Ezine Advertising

What do you look for when purchasing a product?
One of the things we all look for is trust. Let’s face it; we all want to do business with those we trust. Satisfying this psychological buying need is where ezine advertising comes in and saves the day.

What is ezine advertising, you may wonder?

An ezine is simply an online newsletter. You subscribe for the content and it’s delivered to your inbox daily, weekly, monthly, whatever. There is literally thousands of ezines available today, ranging from Internet marketing, to Kung-Fu, to cooking and cleaning. If you’re interested in something, there’s likely an ezine out there for it.

Although, fortunately for the business we’re in, needing to advertise to business opportunity or marketing minded prospects, there are literally thousands of ezines available just in the area of marketing and business opportunities.

I currently publish my own ezine that provides free Internet marketing advice (Stilbox.com), and so I can speak from experience when saying that as you publish your own ezine, people start to respect you as an authority figure in your area of expertise. This then creates a relationship between you and the prospect where your prospect is much more likely to listen to an endorsement you make for a product.

When you are advertising in an ezine, there is two different ways of going about it. The first way is to publish your own articles in ezines and the second is to simply place ads within the already written ezines.

If you choose to publish your own ezine article to be used in an already established ezine, then the rule discussed above still comes into effect. Even if your article is the first article those ezine readers have ever read by you, if your advice is excellent and you establish yourself as a respectable authority figure, then you’ve just dramatically increased your chances of experiencing sales from your endorsement of a product.

You might write an ezine article and intertwine your product offering with the article, or simply rely on people reading your tagline at the end of the article to find out more about you and your offering. Either way, ezine publishing is a very effective form of advertising. Oh, and did I mention that this is free advertising?

Other than writing and publishing your own ezine articles, you can take the approach of simply placing ads in already written and published ezines. When placing ads in an ezine, there are several rules you will want to abide by in order to experience optimum success.

The first thing you want to do is investigate. Some ezines only ever have a couple of ads that go out in each issue. Others are jam packed with ads. I’ve seen some ridiculous ones with so many ads I couldn’t even stand to read the article. But the point here is that the fewer ads you are competing with, the better yours will do. Makes sense, right?

The other factor you need to investigate is where your ad might be placed in the ezine. Will your ad be placed at the top, the bottom, the middle, where? Quite obviously, top ads and middle ads would be more likely to do best. Ads in the middle of an article which are in between the text can be very effective since the readers eyes can’t help but glance over the ad. The lesson here is to be aware of where your ad will be placed so you can insure it will be effective.

The last area to investigate is whether your ad will just be slapped up on the ezine, personally endorsed by the company, or sent out as a solo ad.
What do you think would be a more effective ezine ad?
a) Solo Ad
b) Personally endorsed ad
c) Normal ad
Looks can be deceiving here…
You may be quick to answer “a” or maybe “b”. But what if I were to tell you that “c” may work better than “a” in some cases?

Advertisements personally endorsed by the ezines will almost always without a doubt get more attention and be more effective than others. Solo ads, while they may seem to be more effective, can be a tricky judgment.

Sometimes, if an ezine reader recognizes an email as just a solo ad, he will ignore it, waiting for the real content. Then, when the article comes, he reads that. So while in a solo ad you are getting exposed all by yourself, not competing with other ads, the reader may be less likely to open your email, while an ad in the ezine itself may be more likely to be seen because the reader will actually open the email to read the article.

Don’t get me wrong, solo ads can be very effective, especially if it is a personally endorsed solo ad, but just don’t underestimate the potential power of the regular ezine ad. I’m just clarifying this to help those who would instantly see “solo ad” and think of it being much more effective without really thinking about both sides of the equation.

Another very important rule to remember is that larger subscriber base ezines are not always better. You need to find out about the ezine, how they got their subscribers and how many of those subscribers view the ezine on a regular basis. Don’t be afraid to ask tough questions before you go ahead and advertise. Remember that the quality of the subscriber base is more important than the quantity.

The last thing I recommend is that before you advertise in an ezine, you should subscribe to that ezine. Then examine the way they present their ads, try and get a feel for the audience and so forth. Doing this will help you to make an intelligent decision of whether it is a good place to advertise and it will allow you to write much more effective ads by learning as much as possible about the audience beforehand.

Remember that the more you know about the group you are advertising to, the better you can target your ad specifically to them. And the more you target your ad, the more prospects will notice your ad and the more sales you will experience. See how it all ties together?

Ezine advertising can seem costly up front, but in most cases, it is well worth it in the end. Within the world of ezine advertising rests the opportunity for you to get the results you’re looking for by sending your ad to thousands of pre-qualified prospects eager for your type of offer.

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