Top 5 Mistakes In Ezine Advertising
By Alessandro DeBarros
Ezine advertising has been glorified by experts the world over as the
last refuge for the little guy/gal to make a buck online. Well, I hate
to deliver bad news, and please don't shoot the messenger, but there
are some draw backs to ezine advertising and many of the Inner Sanctum
E-Letter subscribers are making them daily. Let's look at the most
common mistakes and their solutions.
Mistake #1: Not Tracking Your Ads
Many business owners have no idea how they can track every ad they
place. Whether for an affiliate program or their own product, they just
don't know. Not knowing what ad is working and producing the sale will
cost you and your business thousands of dollars. When you know what ad
produces and what ad doesn't you can cut the worst of the ads and only
keep the ad/s which is producing for your business.
--Solution--: If you own your own website and domain name, you can
track every ad by creating a special redirect link that is only used in
that ad. Or you can add a question mark to the end of the URL and check
that on your stats page.
A simple, http://www.yourdomainname.com/pagename.html?trackingcode will
suffice in most cases. Check with your web host to see if you have
access to your web site stats log. Or sign up for one of the free/fee
tracking services online.
Mistake #2: Writing Me-Too Ads
When writing your ad you must take your ego, your desire to boast about
you and your company, out of the equation. An example of a me-too ad:
"Acme Law Offices have been in business for 20 years. Our staff of
lawyers all graduated from Harvard Law School with honors. Call us at
1-800-acme-law today!"
--Solution--: Write benefit and results oriented ads. Example:
"Guaranteed Settlements! Win your settlement guaranteed and save 43% on
attorney fees by calling ACME Law Offices at: (blah, blah, blah)"
This ad focuses completely on the end result, the main benefit.
Guaranteed Settlements. Which ad do you think would pull more
responses?
Mistake #3: Running Classifieds
Since they don't cost much, business owners tend to use classifieds to
save costs. Classifieds are cheap, $5-$20 per ad, and in most cases run
faster than solo or top sponsor ads because the ezine publisher runs
10-20 per issue.
What's not so commonly known is the fact classified sections are often
times scanned by the reader (I scan past them every time) and get very
little eye time.
--Solution--: Run Solo or Top sponsor ads. These ads get more exposure.
They are exclusive (solo mailings) or only have 2-3 (sponsor ads) per
issue spaced out between the content.
Mistake #4: Going for Large Subscriber Bases
Large subscriber stats are impressive. 30,000 subscribers is a ton of
eye balls and the potential to return a profit is greatly increased.
Well, this is completely untrue.
A recent test we ran took our breath away. We spent $180 on a solo ad
to a subscriber base in a general marketing publication of 30,000
subscribers. We ran that same solo ad for $65 in an ezine about website
design strategies with a subscriber base of 1200.
Ad #1 to 30,000+ brought back $0!
Ad #2 to 1200 specifically targeted subscribers brought back $900 in
pure profit!
--Solution--: While tons of subscribers may seem like the right way to
go, before you invest money, check out smaller, highly targeted ezines
and test your ads in those. You'll save money and odds are your returns
will be greater.
Mistake #5: Running Your Ad Once
When I first started advertising in ezines, I would run one ad one
time. If it didn't produce results, I would switch ezines and run the
ad again. This was how I tested the ad. Many business owners are doing
the same thing today. By running the ad only once, you're cutting your
chances to profit in half.
Running it 2-3-4 times, even if the first run didn't make a profit,
gives your ad more exposure. Readers will "think" it's producing
because you ran it more than one time, therefore other subscribers must
have thought it was worth looking at, helping your ad produce.
--Solution--: Run every ad at least twice. Then instead of switching
ezines, switch ads. Run that ad twice. Do this with all your ads.
You'll be suprised to find the ezine actually produces profits for one
ad but not another. So now you can run that ad 4-5-6 times and squeeze
more profits from the ezine.
Ezine advertising is profitable. It takes testing, tracking, solo or
top sponsor placments and more testing to pin point ezines with high
sales ratio's. Don't give up on the ezine just because a successful ad
from another test didn't work. Place another ad, test it, test another
and so on.
All you need is 5-10 profitable ezines and you'll increase sales and
profits for your business.
About the Author
Alessandro DeBarros is a web marketing specialist
for BrandBlast http://brandblast.com , a CT based firm whose cutting
edge hosting services is quickly being recognized around the world as a
leader in its field. At a current base of 5,000 clients, BrandBlast
specializes in small to medium business hosting, providing small
businesses with the services and support they need at affordable prices.
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