Despite the fact that his main website is no longer available and the blog where he posted his ezine states very clear that Cor is no longer publishing his ezine (see here: http://bnmg.blogspot.com/), many ezine ad co-ops still take your money and promise that your ad will be published in Cor’s ezine BestNews Marketing Gazette.

Almost half of year has passed since BestNews Marketing Gazette is no longer published, but those guys are so busy counting the money they take from you that they don’t have time to update their ezine ad co-ops.

Since this cannot be an acceptable situation, here you have the list of ezine ad co-ops where you throw away money when buying ezine ads.

1. Ezines-R-Us, screen capture from this page:

2. HBAds, screen capture from this page:

3. Ezine King, screen capture from this page:

4. EzineAd.net, screen capture from this page:

5. SubscribeMe (top sponsor ads), screen capture from this page:

6. Essential Team, screen capture from this page:

P.S. I found these links on Google by searching for “BestNews Marketing Gazette”. All pages are active and the payment buttons the same.

Well, here are two methods for writing better ads:

1) Read other people ads.

When you don’t like a certain ad, then identify what you didn’t like and don’t make the same mistake.

When you like a certain ad, then identify the pattern and try to apply it in your case.

2) Ask other people to comment your ad in order to see what they like and what they don’t like.

Once you find out how other people think you can correct the problems. You’re not writing the ad for YOU, you’re writing it for THE OTHERS!

Let’s start!

Here is an ad submitted by one of your fellow subscribers.

Internet Marketing — I Promise You Peace
As a newbie in internet marketing you need funds, products,
advertising methods, list building, autoresponder, mentor &
a schedule.You get it all here. I give it because I make as
much as you make. Visit: [here was a link]

Read the comments regarding this ad in order to see how other people think and feel free to post your own comments.

Here is what I - as a reader - think about this ad.

1) The first line makes me wonder whether this is a poem or an ad. What’s in it for me - the reader? Peace? Looks like … nothing! If I want to read poems, then I don’t read ads. I feel like wanting to skip this ad and read the next one!

2) The next lines contain an interesting idea. If I, the reader, am a newbie in internet marketing, then I need a lot of things and the advertiser will give them all to me. That’s good.

By the way, since the advertiser talks about more things, then “get it all” and “give it” don’t seem to be the proper language here. The bad language makes me think twice. Can you, the advertiser, be able to be my mentor if you don’t know even basic things?

I have also a question regarding something that is confusing me. Amongst various things, the advertiser says that I need funds and then he tells me that he will give me everything. Will the advertiser give me money too? I’m sorry but I don’t believe it. I don’t know what is the truth but I won’t waste my time to find it. The advertiser has just lost me …

Take care, if you lose my confidence, then be sure I won’t waste my time and click on your link…

3) “I give it because I make as much as you make.”

I, the reader, really don’t care why YOU do something (”I give it because …”) and how much money YOU make. Really … I don’t care about YOU. I, the reader, only care about ME.

That’s the sole truth you must have in mind when you write an ad. If you want me to click on your link then don’t talk about you, your friends, your mentor, your dog or your “anything”. Tell me what is MY advantage. Tell me what I get.

Conclusions:

1) Don’t write only for the sake of writing. Your goal is not to lose the reader’s attention but to grab it.

2) Don’t confuse the reader. If the reader thinks for a second something like “I don’t understand this” or “I don’t believe this” then you lost him or her. It doesn’t matter whether you were saying the truth and only the truth. It simply doesn’t matter.

3) Don’t talk about you, tell the reader what she/he gets. The most important person is the reader, not you.

The reader of an ad does NOT care who are you. Especially when you’re a John Doe that no one heard about you.

What about “My friend Ewen Chia …“?

The reader does NOT care who are your friends.

By the way, most of the people who use this, even don’t know who is Ewen Chia and for sure Ewen doesn’t have so many friends. Telling LIES is not the way to go!

Finally, the reader does NOT care what problems you had or still have.

The reader of an ad cares about how you can HELP her/him.

The reader cares about how you can solve HER or HIS problems.

The reader wants to know how you can make HER or HIS life better. Not yours.

Full stop. Anything else is wasted space, time & money.

P.S. Don’t you see even the purpose of this post? To help YOU, the READER of this post. Otherwise … you won’t read it!

I can hear everybody screaming “YEEES!”

In the same time I can see many of you doing actions that scream “NOOOO, we don’t want to succeed.”

You’re very undecided!

Now I can hear you saying “What are you talking there about?”

Read further and you’ll understand…

Let’s look at the case of a successful person. For example Bill Gates.

How did he become successful?

By knowing nothing about computers and simply copying a software?

By saying “I don’t know to do this or that“?

By saying “I don’t have time to do this“?

No way.

We can look at how many examples you want. They all are the same.

You cannot succeed by COPYING.

You cannot succeed by saying “I don’t know”. If you don’t know, then LEARN.

You cannot succeed by saying “I don’t have time”. If you don’t have time, stop doing what you’re doing or about a part of it and you’ll suddenly have some time.

If you want to succeed (but only if you REALLY WANT), then free some of your time that you WASTE, LEARN (educate yourself) and STOP COPYING.

Let’s remember the topic of this blog: ezine advertising.

If you really want to earn more than you need for buying some peanuts, then learn as much as you can and stop copying and pasting ads.

Of course … only if you want to succeed!

Otherwise you can find a lot of excuses, “I don’t know this”, “I don’t have time”, “This doesn’t work”, etc.

Listen to this: if you look for all sort of excuses, then … you don’t cheat anyone but YOU.

One more thing: if you want to tell me about successful people that don’t know what they are doing, they don’t learn, and so on, here is the answer:

Don’t confuse the word SUCCESSFUL with the word LUCKY.

Contact the customer support service and ask a question.

1) There is no way to contact them before paying?

If you cannot contact the customer service BEFORE paying, are you sure that you can contact it AFTER you pay in case you need it?

2) You got no answer to your request?

If nobody cares about you and within 24 hours you don’t receive a reply to your request for help, why place the order? In order to waste your time later sending again and again your requests for help, then maybe the requests for refund?

When you contact the customer service, take care and follow these 2 tips:

1) Don’t ask a dumb question. If the answer can be easily found on the website by anyone, then you may not receive an answer. Not because the seller doesn’t provide a professional service but because she or he wants to avoid further troubles. It is well known that dumb people are trouble makers.

2) Be sure that you provide for contact an email address that works good. Not an email address where spam filters (or other blockers such as Spam Arrest) are installed. Your goal is to be contacted, right?

If you don’t know how to avoid the spam filters then the email containing your ezine ad may be sent to the intended recipient’s Spam folder or even deleted at the server level.

So what you promote the best product in the world, so what your ezine ad is written by the best copywriter in the world?

If no one receives the email containing your ad, everything is in vain.

Here are a few rules that will help you beat the most powerful enemy of ezine advertising.

Rule # 1 - Never write the subject line of a solo ad or a full line or more using CAPITAL LETTERS.

It is OK to emphasize some of the words by writing them ALL CAPS, but never ever write a whole line ALL CAPS.

Rule # 2 - Always check whether the links from your ad belong to a domain name that is blacklisted or not.

Do NOT wrongly assume that only spammers’ domain names are blacklisted.

You may be surprised to find out that the domain name of your favored program is listed by such a blacklist and as a consequence ANY affiliate link - including yours - is blacklisted too.

A very good tool for this checking is this one: http://lookup.uribl.com

Rule # 3 - You must not use in your ads words and expressions that are penalized by spam filters.

Those words are COMMON words, so don’t think that you never use the same words a spammer would use. The spammers are real people like you and me and they talk the same language. Because of them, you will be surprised to find out that many words
usually found in ezine ads … are penalized by spam filters.

Here are 3 examples:

- amazing
- make money
- financial freedom

You see? How many times didn’t you use these words?

As more such words you use in your ads, the higher your chances to be blocked by spam filters are.

Before starting to write your ezine ad, you NEED to KNOW what words NOT to use in your ad.

Side Note: Never ever mispell the words that are penalized by spam filters.

Many advertisers and PUBLISHERS make this mistake without knowing that the most updated spam filters penalize also this type of NOT PROFESSIONAL writing.

Examples:

m0ney (zero instead of the letter o)
f.r.e.e

This type of writing is called attempt to obfuscate words in spam and is penalized too.

Therefore, mispelling words in spam doesn’t help you to avoid the spam filters and in addition … make your ezine (or ad) look ugly. Not so good, right?

* * *

If you want to DISCOVER much more information YOU NEED in order to be able to avoid the spam filters and have a successful ezine advertising campaign, HURRY UP and get this SPECIAL REPORT:

How to Avoid Spam Filters

One day John Doe decided that it’s time to make some good money doing nothing but … scamming people.

While walking on the streets, he told to the first person he met,

“Hey, you, I made a fortune during the last week. Don’t you want me to tell you how I did it?”

“Yeah, sure! Please do it!”

“Easy,” said John Doe, “I cannot do it for free. I invested a lot of time and resources to make this business run. By now I revealed this secret for one hundred bucks, but I like you and I won’t ask you anything but 50 bucks.”

“No way, I’m leaving” said the other.

“OK, OK, don’t go away, here is a rare bird. For you and only for you I will do it for $25.”

“Done! Here is your money and now show me the business plan.”

“Well … I just did it,” said John Doe.

“WHAT?” said the other.

“I’ve just shown you how to start your business. Do what I just did!”

* * *

Well, how was the story? Doesn’t sound this business plan quite known?

Look at all successful programs most people promote these days!

Don’t you know how to recognize such a successful program?

Easy! Visit their website and see what they sell … A book? No way. A certain product? No way. Something useful? Hmmm … No way.

Then what are they selling and you’re buying?

Well, …. NOTHING. They sell NOTHING and people are buying this NOTHING and then start their own business by selling too the same … NOTHING.

I can hear you … “That’s not true!”

Well, you’re right. You’re receiving some things such as:

1) some prewritten ads.

Advantages: you just have to copy & paste and they are original.

Disadvantage: they are poorly written but … who cares about such a minor thing, right?

2) a list of places where to advertise your business

Advantage: you don’t have to waste your time to find places where to advertise.

Disadvantage: the list is very old, you can find it on many places online and … many of the great places listed there … no longer exist. But who cares?

3) finally … a reseller link

Advantage: you don’t have to waste your time by getting a domain name, paying for hosting, copywriting and design.

Disadvantage: many of these links belong to domain names that are … BLACKLISTED, so your ad containing such links will be extremely appreciated …not by intended ezine subscribers but by their … spam folders. But … why should you care about this, right?

Well, how is this? Did you like it?

Just some food for thought …

The answer that will be given by anyone is NO, right?

Well, then why do you think that copying the SAME ad that thousands of people copied before you … is the way to go? It’s the same thing like in the case of the SAME article published again and again. The readers are not stupid. And even a stupid person will not read something again and again … Maybe two times, three times, but not again and again.

Conclusion

When you join a program that is not very new, do NOT copy the ads recommended in the members area. The readers will not read such ads because they already did it for many times.

I know, you will say that you’re not a copywriter and you cannot afford to pay one … but then let me ask you this: “If you cannot afford to hire a copywriter, then how can you afford to throw away money on advertising that definitely will NOT work?”

On the other hand, let me tell you this:

1) if you copy an advert that thousands of other people used before you or in the same time with you, then your result will be close to zero.

2) if you write your own ad, a not very good one (because you’re not a copywriter), then the result will be this one: some people will not like it other people may like it or may be curious to see what you’re talking about.

What’s the best case? 1 or 2?

If you choose 1, then let me know and I will add you to a special list that will receive the same article each day. Maybe you’ll change your mind …

There is a copywriting principle that basically says that a “call to action” wording will help you improve the results that your salesletter or ad will get.

That’s right when we talk about a salesletter or about a solo ad.

When we talk about ezine classified ads, the use of a call to action wording is … wrong. Completely wrong!

Let me explain you why …

A classified ad is very short and you have at your disposal only a very limited space for grabbing the reader’s attention.

If the short advertising space is wasted by using different call to action wordings … you fail.

The call to action works when there is something before it that grabs the reader’s attention first. If there is nothing that makes the reader interested, your call to action is worthless anyway.

Let’s look at 2 examples.

Example 1:

Free internet marketing ebooks for any visitor:
link A

Example 2:

Click here NOW, don’t miss this:
link B

On what link would you click?

The first ad tells you that you will get some ebooks for free if you visit that website. The second ad tells you … nothing but to click there.

The old days when the people clicked on any link … are gone! The people will click on a link if the text responds to the question “What’s there for me?”

Got it?

Instead of wasting the limited space by using call to action wordings, use wisely that space by trying to respond to the above question that any reader will ask. If the actual advert is interesting, the people are not dumb. They know what they have to do: to click on the link.

You lose visitors and money if instead to respond to “What’s there for me? Why should I click?” your ad is explaining to the reader what to do. “Click here now” or “Click the link below” is like saying, “I don’t know what else to say about the product/program I promote. By the way, if you’re really dumb and you don’t know what you have to do, click on that darn link.”

Well? Got the point? Then stop using “click here now“, “click on the below link“, “act now” and so on. By the way, there are spam filters that penalize such call to action expressions or other expressions that contain an urgency matter. So what you really get by using these expressions in your ezine classified ads? Hmmm … you’re just wasting the money on advertising that will NOT work … Not so good, right?

“I never could understand the spammers. I would never open a spam email, much less buy anything.”

Well, I think that there are many people not understanding why the spammers keep sending their spam and that’s why I wrote this article.

If you want to find out the sad reason that makes the spammers exist, then keep reading …

First of all, let me clarify one thing: when you subscribe to an ezine or newsletter, or mailing list, and then you get it … this is not spam. Only the people like John from my below story yell spam every time when they receive a solo ad from an ezine they subscribed to.

Let’s come back to our topic and respond to this question:

“I never buy anything from spammers. My friends are doing the same like me. Why those spammers keep spamming us?”

Let me answer to this question by telling you a real story …

One month ago, a guy from Arizona - let’s call it John - visited one of my websites, started to place an order, skipped the first step where he was supposed to submit the ad he wanted me to publish, paid for the advertising space and then did … nothing.

Seeing that he doesn’t send me his ad, I sent him an email:

“Thank you for paying me to publish an advert for you but … you didn’t let me know the text of the ad you want me to publish. Can you do it now, please?”

Can you believe what was the answer?

John said, “What is an advert?”

John purchased from me … something that he didn’t know what it is …

Can you believe it? He didn’t understand what I was selling, he didn’t know if he needs what I was selling, but he still purchased it without asking anything …

You know why? Because someone promised him that he will become rich (yeah, sure!) if he follows a certain plan that was including buying advertising space from ezines, one of the recommended ezines being mine.

Isn’t this sad? Yes, there are people who believe anything they are told, and there are people who … don’t know their own language.

John from Arizona didn’t know the meaning of the word “advert”.

Sad indeed.

Well, like John there are tons of people online.

You know it very well in fact. The people are smart, normal, or … stupid. This is our world.

Well, the spammers exist because stupid people exist. Those people are spammers’ main target. However, when the spammers harvest email addresses they don’t know whether an email address belongs to a stupid person or not. So everybody is spammed.

I’m sure that not allowing stupid people to have internet access will drastically diminish the spam and will protect those people from throwing away their money.

However, this will never happen … A government cannot say to someone, “Hey, you’re stupid and that’s why you don’t have the right to get an Internet connection“. We would get back in the past … and this cannot be a solution.

I think that you should be very happy that you’re not a John from my real story. Pay that small price called spam that you are forced to delete daily, and be happy if you’re not stupid. This is a priceless gift!

Or alternatively, get a powerful spam filter, install it and block anything sent to you, spam emails or … legitimate emails. Or better cut off your internet connection and hope that your online business will survive [OK, I was joking. This last paragraph is addressed to people who think that spam filters and blocklists are a solution for spam]