In my opinion, Electronic Magazine (Ezine) advertising is thegreatest, untapped source of online advertising available today.
The reason: Ezine Advertising (EA) matches your product or ideato people with similar interests.
Example: who better to sell your health product to than a largegroup of people subscribed to a health newsletter? Or, you couldpitch a business opportunity to a group already subscribed toanother ezine about MLM and Biz Ops!
The idea of EA is fairly simple - but to make yours a success,you have to first determine which ezines or newsletters produceresults, and which ones to avoid.
After a year and a half of EA, I've created a formula thatproduces increasing profit because I’ve learned how to avoid poorperforming ezines and rip offs, while revealing the gems.
Strategy for Profit
I used to get ripped off about once for every 2 or 3 ezines Iadvertised in. They either took my money without running my ad(and ignored my subsequent emails), or my proven ads did toopoorly for the money I paid.
The reasons ranged from abandoned ezines with working paymentlinks, unethical newsletter owners, to a lot of ignorance andimpatience on my part.
If you follow my proven strategy, you'll discover the bestsources of ezines to advertise in - no matter who your targetgroup is. And, you should see positive results every time.
This article outlines the steps to making your EA a successfulreturn on investment (ROI).
Writing Your Ad
I won't go into details about ad writing, but if your ad ispoorly written or untested, you should start with the cheapestezines first. If you’re really unsure of your writing abilities,I further suggest hiring a professional to write your ad for you.
Because you can run your ad as many times as you want, yourinvestment in a professional will more than pay for itself in theend.
Target your advertising
If you leap into EA without first researching your target group,you'll end up wasting a lot of time and money. Plus, you probablymiss some of the best ezines available.
To determine who your prospect is, take the time to list thepossible keywords that directly relate to your product and dokeyword searches for ezines, newsletters, and ezine directories.
For example, if you sell herbs, a good keyword search wouldinclude: herbs, health, nutrition, supplements, etc.
Avoid Co-ops
While doing your ezine research, you will probably stumble uponthe offer to use Co-op (bulk) advertising as the means for yourEA.
To be blunt, you should never pay to use Co-ops for your EAbecause they are too difficult to track and usually containuntargeted ezines. Worse still, you’d find that most neverrun your ad.
Subscribe
Now that you’ve found your ezine target group, you’ll want toknow whether the ezines you found are a good option (i.e.profitable) for your EA.
I’ve found the best strategy for making this determinationis to subscribe to the targeted ezines.
To keep the subscriptions readily available for further research,I recommend creating a separate folder to store your subscriptiondata.
And because you’ll need to subscribe to quite a few ezines, Ialso suggest creating separate email accounts dedicated to yourezine subscriptions.
Double Opt-In Subscriptions
In the process of subscribing, you’ll quickly determine possibleezines to avoid. When you subscribe and get a notice that youmust confirm your subscription, the ezine is referred to as“double opt-in”.
Double opt-in ezines indicates a better quality of subscriberswith a lower risk of bulk email addresses. For you and me, thismeans better ad responses (yeah!).
Solo Ads
Within the first week of your new ezine subscription, you shouldsee solo ads from other advertisers. If not, the ezine may be toonew, or worse, no one is advertising because of poor results.Worse yet, the ezine took the advertiser’s money and failed torun the ad.
On the other hand, if you see two or more solo ads a day, theirlist is probably burned out due to over advertising. You're lookingfor no more than one ad a day, or a minimum of one ad a week.Keep watching!
Subject Line
Does the ezine put the advertiser’s subject line in the subjectof the email or do they just say something like "Solo ad from xyzezine"?
Your subject line is the most important part of your ad anddefinitely should be in the subject of the email.No subject lineequals no response.
Advertiser Response
Repeat (or regular) advertisers in an ezine is a very good signthat the subscribers are responsive. To further testresponsiveness, I recommend looking through the ezine’s onlinearchives (if available).
Archives are previous email publications that the publisher hasposted to their website for visitors to view. The archive search isnot only quick and easy, but archives can also provide an extratrickle of visitors when your ad gets archived.
Testimonial Page
After passing the above steps, see if your prospective ezine hasa testimonial page. If the ezine has gotten this far, chances areit will.
Waiting Period
Another indicator of responsive subscribers is the waiting periodto run an ad in the chosen ezine. If the waiting period is amonth or more, this indicates a very popular ezine with responsivereaders. You've uncovered a real gem!
Web Forms
I've found that the better ezines have web forms that get your adto the publisher’s inbox and usually send auto confirmation ofreceipt. If there is no web form, try emailing the publisher aquestion first, like when the next ad run date is.
No response may indicate a poor choice in the ezine, or youremail was filtered or blocked as spam. Wait at least 2 days andtry emailing again using a different email account.
If your emails still don't get through, neither will your ad.(Ironically, your payment always go through). Trust me, ifthey fail to communicate, save your money and time and moveon.
Free Classifieds
If the ezine offers free classifieds, this is another good placeto run your ad. Since classifieds usually don’t produceresponses, any activity from your ad here would furtherindicate an active readership.
Ad Tracking
Never advertise without using an ad tracker. You can purchaseone or better, use one of the many available online for free. Adtrackers give you a url that you use in place of your website address.
The new url gives you important information like how many visitorsyou had, where they came from, and some list the number of salesper visitor.
This tracking information is crucial to the direction of your adcampaign because you’ll learn of the need to change your adand/or the sales page. More importantly, you’ll know for certainwhether the ezine produced enough visitors for the advertisingprice you paid.
Run Your Ad Twice
If your ad produced a great response, wait a week or two and runthe ad again in the same ezine. I’ve found you'll probably get asgood if not better results the second time around.
I would advise against running the ad a third time in a rowbecause most of your prospects will be found in the first two runs.
Using a Capture Page or Auto-Responder
To maximize your efforts, you want to "capture" your visitors soyou can send them additional information about your product,related merchandise, and pertinent updates.
This is done with a capture page that provides a place for visitorsto put their name and email address. There are different methodsto accomplish this and you may want to hire someone to do it for youif you're not comfortable installing scripts on your website.
You might also want to send your visitor directly to yourautoresponder, where you have a series of messages set up to "warmand inform" your prospect about your product or service.
Rotating Ads
Once your ad has been tested and you have a base of 5-10 solid,performing ezines, start rotating your ad between your ezines.
For optimal results, make sure 2-3 months have passed beforerunning your ad in the same publication. Keep building your baseand watch your profits grow!
About the Author
Greg Root has been using ezine advertising almost exclusively since 2003 and owns andmaintains 'The Ezine Ad Tester©' at http://www.maxprofitpro.com/. See the results of hisezine advertising campaigns to find the best ezine marketing resources on the internet.