10 Tips for Successful Ezine Advertising
Author: Michael Southon
Article:
When it comes to advertising, I've tried just about everything.
I tried free classified ad sites, I tried FFA sites, I tried
banner exchange programs.
The results? Not much.
I was tired of hearing that the Internet is the largest market
in human history. Maybe so, but how could I reach those millions
of people?
The answer, I discovered, is ezine advertising.
Ezines are sometimes called 'opt-in' lists because everyone who
receives an ezine has chosen to do so.
And that's why ezine advertising gets results. People read
ezines and they'll read your ad. And if you've matched the ezine
to the product you're selling, you've reached your target
audience.
There are currently around 90,000 ezines being published every
month. So whatever you're selling, there's more than likely an
ezine that will take your ad straight to the audience you want
to reach.
Ezine advertising is not only effective, it's cheap as well. A 5
line ad in an ezine that goes to 3000 people will cost you
between $5 and $20 per issue.
As a general rule, you'll always get back at least the cost of
the ad, and usually much more. So there's very little risk.
But there are some tips for successful ezine advertising. Here
they are:
- The first and most important rule is: "Track your Ads!" Say
you place an ad in 5 different ezines and get a hundred
responses. If you don't track your ads, you won't know which
ezines were pulling responses and which weren't.
But how do you track your ads?
The simplest method is to place a key or a code at the end of
your email address:
yourname@yourdomain.com?subject=ezineA
Then, when you get a reply with 'ezineA' in the subject field,
you'll know which ezine it came from.
For a URL, it's the same principle:
http://www.yourdomain.com?ezineA
However, if you're going to code your URLs, you'll need a good
webstats program to track the coded URLs. These two programs are
excellent and they're both free:
Here's another way to code your URLs: for every ezine ad, create
a duplicate of your homepage and name the page after the ezine
that your ad will appear in. So, if the ad is appearing in
EzineA, this is the URL you'd place in that ad:
http://www.yourdomain.com/EzineA
- Target your audience. It may seem obvious but some
advertisers overlook this. If you're selling a web-marketing
course, don't advertise in an ezine that deals with stock
options; they probably won't be interested.
Use the 'subject categories' in any ezine directory to find
ezines that relate to the product you're selling. You can find a
list of 56 ezine directories in 'The Free Directory of Ezines'
at:
- Once you've chosen a number of ezines that target your
audience, subscribe to them and examine the ads closely. If you
see an ad that keeps repeating issue after issue, you can be
pretty sure that it's getting results. You've found a good ezine
to advertise in.
- Check to see how many ads are in the ezine. You probably
won't get much response from an ad in an ezine that has 15 or 20
ads per issue. Readers of those ezines have become hardened to
the ads and have learnt to skip them.
- Check to see if the ezine publisher has a policy of never
running ads for two similar products in the same issue - your ad
will be much more effective if it's the only one of it's kind in
that particular issue.
- Small ezines Vs. Big ezines: bigger is not always better. The
big ezines with 1000's of subscribers tend to have more ads than
the small ezines. Also, small ezines with only a few hundred
subscribers often have a much more targeted audience than the
big ezines.
- Repeat your ads. Research shows that off the Web, an ad has
to be seen about 21 times before someone acts on it; on the
Internet it's about 9 times. If your budget allows, try and have
your ad repeated at least three times in a particular ezine.
Most ezines offer discount packages for bulk advertising.
- Email address Vs. URL. The advantage of giving an email
address is that it gives you the opportunity to send a powerful
sales letter to the person who responded to your ad. It's also
much easier to track your ads with an email address than a URL.
- Offer something free in your ad copy. It'll often tip the
balance between a response and no response.
- Keep your ads short, even if you're not using the number of
words you're allowed. Short ads are more likely to be read. Keep
your sentences short too; they pack much more power. Use the
word 'You'. Don't describe your product but tell the reader what
your product can do for them.
About the author:
Michael Southon is the publisher of 'The Free Directory of
Ezines' http://www.netmastersolutions.com/ He is also the Editor
of 'FreeZine Express', a twice-monthly newsletter that brings
you details of new Ezines added to the TFDE as well as Articles
and Tips on Ezine Advertising and Ezine Publishing. To
subscribe, send a blank email to:
FreeZineExpress-subscribe@topica.com
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