Are You Wasting Your Time With Free Ezine Ads?
There are lots of ezines (newsletters) out there
that offer free classified ads to new subscribers
(and many even offer free ads on an ongoing basis).
This can be a nice little source of free traffic
and exposure for your website/ebook/ezine but, if
not handled properly it can have its downside.
The biggest problem is that, by joining a whole
plethora of ezines your mail box risks becoming
very crowded very quickly, and it's easy to become
overwhelmed with it all.
This is especially true if some of those ezines
send out messages every single day -- as many do.
To get around this, and to keep your free ezine
advertising campaign under control, follow these
steps:
STEP 1. Create a separate e-mail address for your
ezine subscriptions (e.g. my_ezines@.....).
STEP 2. In your email software (e.g. Outlook
Express) create a folder (directory) called
'free_ezine_ads'.
STEP 3. Using your e-mail software set up a rule
that sends all mails that arrive to your e-mail
address 'my_ezines@....' to the folder
called 'free_ezine_ads'.
STEP 4. Prepare the free ad you want to place in the
ezines and keep a copy of it handy in a text file.
Different ezines have different rules about the size
of ad they will accept. Study each one carefully and
be sure to comply with all their submission
guidelines.
You may also want to consider the mood and tone of
each ezine, and create different versions of your
ad for each one.
STEP 5. Submit your ad to each ezine editor. Be sure
to double-check that you've complied fully with their
submission guidelines.
STEP 6. For those ezines which give you a one-off ad,
it's time to re-assess their value to you. If you
don't find the content useful or interesting, you
should unsubscribe rather than let it clog up your
'free_ezine_ads' folder.
Remember, though, if the ad in that ezine drew a good
response from its readers, you can always check out
their advertising rates and see if it's worth paying
a few dollars to place your ad again (or, if you're
sneaky, you could try re-subscribing at a later date
and doing it again, making some changes to disguise
your wicked deception:-)
STEP 7. For those ezines that allow free ads on a
regular basis, make a list of all the submission
deadlines and make it part of your regular marketing
routine to check that list and see if you're due to
place an ad.
Finally, as you continue placing regular ads with
those ezines, be sure to continue measuring their
effectiveness. In many cases you'll appear in the
middle of 20 other ads, so it may not bring in much
of a response rate.
Likewise, the response rate from each ezine is likely
to drop off over time -- especially if you don't vary
your ads.
Decide for yourself whether it's worth your while
continuing and be sure to try out different ads to
see which ones work best with that readership.
And there you have it, a pretty straightforward
approach to keeping on top of things when it comes
to free ezine advertising.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Hopkins is owner of BizzyDays eBook Publications.
Visit now to download original ebooks for FREE at:
http://www.bizzydays.com
This article first appeared in Michael's newsletter 'Ebook Times'.
To subscribe visit: http://www.bizzydays.com/free_newsletter.htm