Advertising With Ezines Is Easier Than You Think

You may have heard of Ezine advertising, especially solo ads and sponsor ads.

And, I am sure that you have the following questions:

• Do they give me the advertising coverage I need?
• Do they cost alot of money to use?
• Is it hard to start?
• Most importantly, will they work for my business?

Before we begin, let me say that it's very dangerous to think of ezine advertising in terms of only solo ads. Other ad types, such as sponsor ads, classified ads, advertorials, and banner ads (yes ... banners!) work very well in ezines.

One more word of caution for you to think about....Placing banner ads and classified ads on websites is completely different than placing them on Ezines.

Ezines are delivered via email and so get MUCH more attention from the reader.

DO EZINES WORK?

Ezines have been an effective way of advertising online for almost 12 years now! Ezine advertising works for one very simple, yet powerful, reason. The people who read ezines WANT the information in the ezine. They subscribed, in many cases confirming their intention with what is called "verified opt in"process.

People who go to Ezines are very motivated buyers, and when your product matches thier interest, very good things can happen.

The KEY SECRET to ezine advertising is to MATCH the content of the ezine to your product.

You sell products to those people who are interested in your product. It is as simple as that.

You see ... MATCHING is the secret!

ARE EZINES EXPENSIVE?

Not at all. Are they free? No. Here is my take on free ads. Free ads do NOT work to sell products. You can use them for other things, but not to find buyers.

That said, how much does ezine advertising cost? On average, about $3 per thousand readers for a solo ad. That means you can reach 80,000 readers with your SOLO message (a solo is an email that goes out alone, not as part of the ezine) for about $240.

Sponsor ads, classifieds and banners are MUCH cheaper.

IS IT HARD TO PUT AN AD IN?

Absolutely not. In fact all you have to do is go to google.com, put in your product that you are selling and then put in "Ezine". So if you were selling a great golf club, then go to google, and put in the search....."golf ezine", or "golf club ezine". That is it. You will be presented with a whole slew of ezines to put your ad in.

Just FYI, I highly recommend http://directoryofezines.com because it is like a "shopping mall" for ezines.

Try it out when you get a chance, and you will find that ezine advertising is worth it's weight in gold.

HOW DO YOU CHOOSE A GREAT PRODUCT TO SELL?

Offering the right product will be one of the most important steps you will take. Making sure that this step is handled properly will make or break your business! You can do everything else properly, not choose the correct product and people will not buy what you have to offer.

Now, there are thousands of business owners out there that have failed because they did not have the right product, the right location, or the right marketing. In other words, they did not do their homework or due diligence before they decided to open the shop. It is no different when you sell on line. There is not a program that is going to work all the time. But you don't have to be a "rocket scientist" to figure out what to sell.

You just need to have the correct tools at your disposal, and let the market dictate what it wants to purchase. My suggestion to you is to find a product that is going to sell, and that you have a passion for. If you don't have a passion for it, you are never going to be enthused enough to write about it, and if you don't write about it, your potential customers are not going to be able to tell if it is a good enough product to buy. Does this make sense?

So what do you look at?

1. Is it a product that people want to buy? Is there a demand for it?
2. Is the price reasonable enough whereby people can afford it?
3. How much competition do I have with this product?

To determine if there is a market for a particular product, just go to the search engines. You can simply do a few searches and find out if people are searching for the product. YOU DO NOT WANT TO CREATE A MARKET...it is already there, but is there enough room for you to come in and make money?

The number of searches being conducted for a specific keyword is often the tell/tell sign of the size of the market you are looking at. 90% of web purchases start with someone using a search engine!

So, what is a "keyword"? It simply means a word that someone has typed into a search engine to find a product. It does not have to be ONE WORD either. It can be a combination of words that people use.

• Golf is a 'keyword'
• Golf clubs is a 'keyword'
• Golf Swing Instruction is a 'keyword'

All of these above are 'keywords', but if you type each example in, you are going to get different results!

A very good keyword suggestion tool would be Overture. You can access this at:

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

All you have to do is type in your keyword and Overture will tell you how many people searched for that keyword in that month. YOU ARE LOOKING FOR LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE SEARCHING FOR THAT PRODUCT!

As an affiliate with a small starting budget, you need to focus on situations where there is a vast market so you have a chance to compete and win.

Lets say you want car insurance. "Car Insurance" will bring up a large number of searches, and therefore will tell you that there is a substantial market for you to come into and compete. WHEN YOU ARE OBSERVING THE SEARCH COUNTS, YOU WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT THE SEARCHES ARE OVER 100,000 A MONTH TO CONSIDER THAT PRODUCT. YOU MUST APPROACH AN ACTIVE MARKET TO SUCCEED.

Another keyword source you can use is http://wordtracker.com/. You can utilize their "free trial" period, but after that they will charge you a nominal monthly fee. It is well worth it though.

Other sources you can utilize to find products that will do good for you are:

http://ssl.clickbank.net/signup/?r=lifestyles

and

http://affiliatesalert.com

These are excellent free sources that can lend big help when it comes to selling products.

AffiliateMarketingConnections

AffiliateMarketingConnections