Ezine Advertising Strategy Exposed-16 Tips to Boost Your Profit

>In my opinion, Electronic Magazine (Ezine) advertising is the

greatest, untapped source of online advertising available today.



The reason: Ezine Advertising (EA) matches your product or idea

to people with similar interests.



Example: who better to sell your health product to than a large

group of people subscribed to a health newsletter? Or, you could

pitch a business opportunity to a group already subscribed to

another 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 produce

results, and which ones to avoid.



After a year and a half of EA, I've created a formula that

produces increasing profit because I've learned how to avoid poor

performing 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 I

advertised in. They either took my money without running my ad

(and ignored my subsequent emails), or my proven ads did too

poorly for the money I paid.



The reasons ranged from abandoned ezines with working payment

links, unethical newsletter owners, to a lot of ignorance and

impatience on my part.



If you follow my proven strategy, you'll discover the best

sources of ezines to advertise in - no matter who your target

group is. And, you should see positive results every time.



This article outlines the steps to making your EA a successful

return on investment (ROI).



Writing Your Ad



I won't go into details about ad writing, but if your ad is

poorly written or untested, you should start with the cheapest

ezines 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, your

investment in a professional will more than pay for itself in the

end.



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 probably

miss some of the best ezines available.



To determine who your prospect is, take the time to list the

possible keywords that directly relate to your product and do

keyword searches for ezines, newsletters, and ezine directories.



For example, if you sell herbs, a good keyword search would

include: herbs, health, nutrition, supplements, etc.



Avoid Co-ops



While doing your ezine research, you will probably stumble upon

the offer to use Co-op (bulk) advertising as the means for your

EA.



To be blunt, you should never pay to use Co-ops for your EA

because they are too difficult to track and usually contain

untargeted ezines. Worse still, you'd find that most never

run your ad.



Subscribe



Now that you've found your ezine target group, you'll want to

know whether the ezines you found are a good option (i.e.

profitable) for your EA.



I've found the best strategy for making this determination

is to subscribe to the targeted ezines.



To keep the subscriptions readily available for further research,

I recommend creating a separate folder to store your subscription

data.



And because you'll need to subscribe to quite a few ezines, I

also suggest creating separate email accounts dedicated to your

ezine subscriptions.



Double Opt-In Subscriptions



In the process of subscribing, you'll quickly determine possible

ezines to avoid. When you subscribe and get a notice that you

must confirm your subscription, the ezine is referred to as

"double opt-in".



Double opt-in ezines indicates a better quality of subscribers

with a lower risk of bulk email addresses. For you and me, this

means better ad responses (yeah!).



Solo Ads



Within the first week of your new ezine subscription, you should

see solo ads from other advertisers. If not, the ezine may be too

new, or worse, no one is advertising because of poor results.

Worse yet, the ezine took the advertiser's money and failed to

run the ad.



On the other hand, if you see two or more solo ads a day, their

list is probably burned out due to over advertising. You're looking

for 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 subject

of the email or do they just say something like "Solo ad from xyz

ezine"?



Your subject line is the most important part of your ad and

definitely should be in the subject of the email.No subject line

equals no response.



Advertiser Response



Repeat (or regular) advertisers in an ezine is a very good sign

that the subscribers are responsive. To further test

responsiveness, I recommend looking through the ezine's online

archives (if available).



Archives are previous email publications that the publisher has

posted to their website for visitors to view. The archive search is

not only quick and easy, but archives can also provide an extra

trickle of visitors when your ad gets archived.



Testimonial Page



After passing the above steps, see if your prospective ezine has

a testimonial page. If the ezine has gotten this far, chances are

it will.



Waiting Period



Another indicator of responsive subscribers is the waiting period

to run an ad in the chosen ezine. If the waiting period is a

month or more, this indicates a very popular ezine with responsive

readers. You've uncovered a real gem!



Web Forms



I've found that the better ezines have web forms that get your ad

to the publisher's inbox and usually send auto confirmation of

receipt. If there is no web form, try emailing the publisher a

question first, like when the next ad run date is.



No response may indicate a poor choice in the ezine, or your

email was filtered or blocked as spam. Wait at least 2 days and try 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, if

they fail to communicate, save your money and time and move

on.



Free Classifieds



If the ezine offers free classifieds, this is another good place

to run your ad. Since classifieds usually don't produce

responses, any activity from your ad here would further

indicate an active readership.



Ad Tracking



Never advertise without using an ad tracker. You can purchase

one or better, use one of the many available online for free. Ad

trackers give you a url that you use in place of your website address.



The new url gives you important information like how many visitors

you had, where they came from, and some list the number of sales

per visitor.



This tracking information is crucial to the direction of your ad

campaign because you'll learn of the need to change your ad

and/or the sales page. More importantly, you'll know for certain whether the ezine produced enough visitors for the advertising

price you paid.



Run Your Ad Twice



If your ad produced a great response, wait a week or two and run

the ad again in the same ezine. I've found you'll probably get as

good if not better results the second time around.



I would advise against running the ad a third time in a row

because 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 so

you 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 visitors

to put their name and email address. There are different methods to accomplish this and you may want to hire someone to do it for you

if you're not comfortable installing scripts on your website.



You might also want to send your visitor directly to your

autoresponder, where you have a series of messages set up to "warm

and 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 before

running your ad in the same publication. Keep building your base

and watch your profits grow!

Greg Root started using ezine advertising almost exclusively

since 2003 and owns and maintains 'The Ezine Ad Tester' at

http://www.maxprofitpro.com/. See the results of his ezine

advertising campaigns to find the best ezine marketing

resources on the internet.