warrior Forum). Since my niche is ezine advertising & ezine publishing, I set up a signature that included links to the places where I sell ad space in ezines.

A secondary niche I activate in is SEO (search engine optimization) and in that forum there were much more threads on SEO than on ezine advertising. That’s why I started posting frequently on SEO sub-forum, teaching people what to do, starting debates, etc. A time consuming activity.

What was the return in terms of clicks on the links from my signature? Close to zero. People from the SEO sub-forum were mainly interested in … SEO (not so unexpected, right?) That was UNTARGETED free advertising (The action of promoting your product to an audience whose main interest is not in the same niche as your product is called untargeted advertising.)

Seeing the poor result, I decided to post only on threads related to ezine advertising and newsletter publishing.

Guess what? Each time I posted something, at least a few users clicked on my links. Why? They read that thread because they were interested in ezines and my links were exactly what they were looking for.

Now I spend less time on that forum but my results are much better. Instead of spending the rest of the time on SEO sub-forum and getting in return a big thank you and nothing more, I can focus on other marketing activities that may help ME and MY business.

Do the same and forget about untargeted advertising, even if it’s free. You may not pay money, but you waste your time, which is actually money… Untargeted advertising is a waste of time and money, whether it’s free or paid, whether it’s forum marketing, article marketing or any other type of marketing.

To Your Success!
Adrian Jock

P.S. For more tips on internet marketing, subscribe to my free newsletter and follow me on Twitter.

A few days ago I got an inquiry from a potential customer who was asking me about the ezine ad space available in one of my newsletters. The final remark from that inquiry made me curious: the prospect pointed very clear that she was interested in any type of ezine ad space, but not in solo ads. You don’t have to be an expert in ezine advertising to know that solo ads are the best, so I asked that lady what was the mistery behind her strange approach. When I read the answer I couldn’t believe it: “There are a lot of places where my solo ad is published for free, so why should I pay for it?”

So I decided to write this article in order to help a lot of newbies who think the same.

Please forget for the moment what we are talking about here and think of YOUR assets. Pick some of them. Your TV, your car, your home, whatever you want. Now please respond quickly: will you give your assets for free to some strangers? Right, you won’t give them unless they are so old that you don’t need them anymore. Even in such case you won’t give some of your assets for free, will you?

So … why do you think that there are stupid people out there who will give YOU something of value for free? I have to disappoint you: what you think is free … 1) is not free at all or 2) it has almost no value. That’s how real life is, no matter whether you like it or not.

Let’s analyze what I have just said.

Free solo ads that are not free at all. You probably ask yourself what I’m talking about. There are solo ads so called “free” that you earn the right to send only after you click, click, and click again on tens or hundreds of other people’s links. Here is the point: if you don’t value your time & your work, yes, these solo ads are free. When you work in order to get something, it doesn’t mean that you get that “thing” for free. That’s only misleading advertising. It’s like a boss who tells you that if you work this week from 9 to 5 each day, on Friday evening you’ll get a … FREE PAYMENT. Huh?

Another type of “free” solo adverts are the advertisements sent via safelists.

One type of safelist membership is the paid one where you pay a monthly, yearly or one-time fee. If you pay, then are the solo ads free? Are you joking?

The other type of safelist membership is the free one. This indeed looks like you’re sending free ads but let’s see what a safelist is. Briefly, a safelist is a place joined by people who send ads one another. It’s like a marketplace closed for customers, where the sellers are trying to sell one another their products. Did you see such place in real life? Why do you think that you didn’t see? … because it simply doesn’t work. Well, as a matter of fact you may get some peanuts, but that’s all. That is not a business model. You can call it whatever you want, but not business.

That’s it, folks! If you thought like that lady that “free” solo ads is the way to go, then I suggest you to think twice before wasting your time. Once wasted, you’ll never get it back.

To Your Success!
Adrian Jock

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