Completely new to this topic but it is an ALL in one so here's my question...

paid ads?
solo ads?

How do these differ apart from the fact that #1 sounds like it costs money?

Ezine Advertising: Guess Who is the Uninvited Guest

Some ezine advertisers are busy searching for “the best ezine to advertise with”, even if such ezine doesn’t exist. Others are busy looking for “the most responsive list”, as if it does exist a list of idiots who jump quickly once any garbage lands in their Inbox. Actually many online advertisers believe that once they buy a solo ad slot or another ezine ad slot, they are some kind of SPECIAL GUESTS and everything is solved by the publisher who publishes “the best ezine” that has “very responsive readers” and it will produce for the advertiser “the best ROI” (ROI = return on investment).

These approaches are completely wrong. Here are some ezine advertising “secrets” …

Most of the people don’t like ads. People don’t subscribe to ezines for the purpose of reading your ad, clicking on your link, visiting your website, buying your product, signing for your mailing list. Nope. Actually no reader cares about you. People care about them. People are online for making money (for themselves, not for you), for having fun, for solving their problems (not yours), etc.

Therefore forget about that “Special Guest” approach. An ezine advertiser, the same like any other online or offline advertiser, is just an UNINVITED GUEST.

“When executing advertising, it’s best to think of yourself as an uninvited guest in the living room of a prospect who has the magical power to make you disappear instantly.” – John O’Toole, The Trouble with Advertising

No reader is obliged to read your ad, to click on your link, to visit your website and to buy your product. No publisher can do that for you, no matter how good is her or his ezine. It is YOUR job to GRAB & KEEP READERS’ ATTENTION right in the seconds your ad is in front of their eyes. If they skip your ad … for ANY REASON, you FAIL.

Got the point? Focus on your ad copy, offer solutions, make readers’ life better and you’ll make yours alike!

Adrian

P.S. You do NOT have permission to use the article above for your ezine or website unless the Author (that's me!) has expressly granted you his prior written consent to so reproduce, retransmit, or republish the material.

[DELETED]

If you are looking for any guarantees especially in advertising, there is none. When choosing an ezine to advertise in, it usually is best to subscribe to the ezine as mentioned above. Test a few small ads. Most ezines have different ad packages to choose from. Above all, test your conversion process and sales funnel before entering any major advertising campaign.

Don't discount the advertising offers in the JV Forum, either. Reputations are valued here in the WF, and it is unlikely very many would risk being called out for overly inflating their subscriber lists. But, that is also a risk; an acceptable one IMO however.

You can find ezines in the search engines by typing in "ezines: niche", replacing the word niche with whatever major keyword or phrase matches your target market. This option is probably the worst choice because you really have no idea what may come up.

The Directory of Ezines is an effective tool which I have recommended quite often in many of my posts. It is not an all-inclusive directory by any means, but has served me well for over 10 years. Among other resources, including all mentioned here, I still use the DOE nearly everyday. Anyone who is doing some serious ezine advertising regularly should indeed have it as part of their marketing arsenal.

Some publishers will show you screen captures from their AWeber's account. However, the pro scammers can show you fake pictures or videos. Other publishers (including me) won't give you any proof for the subs count. Did we find an answer to your question? Nope. What's next? It comes the magic word in IM: make some tests. Oh... and use some logic assumptions. Such as ... if I'm telling you that I have 100 subscribers, believe me! The scammers usually are not idiots and being in my shoes they would tell you 100,000 instead of 100 :-) Did we find the answer? Only a small part of it.

The truth is that you're not able to find THE ANSWER unless the publisher gives you access to her or his Aweber (whatever) account. But such publisher must be crazy; anyway even in that unlikely case you may not find the answer unless the publisher uses a pro email marketing service. Why? I know some publishers who care about their ezine but not about technical stuff. If you have the chance to check their account and see 10,000 names and email addresses ... it doesn't mean that there are 10,000 subscribers. I know a publisher who some months ago was claiming 20,000 subs. Having a problem with her host, she asked me what to do. I recommended her to move the list and use a pro email marketing service. She moved it. Well... she found out that out of 20,000 email addresses collected during the last 10 years ... now she has in reality ... under 100 subscribers I know that publisher since many years. She is a nice and honest old lady. However, by now her ignorance ... well ... transformed her in a kind of scammer. I'm 100% sure that she never wanted to scam any advertiser. But... well... she quite did it...

This case is not very uncommon. There are scammers out there, there's no doubt, but I won't talk about them but about commercial maling lists. In my opionion, ezines and commercial mailing lists are different. Without trying to enter into any dispute... lots of warriors publish ezines and newsletters but if you subscribe to them then you notice that they are not ezines or newsletters. Maybe in their opinion there is no difference between an ezine, a newsletter and a commercial mailing list. Or maybe they simply needed a name for their email publication and they didn't find other name than ezine or newsletter (I don't know what I would do in a similar situation ). Or maybe I am wrong and the difference I am talking about doesn't exist. Then "buy my stuff all day long" is an ezine :rolleyes:

One last idea ... the fact that your publisher sends only promos doesn't automatically mean that the figure of 50k is fake. Irrespective of the ezine-name-dispute mentioned above, there are lots of honest IMers who publish that sort of publication. There is nothing wrong with them and their stuff even if I don't agree with the name of their publication :-)

One thing to keep in mind is that you need to find a solo ads vendor or an ezine publisher that has a list (or a segment on their list) built specifically around the main topic your OWN list or your own product is about...

It is a total waste of money to buy ads that will be sent to un-targeted recipients.

Sure, on an IM generic list you will find people needing weight-loss advice too (some of them) BUT they did not subscribe on the original list for such tips and may not consider the sender (ezine publisher or solo ads vendor) as a resource for quality advice on such matters...

Best thing, as always in IM, is to test first. Buy a small amount, watch the stats, decide if to buy more or move to the next choice...

Thanks for the bump

You need to build a funnel that would allow you to add leads (people interested in playing flash games) to your list, from the traffic you get to your website.

Once you've done that, you can easily monetize those leads by recycling the traffic, sending them anywhere you want - thus getting paid for your list building efforts and allowing you to reinvest part of that income into buying even more traffic.

Type in Google one of these search strings (or similar):

• solo ads vendors
• solo ads directory
• ezine solo ads
• etc...

I am sure you'll find lots of vendors.

Look around carefully, make sure you pick the ones with the best possible results/testimonials/feedback

LOL, WTF?? :rolleyes:

There's been discussion (and partial lists) of ezine directories.

Warning:

No matter how concientious the owner of a directory is, by the time you find it, it will be out of date. It's a fact of life in the ezine world - people start ezines like they start blogs, with the best of intentions. Then they find out how much work goes into producing a regular periodical, especially when they learn about having to find advertisers or test copy and they don't get rich overnight. So, having invested the time and/or money to list their shiny new ezine on every directory they can find, they now abandon it. Just like the millions of blogs which have gone dark, yet still exist because they simply haven't been removed.

Be prepared to treat finding reliable ezine advertising like panning for gold. Some shiny things are the real thing. Some are pyrites (aka "fool's gold). most are just slag you have to get through.

When you do find a publisher that produces results, follow Bill's advice above and do whatever you can to support that publisher in achienving his goal - happy readers who can't wait for more and trust and welcome his recommendations.