8 Ezine Advertising Mistakes To Avoid
These are several important lessons I've learned regarding Ezine
Advertising and Marketing Success. Here are eight mistakes you
should avoid:
Mistake No. 1 -- Not focusing
A common mistake many advertisers make is to attempt to do too
much, or rather sell too much, in one ad. Sure you have lots of
great products but you can't sell them all in a few lines-at
least not individually. Instead focus on the benefit your
customer can achieve from all your products and promote that!
People are much more likely to click on a link that BENEFITS
them than a link that promises to sell them something.
More importantly, tell the customer "what your product or
service is going to do for him."
It is important that you identify your Unique Selling
Proposition before you begin your advertising program. This will
determine which Ezines (or markets) you target as well as what
you should include in your ad copy. Who will be interested in
your product and why? What benefits does your product offer them?
Mistake No. 2 -- Going for the hard sale
Don't go for the sale in your ad! You are at a disadvantage
because you can't list all your products' wonderful benefits in
the space allowed. Also, there is only a small percentage of any
Ezine audience that is ready to buy your product at the exact
moment they view your ad. Yes, maybe they should be, but most
people today live in the moment and if this isn't the time they
want to buy then they aren't going to buy, end of story.
But it doesn't have to be the end of the story. If you go for
the soft sell approach your target consumer is much more likely
to click on your link and then you've got the chance to go for
the hard sell-again and again!
Here's an example. I'm selling a product called the Preschool
Prep Power Pack. It's an educational CD for preschoolers. Now I
could go for the hard sell in my promotion and I would make some
sales but a lot of people who really might be interested won't
even look at my site and product. However, I've chose to go the
soft sell approach. Instead of selling my product in my ads, my
ads offer two FREE items. I offer a free newsletter
(Preschoolers Learn More) offering tips about preparing
preschoolers for kindergarten. This is my target market for my
product. The folks who subscribe also receive a free ABC-123
coloring book. Why wouldn't the parent of a preschooler
subscribe, right?
But what's in it for me as a business person? A lot! Think about
it. I now have the freely offered contact information for my
target market. Now I can regularly email them information about
my product. I'm confident they will buy eventually because my
product provides a solution to something that concerns them-or
they wouldn't have subscribed in the first place!
Mistake No. 3 -- Letting the clock run out
Another common mistake is not giving your ad campaign enough
time to work.
Studies show it takes prospects an average of seven exposures to
your promotion before they take the bait. Even after they have
clicked through to your site visitors may need to visit your
site as many as three times before they buy from you. So make
sure you keep that offer in front of them. That means it may
well pay to take the long-term package versus a one-shot ad.
People run through their emails rapidly and delete things they
wish they hadn't. Make their wish come true! Give them a second,
third, fourth chance. The formula is--when you're sick and tired
of it, the public is just beginning to hear it.
Mistake No. 4 -- Cramming the ad space
Just because you've bought ad space doesn't mean you have to
utilize every pixel or character-space. Short, punchy lines that
do not use up every available space are more effective. Think
about the reader scanning down the page or screen. What will
catch their eye and make them stop scanning and actually read?
White space is your friend so don't squander it. Use it to set
off your important message.
Make sure you apply the same principal to your urls and e-mail
addresses as well. Nothing can make an ad look more cluttered
than giant web addresses with a complicated string of numbers
and letters. If you have to use an address like that (perhaps
for your affiliate code, for example) then it might be wise to
use a redirect.
Mistake No. 5 -- Not using your head
Your headline is the most important part of your ad. This is
usually the line that determines whether the skimming reader
will stop or skip ahead.
Some of the proven headline formulas include:
1. Ask the reader a question: "Are you worried about filing your
tax return this year?"
2. Tell the reader how to do something: "How to buy a car
without getting a lemon."
3. Provide a testimonial: "Big Al saved me $200 last month.
Thanks, Cindy Lou from Paducah, Kentucky."
4. Make a command. Turn your most important benefit into a
commanding headline. "Stop rushing through life." "Make more
money this month." "Feel better about yourself."
5. Important news makes a good headline. "Max Electronics just
went international!"v 6. Start the clock: "Buyers who act before
midnight Tuesday will save an extra $50!"
7. Give the reader something free: "Free whatsit for the first
100 visitors!"
Mistake No. 6 -- Not telling them what to do
It sounds almost ridiculous, but simply giving clear, specific
directions about what you want the reader to do can increase the
response to your ads.
Click here to find out more: http://whatsit.com
Subscribe by emailing subscribe@whatsit.com
Visit http://whatsit.com today to save!
Mistake No. 7 -- Blowing your budget
One of the most difficult things to decide for any business
person is how much money to spend on promotion. There really is
one simple way to determine the answer. How much is a customer
worth to you? That tells you a great deal about how much you can
afford to spend on advertising.
The simple formula to calculate the net worth of a visitor is:
Net Profit divided by Conversion Rate.
First, what is your net profit on an average sale? Let's say $10
to make it easy. (Hey, I'm an English professor, I need to keep
it simple!)
Then consider what your conversion rate is for visitors to
become customers. Let's say one visitor out of 50 becomes a
customer. (This makes your conversion rate 50 as you need 50
customers to make a sale)
With this example, a visitor is worth $0.50 to you. ($10 divided
by 50)
So if you spend $100 on an advertising campaign that draws in
1000 visitors then you made $400 on that campaign.
Mistake No. 8 -- Setting unrealistic goals
This issue is really about control. Yes, if you could control
things that you would have a high sell through but that isn't
always going to happen. In fact, for most advertisers that isn't
going to happen. However, if your goal is to capture customers
then you are much more likely to match your goal or even exceed
it. And in the end a customer is worth a lot more to you than a
sale because a customer can represent many sales over years to
come-sales that were fairly easy to achieve.
As frustrating as it may be, advertising is usually about
long-term versus short-term benefits. Your ad simply serves as a
lure to draw people into your site or long-term promotion. Once
you've pulled them in then you need to sell them. So it is not
really fair to judge an ad campaign on simple sales.
The success of an ad campaign should be measured by one or two
elements only-first, how many people followed up on your offer
(click-through rate) and second, how many of those visitors were
you able to convert into customers (conversion rate).
Over time you will be able to judge where the weak link in your
chain of customer creation exists and work to fix it.
Low click-through rate? Then it is probably your offer. You are
not giving readers enough incentive to follow through. What is
in it for them to click on your offer? Remember you are selling
benefits!
Low conversion rate? Then perhaps you are not attracting the
right sort of visitor. Target your incentive (the free offer,
for example) to match your target audience. See my example in
Mistake No. 2.