Top 5 Mistakes In Ezine Advertising

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 AdsMany 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 AdsWhen 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 ClassifiedsSince 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 BasesLarge 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 OnceWhen 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.

Ezine Article Advertising & Marketing Blunders

Interested in advertising and marketing your web business with ezine articles? Make any of these blunders and you may cut your response in half.
Blunder Number 1: Not including an author's resource box/ezine advertisement
Yes, there are really authors who don't remember to include an author's resource box (the biography/advertisement at the end of the article). That box is the whole point of distributing articles in the first place. Even if the body of your article has a link to your website, you'll be losing all the clicks from dedicated ezine readers who look for that box at the end of articles they like.Blunder Number 2: Not including a link in your ezine article's author's resource box
There are a shocking number of author's who use an author's resource box to include their email address, telephone number, street address, gym locker combination, and everything else but a link to their website. This is a big waste for two reasons:
Few people will contact you directly without seeing your web page first. At that point, people just aren't motivated enough. All they know about you is that they liked an article you wrote.
Search engines rank web pages in part based on "link popularity" i.e., the number, quality, and relevance of links to a website. You may not care about search engines now, but if you ever do in the future you will be pretty upset at having wasted all these opportunities for link popularity.
Blunder Number 3: Not including an HTML-formatted link with "anchor text" in your ezine article's author's resource box
As much as reasonably possible, you want to encourage publishers to publish your author's resource box with the link in HTML, using your chosen anchor text (i.e., the text you click on to follow the link, traditionally displayed in blue and underlined), if it's going to be shown in a web page or HTML newsletter. If the article is being distributed as plain text, you can include a link to an HTML-formatted version on your website. There are three reasons for this:
A link that says "discover widgets" is going to get more clicks than a link that just says "http://www.widgets.com" Your call to action (e.g., "discover widgets") is much more powerful when the reader can read it and act upon it in one split second, since there is not that crucial extra split-second of pause while moving the mouse. In that split-second pause your reader might get second thoughts. With advertising (and the author's resource box is an advertisement), impulse is everything.
Anchor text, like bulleted lists, boldface text, headlines and subheadings, has a higher chance of being read than the rest of the text. People tend to scan computer screens rather than read text word for word. Eyes will be much more likely to slow down from scan mode and actually read anything that stands out from the page, especially hyperlinks. This phenomenon and the psychological power of putting a call to action in the anchor text together mean well-written anchor text might easily double the click-throughs you get on your author's resource box link in HTML newsletters and web pages.
A web page will rank higher for a keyword in search engine results if the anchor text of links to that page has that keyword.
Blunder Number 4: Only including an HTML-formatted link with "anchor text"
You really want that anchor-text link, but it is foolish only to provide that link. No matter what you do, a substantial number of publishers will reformat your article as plain text, and your link will simply disappear. That's why you need to have both an HTML link with anchor text and a URL written out in this format: http://www.yoururl.com/page
"But I'm only interested in getting my article on web pages so I can gain link popularity," you say. Well, a large number of plain-text email newsletters will be archived on the website of the newsletter publisher. These newsletter-publisher webmasters won't usually remember at that point to get your HTML version to post online. The standard approach is just to automatically convert the URL to a link using special software.
Remember: the publisher may be operating dozens of ezines and websites, so this whole step will be partially or completely automated, without anyone stopping to check for an HTML version. If you don't have a URL written out in your article, that link will simply be lost.
Besides, think of all the traffic you might have gotten from plain-text newsletter readers. Who would say no to free targeted traffic--isn't that why you want to rank high in search engines in the first place?
In fact, with paid online advertising going for more than a dollar a click on average, you really are throwing money away if you make any of these ezine article marketing and advertising blunders.

Why Radio Advertising Could Be The Best Thing You Ever Did

In the marketing world, radio has earned the reputation of being the odd step-cousin. You know the one. No one knows quite what to do with him. Especially at family gatherings when everyone tries hard to avoid sitting with him. (After all, who knows WHAT he'll start talking about.)
Much of that reputation comes from radio being tough to track. On one hand, radio does work. Businesses do notice an increase in sales when they add radio to the mix. However, radio doesn't test well. In surveys and other tracking methods, radio tends to be the one with the dismal scores.
A good friend of mine, who's also a marketing consultant but before that she sold radio for many years, has a theory about that. She says radio works on a subconscious or unconscious level. People remember the ad, but not that they heard it on the radio. So, they tend to credit a different medium for the ad, like the yellow pages. Yellow pages gets a boost while radio drops a few points.
Regardless, radio should not be ignored because it does work. And many marketing consultants will probably tell you radio is an excellent medium to reach a local market.
However, I feel there are possibilities beyond merely reaching local customers.
Internet radio shows are starting to take off in a big way. That means advertising and sponsorship opportunities are also taking off. In addition, "offline" methods have been shown to be pretty effective at driving traffic online. If increasing Web traffic is your goal, using traditional media outlets to increase traffic should be a part of your mix.
If people already know you (which they might in your local market) they're more likely to be loyal. And they're more likely to send other customers to your site. Depending on the costs of radio in your community, radio may be a very affordable way to get a good viral campaign going. (A viral campaign is what happens when other people pass around your business' e-mails to their friends and family, or send them to your Web site.)
Below are some other positive reasons to use radio:
* Affordable -- when you compare spot to spot, radio tends to be one of the least expensive media out there. However, one spot ain't going to do it. To reach your target market, you need to purchase several spots. That's why radio can also turn into one of the more expensive media. However, there are ways to keep your costs in line yet still reap the benefits of radio -- for instance, buying less spots but running them all in one or two weeks, so your customers are more likely to hear your message.
* Psychological, if you voice the commercials yourself -- hearing your voice makes people feel like they "know" you. (Hence the popularity of audio on Web sites. In fact, marketing gurus claim just by adding audio to a site substantially increases how many people buy.)
People tend to buy from people and businesses they know and trust. Hearing your voice helps them feel as if they know you. These psychological aspects may be another reason to consider running a few radio ads in your local market even if you have an Internet business.
* Speed -- you can get your spot up and running in no time.
* Loyalty -- listeners choose stations based on the music or shows they like and they tend to be quite loyal to that station. If you know what your customers enjoy listening to, it's an excellent way to reach them. (I include both music and talk shows in this.)
* Good support medium -- radio works really well when paired with other marketing mediums (like print, direct mail or television).
But for every positive, there's a negative. In the spirit of being objective, here are a few for radio:
* Background medium -- radio tends to be on in the background, which means it tends to be ignored. Generally, your target market needs to be exposed to your ad more times than other marketing media before they'll act upon your message.
* Little staying power -- the lack of visuals again keeps radio from "sticking" with people. At least, that's what some of the marketing gurus say. But, here again my marketing consultant friend differs. She thinks it's that subconscious thing again.
And if you can write a spot that creates pictures in your customers' heads, you can actually work this to your advantage. In fact, according to my friend, if the picture is defined enough, not only will people remember it better, but they'll also think it was a print ad instead of a radio ad. (More on the art of creating pictures using words in later issues.)
* Hard to track – it's impossible to know exactly how many people are tuning in at any given time.
A final note: Because radio is subconscious, keep that in mind when crafting your ad. Repeat your business name a lot and any other branding info, so it gets into your customers' heads. Don't put in phone numbers. Instead, purchase a memorable Web site domain name and repeat that. And remember to create "pictures" whenever possible.
Creativity Exercise -- How can you use radio in your business?
Would radio work for your business? Let's find out.
Take out a sheet of paper and a fun pen. (I'm partial to gel pens.) Draw a line down the center.
On one side, put the header: Why advertising on radio is a good idea for my business. On the other side, put the header: Why advertising is a bad idea for my business.
Now pick a side and start writing down reasons.
You might be more comfortable starting with the side that's easiest for you. Then when you work on the other side, you can simply turn the reasons around.
For instance, let's say you started with the bad idea. One of your reasons was: My product is completely visual. You could turn it around by saying "Because my product is so visual, I'll have to work harder to create pictures in my customers' minds. And because the customers create their own pictures, they're more likely to remember them."
Or what if you started with a good idea, and one of the reasons was: "Because my business is local." You could turn it around and say "Because radio is holding me back -- I'm only reaching this local market." (Ah, now I'm even going against what I said earlier. Maybe with this statement you could look for ways to get your customers to spread the word outside the area about your business.)
As you saw by my last example, you'll be amazed at what comes out when you do this exercise. Even if you don't change your views on radio advertising, you may come up with new and powerful insights to your business.