Rudi Vanhaecke

ou’ve heard it before – if you want to succeed online you must have a list of your own. Every guru says it. Ever wonder why? Because it’s true! http://charliepage.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif There is no doubt that the single most valuable asset I own online – more valuable even than owning the Directory of Ezines – are my mailing lists. With them I can build, or rebuild, a business. Without them I’m back at square one. How about you? Do you have a list yet? If not, here are four simple ideas you can use today to start building a list of your own even if you don’t have any money to spend, a website of your own or any traffic! These are all methods I have used, and I still use each of them today. These tactics work for me and have for years. I hope they will work for you too. Idea 1 – Your Email Signature Line Go to your “sent email” folder right now and look at the email you sent today. I’m willing to guess that your email does not include an offer for someone to join your mailing list. But it should! Think about this – If you send only 20 emails a day (including replies) then you are sending over seven thousand emails a year! What if only 1 in 7 people saw your link and joined your list? That’s over 1000 subscribers to your list … free! Idea 2 – Forums Ever visit a forum and ask a question? Many have but they don’t leverage the experience in their favor. Just about every forum out there offers a signature line feature, yet we see thousands of posts with no signature. Don’t make this mistake! If you post on the Warrior Forum or Michael Green’s How To Forum or any other, make sure to include a link where people can join your list. Again, free and very effective. Put time on your side with this one! Idea 3 – Twitter Ah, Twitter – friend or foe? Great marketing tool or time waster? Great marketing tool! Here’s how you can use Twitter today to begin building your list with no money. Start following people you know of and replying to their Tweets. Make sure your reply makes sense and won’t waste people’s time. Fan Tweets – replying to a Tweet with something like “loved your book about ___” are 100% okay and often much appreciated. Once you have been following for a while you will get followers too, and become a recognizable name in your circles. When that happens, send a short Tweet about your new mailing list and where people can join it. Sure, it takes some time and there is software to “automate” this process. But no software in the world can automate the personal touch, and that’s what is needed to build lists. Idea 4 – Your Blog If you don’t have a website you might be thinking “sounds good Charlie but where do I send them to sign up?” Fair question. The answer is your blog. If you don’t have a blog there is simply no reason to wait any longer. Go to Blogger.com and get one now. It’s free, they have templates you can use that look professional. If you can type, you can blog. And you should. Once you get a blog just put a form on it for your list and you are good to go! So there you have it, four ways to begin building a real list of your own with no money and no traffic! Your email signature line Forums Twitter Your own blog Begin using these methods today and you will put time on your side. Sooner than you think, you will have a mailing list of your own. And having a powerful mailing list is a beautiful thing indeed!

The bottom line in selling is simple. People buy what they want. Always have. Always will. The key for business people like you and me is to quickly tell our prospective customers why they should want what we have. In other words .... benefits! Understanding the difference between a feature and a benefit is vital, and easy. A feature is what your product does. A benefit is what is does for me! Now let's look at how to tell your prospects about the benefits they will get from your product. It is vital for all business people to understand that buying decisions are made based on emotion and then supported with logic. For our site to sell well, we need to very quickly present our visitors with the reasons why they should buy from us. These reasons are the benefits our customers will enjoy by owning our product or service. While most of us can quickly tell any prospective customer what our product does we often forget to take the extra step of telling them how our product will make their lives better. Remember that most Internet shoppers want to either save money or make money. Those are the top two motivations of people who buy online. In that light, be sure your site tells your visitor exactly how you will help them do these two things. Does your product save time? Time is money. Here are four simple steps to help you translate your product or service's features (what it does) into benefits (what it does for me). After you make your list, be sure to review your selling literature, be it a web page, email or brochure, and make sure that you are selling benefits. After all, everybody wants to know what's in it for them. List the key features of your product ... the things that make it worth having. Describe what each one does; how it works. Determine how that feature gives the customer an advantage. Write it down next to the feature. Think through how that advantage makes or saves them time or money. Be able to state every feature in terms of money. Write it down next to the advantage. Write out benefit statements for each feature. Memorize your list. Write it down and carry it for quick reference. You have now created a feature, advantage, and benefit list. By committing these statements to memory and using them often, you will now be speaking the prospect's language, the language of saving or making money. That's the sound they love to hear.

One of the things that excites people about the Internet is the huge audience that exists online. The Net truly is a marvel, allowing anyone with a dialup connection to compete with Fortune 100 companies. One of the best ways to reach those large numbers, while staying true to your objectives of targeting a niche market, is ezine advertising. Since advertising in these giants can be expensive we want to take care that we do it right. In that light, here are six steps to take that will help you maximize the return on investment you make when advertising in a large ezine. NOTE: Not all are expensive. One ezine I found has 215,000 subscribers and you can buy an ad for $35. Another has 200,000 and sells ads for $20. Not bad. That said, here's the six step formula I use to maximize my return on investments. 1. Ask for the top spot. When you advertise in a big ezine, you're going to be in a crowd. People will get tired of reading and you can get lost if your ad doesn't pop. Obviously, the top ad in the section gets read the most. While there are no guarantees, ask the publisher to give you to top spot in the section. Ask nice. If they don't sell that spot for more money (few do) you have a good chance of getting it. 2. Use a catchy headline. I know, I know ... you've heard this a million times. But what I mean is not just the words, but the characters you use. I start a lot of my ads with a few asterisks. You could use dollar signs, question marks, etc. The goal here is to catch the eye of the person scanning by showing them something different. Which catches your eye? Ezine advertising works! Find the perfect ezines in minutes!! Save time. Make money. Easy to use. Free ads too! Start selling today! *** Ezine advertising works! Find the perfect ezines in minutes!! Save time. Make money. Easy to use. Free ads too! Start selling today! ??? Ezine advertising works! Find the perfect ezines in minutes!! Save time. Make money. Easy to use. Free ads too! Start selling today! -------------------------------------------------- You can also use bold text creatively to achieve a similar effect. EZINE ADVERTISING WORKS! Find the perfect ezines in minutes!! Save time. Make money. Easy to use. Free ads too! Start selling today! Ezine advertising works! Find the perfect ezines in minutes!! Save time. Make money. Easy to use. Free ads too! Start selling today! -------------------------------------------------- Combine the two effects and you have something that works .. at least for me. Ezine advertising works! Find the perfect ezines in minutes!! Save time. Make money. Easy to use. Free ads too! Start selling today! *** EZINE ADVERTISING WORKS! Find the perfect ezines in minutes!! Save time. Make money. Easy to use. Free ads too! Start selling today! -------------------------------------------------- 3. Use a well written ad. This is easier said than done. Remember that the job of the ad is to sell the click, not the product. Selling the product is the job of your website or email follow up. The headline sells the ad, the ad sells the click, the site sells the product. 4. Be easy to do business with. Read their rules about formatting and line length before you send the ad. Pay them at the time of the ad. Don't expect them to check your ad copy for typos or that your link works. Do all of this work before you contact them. The easier you are to work with, the more welcome you will be the next time. 5. Use an autoresponder for your response device. This one is risky, but it works. The usual classified ad sends the reader to a website. That's okay since the hope is to make the sale now. But what if you did it this way? Instead of using a URL in your ad, use an autoresponder address. Say something in your ad about sending them a private link or that the offer is just too hot to give the link out to the public. People like humor. When they respond to your autoresponder, set it up so that they immediately get the first message with the link. Then start sending them follow up messages every week or so until you make the sale! This is how many of the top marketers today do things, and it works. NOTE: If you have a one-shot sales letter on your site, and no follow up system yet, do not use this technique. The fact is, you will lose clicks this way. You just have to decide if having someone in your follow up system is more profitable than having those extra clicks. As always, testing is the key. 6. Do not use the company ad. That may sound weird from a guy who runs an affiliate program (the DOE affiliate program pays up to 50%) but it's true. When you run the same ad that everyone else runs, you are at risk for people saying "I've seen that, no thanks". Of course, the argument can be made that all of these identical ads reinforce each other, but I don't believe it to be true. Use these techniques when you run ezine ads (whether in large or small ezines) and you'll see your click through rate rise, along with your profits. Remember to track every ad and always test your ad copy before rolling out to the mega-ezines. http://trck.me/243742/banner.jpg

Internet marketers seem to want everything to be big. The biggest list. The most traffic. The highest number of "hits". Now realize that I'm from Texas and we admire big. In fact, we're famous for it. But is bigger always better? That depends. When it comes to ezine advertising, it works both ways. It's perfectly logical to go for the big numbers when you are placing ezine ads. After all, advertising is a numbers game, right? More readers equal more clicks equal more sales. That's the conventional wisdom all right.

Since the Directory of Ezines began in 1998 we've seen thousands of ezines come and go. Some that we thought would succeed beyond anyone's wildest dreams lasted only a few months. Some that started modestly are still going today with membership numbers that are staggering. I've been asked more times than I can count "What makes a successful ezine?" While I don't pretend to have all the answers, if you were my brother or sister this is what I would tell you... --Give something of value.-- Your reader is giving you the most precious commodity known to mankind... time. Reward them by giving them something of value. Don't just give them a sales pitch, give them information. Meaningful information. Useful information. Real information. As a publisher of ezines myself, I use this as my standard... "Can my reader USE this information to make his or her life better today?" If the answer is no, it doesn't go in my newsletter. --Help them achieve their goals.-- As a publisher my goal is to know as many readers as possible. With list sizes running into the hundreds of thousands, that sounds silly doesn't it? But it's not silly. Your readers subscribe to your newsletter because they have a need. They believe you can fill that need. Don't disappoint. Get to KNOW your readers and what they need. The more you help them achieve their goals the faster you will achieve yours. Make your ezine a place they can advertise and get results. Give them recommendations to products and services they need. Of course you'll make money. But money will be the by- product, not the main goal. When that happens, your recommendations will be credible... and get acted on. --Be easy to read-- By all means, be easy to read. Don't make them struggle to read your ezine. If you use HTML don't drown out your message with the graphics. Spinning bunnies are nice, but powerful words change peoples' lives. Format your message so that anyone, with any email program, can read it. Keep your sentences short and sweet. Get to the point and let your reader get on with his or her day. While it's true that the Internet will produce the new 'gadget of the week' that will promise you the moon and only cost $47, the fact is that those who focus on these three basic principles are the ones who have succeeded. My bet is that they will be the ones who continue to succeed as well. http://trck.me/239945/banner.jpg

What is the one thing that you see in almost every ezine you read? Classified ads. The reason you see so many classified ads in ezines, on web sites and other places is simple. They work. Classified advertising is one of the most cost effective forms of advertising on the Net today. Like most things that seem very simple on the surface, a great deal of work goes in to writing a powerful classified ad. If you want to add power to your classified ads, carefully consider the following four step process. Writing a great ad is hard. This is not "sit down for 5 minutes and punch it out" work. When a professional writer creates a classified ad for a client, it's not unusual for the writer to produce 15 or even 20 variations in order to get the best possible ad. So grab the beverage of your choice, loosen up those typing fingers and let's create a money making classified. The three parts of a great classified ad are ... The Headline The Body The Call to Action Each one has only ONE purpose. The purpose of the headline is to sell the ad. The purpose of the ad is to set up the call to action. The purpose of the call to action is to sell the click. If you keep this in mind as you write, you will see how easy it becomes to cause readers to take the action you want. The Headline Your headline must grab attention! The headline's job is to sell the ad. Some people use sensational headlines with no relationship to their offer to grab attention. That approach may work in the short term, but damages your integrity in the long run. Honesty is always the best policy. The last thing you want is disappointment when someone arrives at your website. Keep these ideas in mind when you write your headline. Begin each sentence with an action word. Create curiosity. Ask a question. HOT TIP: If the publication you are placing your ad in doesn't allow headlines, use the first few words as the headline or indent the ad so it stands out. When writing headlines, always remember that people care about exactly one thing; what's in it for me? The Body The body of the ad must tell your reader what's in it for them. What benefit will they get by making that click? People don't want to 'learn more' out of idle curiosity. They want to learn more in order to get to the benefits you promised them, so don't be shy about what your offer will do for them. The first step to writing the body is to list all the features of your product or service then, next to them, list the benefits of those features. You must write at least one benefit for each feature, or don't use that feature. People buy what your product or service will do for them, not only what it will do. The Call to Action The call to action is the action you want the reader to take. While it is often as simple as "click here" it's wise to pay careful attention to this step. What to say here depends on if you are sending them to a web site, an autoresponder or some other way to get more information. If it's a website, be sure to include urgency. You must lure them away from what they are doing now in order to visit your site. If you are using an autoresponder, tell the reader what to expect. Will they get one email, a five part series, or something else? The more they know, the more likely they will be to click through. What's Next? One last step and you're ready to begin making money. Don't forget to read your ad! Classifieds aren't supposed to read like a novel. Check that spelling too! Once you have your dollar grabbing, profit pulling classified written, don't forget the #1 rule in advertising. TEST YOUR AD Test, test and test again to know what works. Testing allows you to spend small money now to make big money later. By following these steps you will begin to create classifieds that work. Once you have an ad that works, use it everywhere you can afford to and you will rake in the profits! http://trck.me/238749/banner.jpg

There are many voices today shouting that they have THE answer when it comes to ezine marketing. The truth is that there is no ONE answer. It takes work, common sense, an offer that appeals to the public and the right tools to be really successful. Let's forget the latest $47 piece of software for a moment and focus together on the things that REALLY WORK. ***Target Your Market*** First of all, find the ezines that are related to your product, service or biz opp. If you are selling fishing lures, you wouldn't want to advertise in a food magazine. Even if they have a large subscriber base and the price is cheap, don't waste your time or money. ***Past Issues*** Before spending your hard earned money, visit the website and check out past ezine issues. No archives?... contact the publisher and request an issue. Here's what you are looking for: Is the format pleasing to the eye? Is there plenty of white space? Are the lines wrapping properly? If the ezine is not easy to read, chances of your ad being read are slim to none. If the text is all running together with no blank lines to break it up, it can be tiring on the eyes. We all read a lot during the course of the day! Readers WON'T struggle to find your ad. It must reach out and grab THEM. Other things to look for... How many ads are in the ezines? Are they all grouped in one place? If there are too many ads all being displayed in the same area, chances are your ad will not be seen. The reader will just scroll on by! Keep looking! Is there a top sponsor ad? Are ads spread throughout the publication? The top sponsor spot, or "prime real estate", will cost more, but the chances of your ad being seen is better than in the classified section with all of the other ads. Even a middle sponsor spot is an ideal location... your ad stands out and as the reader is going through the publication ... Bang!... There's your ad where it's least expected! ***Universal Appeal*** If you have a product or service that is universal in appeal, try general audience or humor/entertainment type ezines. Why? Because... Subscribers do have a personal life and may just find your ad of interest! Plus, people love to laugh. For instance, if you are marketing a cat or dog food, just remember that the subscribers of many of the ezines have a Fluffy or Fido and would be interested in your product. Your ad in an "off beat" ezine would catch their eye and Fluffy or Fido may get some new, healthy, natural food! ***Bigger... Not Always Better*** You'll need to consider the number of subscribers to the ezine. BIGGER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER! Ezines with a smaller subscriber base are more likely to be related to your product or service. When this is true, your response rate will prove to be better than the results from a larger circulation that may not be targeted to your market. ***Twenty Bucks vs. A Hundred Bucks*** Don't spend 100s of dollars on an ad (one that you think is the greatest ad ever written) without first TESTING the response to your ad. There are several good ad trackers on the market today that are inexpensive and worth their weight in gold. When a reader sees your ad, the first thing they see is your headline. It best be good... otherwise they won't read the rest of your ad and certainly won't visit your website. You don't need an audience of 25,000 + for 100 Bucks a pop to see whether readers will click on your ad. You can simply place your ad in an ezine that has an interest in your product or service with 3,000 or 8,000 subscribers for $20 or $25 and know if your ad is effective. If your response rate is low, chances are your headline did not catch their eye. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SPEND $100 TO FIND THIS OUT! ***The National Inquirer*** Stumped for some catchy words or a phrase for your headline? Next time you are standing in line at the grocery checkout, grab a copy of the National Inquirer! Yup... that's right! And how do you think they make their money?... With catchy words and phrases! How many times have you caught yourself looking at the front cover and saying, "yeah, right!". Well... Those "words" caught your eye, didn't they? Start making a list of those words and phrases and then take a look at your product or service and see how you can adapt them to your ad. ***Don't Be Long-Winded*** Just because you can get 10-12 lines, 65 characters per line for your ad, don't do it! Shorter is better. People on the Internet are in a hurry... in a hurry to read more, more, and more! And the last thing they want is a long windy ad that can be stated in 3-5 lines including the headline and URL! Success is easy when you stick to the basics. Make sure you master these key ingredients before you try to get too fancy. Remember, be CREATIVE in your ad writing and keep it short 'n sweet! http://trck.me/204891/banner.jpg

We've all been told a million times that if we are not tracking our ads we are missing the boat. Well, that's true and not true. Did you know that tracking links can actually HURT your sales? Here's why. 1. People don't like to be 'tracked'. 2. Spam filters penalize you. 3. People do not like to click affiliate links. I can't for the life of me figure out #3, but I know it's true. I've seen very nice people backspace over the affiliate code part of a link when they surf. I just don't know why they would do that. They won't pay any more by ordering from an affiliate link, and the affiliate did the job by informing them about the site (and so deserves the commission) ... but still people WILL avoid your affiliate link if you let them. So we know that people don't respond well to obvious tracking links, yet we want to track our ads so we can determine the return on investment. How can we do that? Here are three ways to use a tracking link so that no one knows you are using them, and so no one can steal your affiliate commission. 1. Use An Ad Tracker Installed On Your Domain The advantage here is obvious. You will be able to track clicks, sales, and actions (like joining your mailing list) and still use your domain name. In addition, most trackers will show you how many sales you have made per tracking link, which allows you to calculate that all-important return on investment. IMPORTANT NOTE FOR EMAIL MARKETERS: It has become very important that the links in your email come from your own domain if possible. This has become one of the ways that filters identify an email as spam, so be careful here. The beauty here is that you can make these links say anything, so they never need to look like a tracker! HOT TIP: If you use this technique, experiment with giving your tracking links interesting names, like www.yourdomain.com/LimitedTimeOffer.php Using this little trick generally increases response. The two ad trackers I like are ProAnalyzer and DynaTracker. www.proanalyzer.com www.dynatracker.com 2. Use A Tracking Link That Makes No Sense We do this on occasion just to test. Our shopping cart creates really ugly links. The upside is that no one can tell where the link goes, so they can't guess the destination and bypass your affiliate link. Here's one of our ugly shopping cart links. These get clicked far less than regular links, but can create curiosity and DO protect an affiliate link. http://www.1automationwiz.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=93232 3. My Favorite - Create A Redirect Link This requires that you have a web hosting account, which you really should have anyway. ------------------------------------------------------- DON'T MISS THE HIDDEN POWER OF THIS IDEA! ------------------------------------------------------- I recommend that everyone use a redirect link of some sort at all times. The reason is that there is a hidden power in using a redirect link, which I'll reveal to you right now. Let's say that on your site you are promoting an autoresponder. We'll call it autoresponder A. If you do what most people do, your link will look like this. www.autoresponderA.com/?12345 That's a typical affiliate link, right? But WHAT IF that company goes out of business, or lowers your commission, or offers poor customer service? To begin recommending a new company, you would have to find and replace every link - and that's very hard to do. BUT ... if you used a redirect, you could simply replace the link once and be done forever! By using a redirect, you could provide visitors with a link that looks like the following. www.yoursite.com/autoresponders.php The beauty here is that you can make your autoresponder link go ANYWHERE you want it to by modifying ONE file! Here's how to do it. 1. You take the code below and replace the URL with the URL you want to promote. <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=http://www.1automationwiz.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=134428"> 2. Then, you save the file by a name you like with the html extension. Let's say you choose bubba.php 3. Now you upload it to your web server. 4. Now you tell people to go to the link you created, and they will be redirected to the link you want to protect. Here's an example. When you click on this link http://www.realworldtactics.com/bubba.php you actually go to this page http://www.realworldtactics.com/supercharge.php I use a program called NoteTab to do this, but Note Pad will work just fine. There are also programs to cloak links for you. The one I like and use is Jim Edwards Affiliate Link Cloaker. www.affiliatelinkcloaker.com No matter how you handle it, be sure to protect your affiliate commissions and begin building YOUR brand by cloaking every link you use. That way, you will get every penny you deserve in affiliate commissions. And that's a beautiful thing indeed! Join tyhe #1 list http://dash.trck.me/img/728x90.jpg

An article swap is something like an ad swap, only more powerful. The idea of exchanging, or swapping, ads has been around for years. An ad swap is simply when two (or more) publishers exchange ads in each other's publications. There are many good reasons to do this; including publishers getting more ads in their respective ezines while their advertisers reach a larger audience. A classic win-win. In some cases publishers swap ads when ad sales are low so their publications look fuller, which can also lead to increased ad sales. In much the same way publishers can save time and enhance the value of their publication by swapping articles in addition to, or instead of, ads. Swapping articles can be a huge win-win for publishers and readers too when done well. The benefits of running a successful article swap are many. The publisher' s writing workload is decreased. Their readers get to hear a fresh voice. Successful article swaps can lead to joint ventures, running solo ads in each other's ezines and more. If you use your resource box wisely, and readers like your style, you should gain subscribers every time your article is run. In addition, a successful article swap means readers you might not reach otherwise will see your information. Here are the steps to create a successful article swap, along with some ideas to go deeper and create lasting value for both yourself and the publishers you swap with. 1) Chose your publishers well. While this should be obvious, don't send your articles on duck hunting to publishers of Internet marketing ezines. As with all marketing, the more targeted your approach is the better your results will be. Use ezine directories or other search tools to find publishers based on the category that best fits your article topic. POWER TIP: Once you've chosen a publisher, take time to read a couple of issues of their publication. If you can send them an article that reinforces a point they have made to their readers you might just make a friend. If you can't, mention what you admired about their publication in your opening email. This shows the publisher respect and elevates you out of the group that just email their request using a form letter. 2) Be careful in the opening letter. Let the publisher know your goal is to swap articles, not just have your article published. Publishers often receive so many article-publishing requests that they filter them for later review. Don't let your request fall into the 'to be read later' pile. Make sure your subject line is clear and to the point. Publishers hate being tricked by a subject that doesn't relate to the actual email message. POWER TIP: Include the word count and format of your article in your opening letter. (Example: 856 words formatted to 65 characters with hard returns at the end of each line.) This will save publishers time and show them you know your business. To really impress them, run your article through a spam filter reporting service and let the publisher know your article is clean and won't hinder the delivery of their publication. 3) Use an autoresponder for the article itself. Don't send the article in your article swap request. Set up the article in an autoresponder instead so that publishers can get the article if they want it. This way you will know who is interested by watching the requests to the autoresponder. Your message will be shorter (some people filter mail based on length of message) and you will appear more professional too. 4) Offer to combine an ad swap with an article swap. Don't make the article swap contingent on swapping ads or it will seem like blackmail. Do offer to extend the arrangement to include ads, if appropriate for you, in order to save yourself and the other publisher' s time. Getting both ads and articles in one email means less administrative work for all publishers involved. And that's a good thing. 5) Send publishers a courtesy copy. While it's important to be clear in your communications about when their article will run in your publication, it shows style to send them a courtesy copy. If they offer to subscribe to your ezine, that's great. If not, be sure to send them a copy when their article is published. For added power, forward a copy of any feedback sent to you after the article runs. These little things are how relationships are formed. One last tip; after you do a few successful article swaps with a publisher offer them a multi-part series. These series are perfect for when publishers want to go on vacation. All publishers live under time pressure. If your series can fill their article needs for three weeks while they are gone and save them time too you'll have a winner. Article swaps are a powerful way to get your information seen by a broader audience, develop new relationships with publishers and more. Best of all, very few people are doing them now so doing this now will make you a trendsetter! While anyone can spew out a few hundred emails with an offer for an article swap, the more personal and targeted your requests are the more success you will have, plus you will make lasting friendships in the process. When that happens you will be in a league of your own. http://trck.me/234307/banner.jpg

What do you think of when you hear the word "test"? Do you remember that empty feeling in the pit of your stomach as you prepared for the SAT? Do you think of the grin on your least favorite teacher's face as she handed you back a paper full of red marks? Well here's the good news. Now you get to GIVE the test! Testing your ads before rolling out an ad campaign is probably the most important, yet most overlooked part of successful advertising. If you have ever saved up your money, written an ad you thought sounded good, then bought the ads only to have little or nothing happen, I have very good news for you. Today you will learn a cheap and easy way to test your ads that will practically ensure you never waste money on a bad ad again. Read carefully. More importantly, APPLY the ideas to your advertising. When you do, you will make more sales with less effort, and that's a beautiful thing! Today I'm going to share with you the #1 answer that experts give when asked about successful advertising. Cheap, and easy to do, TESTING your ad copy BEFORE you spend big bucks is by far the most important, yet most overlooked, step in the process of successful advertising. To test your ads successfully involves four essential elements. 1. WHAT TO TEST A great ad contains an attention grabbing headline, compelling body copy and a dynamic call to action. You will need to test each aspect of your ad. You can test each at the same time by using a unique URL or email address for the response. Here's what to do: Write out a series of ads for your product or service. If you need help writing, use our free report as a guideline. Make each one the best it can be. Choose your top three favorites and run those ads for one week. At the end of the week, tally the results and see which ad won. Now you have an ad that is proven to work to some extent. At this point you will begin refining the ad by changing ONE element at a time (the headline for example) and testing again. 2. WHERE TO TEST Successful testing means you may place three ads in the beginning, then three variations of the ad that pulled best. Since you don't want to go broke in the process, and want fast results, place your ad where the most people will see it. At this point you want to turn to classified ads to test your ads. Using these sources offers two big advantages. First, many are free! Second, they have huge numbers of people seeing your ad. While you won't make much money in the long run advertising in these places (that's what ezines are for!!) you will have run a free, successful test. 3. WHEN TO TEST Many people believe that Saturday is the best day to place classified ads since people who work during the week are free to surf on the weekend. While that may be true for some products, it is not true for all. The key is to run each ad for a full seven days. This way you can test not only your ad copy and where you placed the ad, but see when the ad pulled the best. Keep careful track of how many responses happen on which day. When your test is done you'll want to choose those ezines who publish on your best selling day. 4. HOW TO TRACK TEST RESULTS All of this testing is meaningless unless you track results. The good news is that tracking is easy if you keep it simple. Here's an insider tip. Add a ? and number to your URL and you can track ads for free by using your server logs. For example, if I change my URL from http://www.directoryofezines.com to http://www.directoryofezines.com/?123 you will go to the same page, but my server logs will show how many hits went to the ?123 site separately from the main page. To track your ads simply start a spreadsheet (or use a piece of paper) and create an ad chart. On top of the chart, give each ad a number, list the location and duration of the ad and allow room for daily results. Remember, it's best to use a separate email address or URL for each ad. At the end of each day tally the results of each ad. When the week is done, tally the numbers and list how many total responses you had for each ad. Which ad wins will become very clear, very quickly. A typical chart looks like this. Date Source Ad # M T W T F Total 3/28 Yahoo 003 1 12 13 19 11 56 Now you can go on to figure costs per click. To do this simply divide the amount you spent by the number of clicks. For example, let's say you advertise in an ezine that charges $45 for an ad. If you get 1000 clicks from that ad, your cost per click is $45 divided by 1000 = 4.5 cents per click. Whether the cost per click is good or bad depends on your product, how well your sales material works and your profit margins. Testing ads this way is the #1 tool of successful advertisers from Madison Avenue to the one person business operating from home. Learn to test your ads effectively and you will sell more while spending less. Now that's a beautiful thing! http://trck.me/233830/banner.jpg

Of all the ways that people have invented to sell things over the Internet, writing free articles to run in ezines is perhaps the most effective. One great thing about this method of marketing is that you can do it with NO money. So if you are just starting your Internet marketing career, put away the Visa and warm up that keyboard! Article marketing may be the perfect way to market. It's free to do. It educates prospects. It gets your message in front of thousands of interested prospects you would NEVER reach otherwise. It's viral. Best of all ... it works! So what is "article marketing" and how can it impact your world? Glad you asked. What we call "article marketing" is simply writing informative articles and having those articles run in ezines. If that sounds hard, it's not. Let's run the numbers for a moment. There are over 300,000 ezines out there. Estimates say that over 90% of them use free articles in their ezines. That means there is a HUGE market for your articles, no matter what you want to write about. We like to say it this way. From cat food to Katmandu, there's an ezine out there for everyone. You included. =====> The Big Picture The first step is to understand the goal of article marketing. The goal is to write an informative article and have it run in as many TARGETED ezines as possible. When people read the article they see your resource box at the end of the article, click to your website and buy your stuff. They learn something, you make money. Simple. Notice the emphasis on targeted? Please, please, whatever you do, do not waste an editors time with articles that they don't need. One of the greatest things about the Directory of Ezines is that you can use it to find the perfect ezines for your articles ... fast. Use the DOE, but never spam editors with articles they can't use. <Getting off soapbox now> =====> How to Write the Article You want to write an informative article about something you know. Once you chose your subject, here's the magic formula for writing the article. Five easy steps. 1. Be yourself. Don't try to write like anyone else. Let your personality shine through. 2. Tell a story. People love to hear an interesting story. 3. Limit yourself to 600 words. This is an ideal length for most ezines. Format your article to 65 characters per line with a hard return at the end of each line. 4. Have a clear opening, make three or five points it the middle, and have a brief conclusion. 5. THIS IS THE BIG ONE. Give the reader a few steps he or she can take to make your idea work for them. Tell them what to do first, second, third to accomplish the task you are writing about. If the reader can take ACTION based on what you wrote (just like you can now apply this formula to your writing) you will have delivered valuable information to them. Do that and, hopefully, they will keep reading your stuff! =====> How to Find the Right Ezines The absolute, 100% effective, surefire way to do this is to use the Directory of Ezines. Sorry, couldn't resist. Look for ezines that have these three things. First, the ezine content matches your article content. Second, the ezine accepts articles. Third, the reader is someone who would be a good customer for you. Once you nail down those basics you have found the perfect market for your articles. =====> How to Approach the Editor The BEST way to approach an editor is this. 1. Subscribe to the ezine. 2. Read a few issues. 3. Write a personal note commenting on what you enjoyed about the issues you read. 4. Offer your article as one that might fit in. 5. Ask to be informed if your article is run. 6. Thank them for their time. 7. Be available if they have questions. If an editor chooses your article, the odds are they will run your articles in the future as well. Stay in touch and you can develop close relationships with literally hundreds of editors. Remember that each editor represents thousands of readers that you may never reach any other way. Also remember that the editor is a busy person. Keep your email brief. =====> How to Maximize Your Return on Time Invested Include a "resource box" at the end of the article. A resource box is where you sell the reader on going to your website, subscribing to your ezine, or taking any other action you want them to take. Marketing with ezine articles is truly a win-win-win proposition. The publisher wins because he or she gets great free articles. The reader wins because your article is informative and tells them how to accomplish an important task as easy as 1,2,3. You win because hundreds of thousands of readers see your selling message at the end of your article. http://www.directoryofezines.com/affiliates/banners/468x60.gif

As a person who is deeply involved in the ezine advertising business, I often hear people asking "Does ezine advertising still work?" My answer to these questions is this ... Darn right they work. In fact, they work now better than ever before. Allow me to share with you, by way of this ezine, why I believe ezines still work to make sales, build credibility, establish relationships, and more. Reason One - Ezines are delivered TO the reader via EMAIL. Let me ask you this: why do 99% of the people who are online today get online in the first place? The answer still is, to send and receive email with friends and loved ones. Ten years from now when we all have pen sized devices that cost nothing, or Dick Tracy wristwatches, perhaps email will take a back seat. For now email IS the Internet. Ezines work because people REQUEST them. That's what opt-in is all about. People chose to subscribe to newsletters that discuss topics that interest them. Since they requested the information they happily read it. They WANT this information. No one is pushing it at them. Also, it really doesn't matter what the bad people do. They can send all the cheesy ads and bugs they want and we'll find a way to filter it out. Sure, the occasional message will slip through. And, sadly, people will still buy their garbage, which will only encourage them to send more. But they are irrelevant and email will still reign supreme; and that's a sure thing. How do I know this? You're reading this right now, aren't you? And I didn't do one thing special to get this message to you. That's because the system works! As long as the following things (and more) are true, email will be the main purpose of the Internet. * Parents with children at college want to stay in touch without incurring high cell phone bills. * People want to communicate with others across the globe on their own schedule. * One person can publish an electronic newsletter and deliver it to a thousand or a million people free. * Postage rates continue to increase and direct mail costs too much. People don't need to know a browser from a banana, yet they can get their favorite newsletter by email. My Aunt in Mississippi doesn't know Yahoo from Howdy Doody but she gets ezines, clicks the links and buys stuff. Email arrives on her schedule, and she likes that. Here's THE question. Are enough people hearing YOUR message? Are enough people buying YOUR products? You can bet your last dollar on this .... they ARE buying from someone. In fact, I'll prove to you they are buying. Take a look at the results of an ad I ran two weeks ago. This solo ad went one time to an ezine with about 18,000 subscribers. Raw Clicks: 1218 Unique Clicks: 957 Sales Generated : 69 Gross Profit Per Sale: $29.97 Total Gross Profit: $2067.93 Some believe that ezines are dying out and new ideas like forums and blogs (a web log that acts as a sort of digital diary) will replace newsletters delivered by email. While these things may gain some popularity, (blogs are now the 'flavor of the month' and you'll be hearing much more about them soon) they fail to overcome the ONE element that makes email stand alone as the ultimate communication medium of our time. That factor? The reader does NOT have to take action to receive your message. Blogs, forums, chats and more are fine (I run forums and use them myself) but they will never overcome the fact that people have to go to them. Ezines come to the reader with no effort on the reader's part. As long as that ONE factor remains true, email marketing, including ezines, will be an extremely effective way to market and communicate. Reason Two - Ezines are topic specific. Few other mediums offer the specific nature of ezines. People who want to know about basset hounds don't want to know about cats or even dogs in general. They want to know about their dogs, bassets. This means you can target your market with ezines more accurately than any other medium, including search engines. Ezine subscribers want information about the topic of the ezine or they wouldn't subscribe in the first place. Sure, those annoying spam filters make it a bit harder to deliver your message. But the fact remains that people who want our information will take steps to ensure they get it. If you publish helpful, relevant information the reader will read. People are quite adept at getting what they want, and that includes helpful free information. Reason Three - Ezines are helpful. The ezines that do the best job for everyone involved (the reader and the publisher) are the ones that do the least 'hard' selling. We must go back to the basic premise of an ezine. Here it is. As a publisher, I agree to give you timely, helpful information for no cost. As a reader, you agree to buy my products when you have a need for such products. While it remains unspoken, this is the basic covenant between publisher and subscriber. And it works very, very well. Ask anyone who has an active ezine what their #1 asset is and they will answer "my subscriber list" almost every time. Forget the hype about building a 'huge opt-in list' so you can promote any time you want. Producing an ezine is about relationships. The relationship the publisher establishes with the reader can only pay off for the publisher in more sales IF they publisher establishes themselves as a credible person. Do that and you will quickly discover that ezines still work very well indeed. Now, here are two quick ways to make YOUR ezine wildly popular. Do these things and you simply will not fail... One - Serve the reader. When the publisher puts their focus on serving the reader by selecting or writing the most helpful articles possible, the publisher builds trust. Trust is like money in the bank because, if you are the type of publisher who servers readers, your endorsements of products and services will carry weight. This heart toward service cannot be faked. If you really serve your readers and take the time to ensure you deliver relevant content, they will reward you with increased sales every time. Two- Establish a dialogue. Ezines are about relationships. Don't discourage readers from writing to you but rather encourage it. Ask them how they liked the article. Ask how you can serve them. Ask what they would like to read about. The more of this you do, the more you please readers. And happy readers refer other readers as well as buy products and services. While it is 100% true that ezines are profit generators second to none, how you make those profits will determine how long you stay in business. If you beat your list to a pulp with offer after offer that sound too good to be true, you can expect to stay up nights worrying about where to find the next thousand subscribers. Your subscriber turnover will be high and your peace of mind will be low. If you establish an ezine to have a voice, to serve your readers, to make honest recommendations and to begin a relationship that only email can offer, your satisfaction, profits, and peace of mind will be very high. Do ezines still work? Of course they do. Nothing works better to position you as an expert in your field, build credibility and trust, and, of course, make sales. Do they work? You're reading this one, aren't you? http://dash.trck.me/img/250x250.jpg

The term "CPM" Is widely used in business. Thus, it has many meanings. In one context CPM stands for critical path managment. In other settings it means other things. In the context of buying ezine advertising CPM stands for "cost per thousand". CPM is the cost the publisher charges per thousand subscribers for ads in his or her ezine. So if publisher Susan offers solo ads that cost $6 CPM and she has 40,000 subscribers then the cost for the solo ad would be $240. CPM costs can vary depending on the type of ad offered. Generally speaking, ezines offer the following types of ads: Solo ads Sponsor ads Classified ads Banner ads As you can imagine, each of these ad types have different costs. You would not expect to pay the same price for a solo ad as you would for a banner ad. So when you see publishers that base their price on CPM you can know that the publisher is basing the price on the cost per thousand subscribers on their list. If you need further help with costs or understanding ad types you can find more about them in the Ezine Advertising section of the Learning Center. Hope this helps. Free ezine Online Business Success Resources

Q. If safelists don't work, why do they exist? A. They exist because the person who runs the safelist gets to send a lot of ads. They can mail the entire list anytime they want. But more importantly, they get to reply to every registration with an ad. And since they usually require you to confirm your registration before you can send email, they know that your address is valid. WARNING: Some safelist owners will sell your confirmed email address to others. http://trck.me/204901/banner.jpg

Q. What are safelists and do they work? A. Safelists are a type of email marketing to a closed group of people. Here's how it works most of the time. Everyone who joins the safelists agrees to receive mail from other safelist members. Members of the safelist can send a certain number of emails to the list - usually one email per day. The email can be for anything ... it can be a pure ad, an article, almost anything. Email is sent via the safelist website. In other words, members do not download a mailing list but rather they send email after logging in to the safelist site. Some members can send more email than others. This is usually based on paying a fee or recruiting others or length of time as a member. Safelists do not work well. They expose you to tons of email solicitations and do not generally yield much in the way of results. Any results you do get from safelists are usually someone seeking something free. Sales results are very low. The reason that safelists don't work is that almost everyone who uses them registers with a free email account (such as Yahoo or Hotmail or Gmail) and then never checks that account. So, they get to send email but never really have to read any. There are some exceptions, but they are very few indeed. I would never recommend you paying to be on a safelist. Instead, focus that time and energy on more proven marketing methods. Never confuse effort with results. Safelists can take hours a day of effort but provide very little return on that time investment. http://trck.me/214155/banner.jpg

http://charliepage.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/@symbol-and-dollar-sign-274x300.jpgPart of succeeding online is knowing what success looks like. As ezine publisher I am often asked what a “good” solo ad looks like. When people ask about this they are asking me “what does a profitable solo ad look like?” They figure that modeling something that has worked will give them an edge; that knowing what success looks like and doing something similar will lead to better results. And they are right! If you have ever wondered what a highly-profitable solo ad looks like then this article will help! Today I’d like to share with you one of my most profitable solo ads. If you know me you know that I never talk about money in specific terms and never ever show my Clickbank screenshots or other “proofs” of my sales or earnings. I think doing that is in bad taste and I just won’t do it. What I will say is this – when I was launching my Ezine Advertising Live membership site this ad was responsible for more sales than any other ad I ran. I used five sets of solo ad copy for the Ezine Advertising Live launch and the ad you are going to read today was the clear winner. Since the site sold out I suppose you could say that it worked! So let’s look together at the original ad and then pull it apart to see why it worked so well. Let’s look at the ad in its entirety before we pull it apart. Read through it and see what you think. I will duplicate it below and then we can examine it section by section. PLEASE NOTE: This ad was a plain text ad. That means all I used were words – no bolding, no images and no special characters. This empowered me to run the ad in any ezine or to any list I wanted and ensured the ad would look great. I’m not saying to only use plain text ads; I’m just saying this ad was plain text which is why it looks unformatted below. PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE SOLO AD AND THEN CONTINUE What They Are Not Telling You About Solo Ads! I’m sure you have heard about solo ads by now. It seems that every business opportunity or Internet marketing course out there all say the same things. PLACE SOLO ADS EVERYWHERE YOU CAN! Know why they say to do that? Because solo ads work! But here’s what they DO NOT tell you. They don’t tell you HOW to write them. They don’t tell you WHERE to place them. They don’t tell you HOW MUCH to pay for them. BUT I WILL TELL YOU THAT AND MUCH MORE! http://www.hypertracker.com/go/charliepage/soloadsecrets/ I spent 2 HOURS on Tuesday night July 1 TEACHING Ezine Advertising Live members HOW to write a solo ad! The GOOD NEWS is that anyone can write a solo ad. The BETTER NEWS is that I’m working with Ezine Advertising Live members one-on-one to make the ads they write the BEST they can be! * * * And I want to do that for you too! * * * http://www.hypertracker.com/go/charliepage/soloadsecrets/ In fact, let me GIVE YOU a secret that I shared on that call right now. There are SIX elements to a successful solo ads. Miss ANY OF THEM and your ad will be weak. And weak ads don’t get clicks. Here are the six parts of a solo ad. The headline The claim The benefits The reason why The proof The call to action Now … HOW do you use those to YOUR advantage? You can find out RIGHT NOW in the member’s center of Ezine Advertising Live http://www.hypertracker.com/go/charliepage/soloadsecrets/ AND you can get me to help with your ads OR you can get me to write your ads for a modest fee! (details inside the member’s center) Is Ezine Advertising Live worth the money? Only if you want your ads to work. I hope you join us. Charlie Page P.S. Do you know WHY a P.S. is important? You will when you get INSTANT ACCESS to the Ezine Advertising Live members area download the audio for Call 3. http://www.hypertracker.com/go/charliepage/soloadsecrets/ — END OF ORIGINAL SOLO AD — Now let’s see why this ad worked. I’m going to show you the ad again but this time I will make notes showing you why it worked. Pay careful attention to these “reasons why” and you will be able to apply them to your own ad writing. After we take the ad apart I will share three keys that you can apply to your own ad writing beginning today! Here is the ad again with my notes about why it worked. My notes will be indented and in red. — START OF ANALYSIS — What They Are Not Telling You About Solo Ads! THIS IS MY HEADLINE The headline is the most important part of the ad. In email marketing the headline is the subject line of the email and primarily determines if the email gets opened. Here I am using fear of loss as a motivator. Many people believe there are “secrets” they are not being told and this headline works with that thought process to make the reader want to know the secret. I’m sure you have heard about solo ads by now. It seems that every business opportunity or Internet marketing course out there all say the same things. PLACE SOLO ADS EVERYWHERE YOU CAN! Know why they say to do that? Because solo ads work! THIS IS MY CLAIM … solo ads work. But here’s what they DO NOT tell you. Now we are getting into one of the most powerful parts of the ad. Telling people that there are things they need to know but not telling them what those things are is a failed advertising strategy from long ago. The key online is to be transparent and give as many details as you can so people will want what you are offering. They don’t tell you HOW to write them. They don’t tell you WHERE to place them. They don’t tell you HOW MUCH to pay for them. BUT I WILL TELL YOU THAT AND MUCH MORE! EMOTIONAL PEAK #1 THESE ARE MY BENEFITS – I WILL SHARE WITH YOU WHAT OTHERS WON’T What I have said so far is “people are succeeding with solo ads but not telling you how to do it. I will show you what they refuse to show you – exactly how to do it. And to prove that I know what you need I’m telling you three things I know you need to know.” This is the basis of “insider secrets” advertising. This was a very powerful part of the ad. VERY IMPORTANT! Every time there is an emotional peak in an ad it is vital that you immediately offer the reader a call to action. Your ad has brought them to the point of saying “YES, I want that!” and now you have to show them how to get it. Putting a call to action immediately following the emotional peak will increase clicks dramatically. http://www.hypertracker.com/go/charliepage/soloadsecrets/ THIS IS CALL TO ACTION #1 I spent 2 HOURS on Tuesday night July 1 TEACHING Ezine Advertising Live members HOW to write a solo ad! Notice the specifics here. “Two hours on July 1″ works better than “call three covered …” Be specific in your ads when you can. It helps people connect to you as a person and not as a salesman. The GOOD NEWS is that anyone can write a solo ad. The BETTER NEWS is that I’m working with Ezine Advertising Live members one-on-one to make the ads they write the BEST they can be! MORE BENEFITS – ONE ON ONE HELP. As much as possible be positive and share good news in your ads. This is actually a fear-based ad (not my normal style) but putting something positive in helped soften the sound of the ad. * * * And I want to do that for you too! * * * EMOTIONAL PEAK #2 – I will do something for them that other people will not do. Remember what comes directly after the emotional peaks? http://www.hypertracker.com/go/charliepage/soloadsecrets/ CALL TO ACTION #2 – placed directly under the emotional peak. In fact, let me GIVE YOU a secret that I shared on that call right now. THIS IS MY PROOF. If I did not know what I was talking about I could not share in such detail. There are SIX elements to a successful solo ads. Miss ANY OF THEM and your ad will be weak. Talking about weak ads reinforces the “fear of loss” theme I established in my headline. And weak ads don’t get clicks. Here are the six parts of a solo ad. The headline The claim The benefits The reason why The proof The call to action Now … HOW do you use those to YOUR advantage? You can find out RIGHT NOW in the member’s center of Ezine Advertising Live EMOTIONAL PEAK #3 – You can have it now! Immediacy is a very powerful tool to use in your advertising. I know you know what comes next! :-) http://www.hypertracker.com/go/charliepage/soloadsecrets/ CALL TO ACTION #3 – Never neglect to call for action immediately following an emotional high point. AND you can get me to help with your ads OR you can get me to write your ads for a modest fee! (details inside the member’s center) Is Ezine Advertising Live worth the money? Only if you want your ads to work. THIS IS MY REASON WHY. Why would you want to buy my product? So your ads will work better. The “reason why” can be the reason why you can deliver something OR the reason why the prospect should take action. I hope you join us. Charlie Page P.S. Do you know WHY a P.S. is important? You will when you get INSTANT ACCESS to the Ezine Advertising Live members area download the audio for Call 3. EMOTIONAL PEAK #4 – The peak here is pure curiosity. Notice how I actually asked a question and then did not answer the question. That leaves the reader needing to know the answer, and needing to buy my product to get the answer. This link generated big clicks. The P.S. is one of the first things people read so putting your hanging question here is a good strategy. http://www.hypertracker.com/go/charliepage/soloadsecrets/ CALL TO ACTION #4. I never waste an emotional peak, even if it’s in the P.S. — END OF ANALYSIS — Key Concepts To Take Away From This Article Why did it work? Because it does TWO THINGS well. Uses a Super Motivator well – the fear of loss motivator runs throughout the ad Calls for action at emotional peak points – this is very important for getting more clicks. I want you to be able to use the information in this article, so let me share with you the three keys I feel are most important. The headline matters most Your copy does not need to be long … but it does need to be powerful Tell them what to do early and often I hope you enjoyed this analysis of a successful solo ad. Feel free to copy the ad and change the wording in any way you like to make it fit the product you are promoting. If you did like this article please leave your comment below and take a brief moment to tweet it out as well. Thank you for your time! http://trck.me/204898/banner.jpg

I do feel it is important to know these things before buying ad space in any ezine. So I offer you this short list as a sort of checklist you can use when buying advertising from any ezine or list owner. How long have you been publishing an ezine or owned this list? How did you build your list? Do you use single opt in or double (verified) opt in to build your list? How often do you send solo ads? How often do you send helpful articles or tips? What is your current open rate? Do you have an average click through rate? What offer has worked the best to your list in the last 6 months? What offer has worked the worst to your list in the last 6 months? I know there are no guarantees but do you feel that my product will do well in your ezine or to your list? Is the product I am promoting a logical fit for your audience? Where can I subscribe to your list or ezine? http://trck.me/229332/banner.jpg

Generally speaking, the location of a publisher does not matter very much unless you need to geo-target. The nature of the Internet is that anyone in the world can subscribe to almost any list as long as they can access the website and sign up. My own ezine has readers from all across the globe. What is geo-targeting? Geo-targeting is simply the process of placing your ad before an audience of people who live in a specific location. That location can be as small as a neighborhood, as large as a country, or anywhere in between. Most publishers work hard to build a list from any traffic they can get without regard to the geographic location of the subscriber. So most publishers will not be able to geo-target. But there are exceptions and you need to know about them. Three ways to geo-target using ezines First - there are a few ezine publishers who specifically try to build a list by location. This is rare becuse it's so hard for the publisher to control who visits their site and subscribes. But it does happen occassionally. Second - there are some location-specific ezines available. Such an ezine might be about living in San Francisco. The high likeliehood is that only people who live in San Francisco, or those considering a move or visit to San Francisco, would read such an ezine. So it's logical to believe that ads in such an ezine would reach an audience who lives in, or visits, that city. Third - larger publishers (such as ArcaMax or NewsMax) can geo-target by the IP address of the subscriber when he or she subscribed to the ezine. This has proven effective in many cases. Geo-targeteing usually involves a slightly higher fee, or a one-time charge for processing, but is well worth it if you are promoting a location-specific event or product. So the bottom line for me is this .... If I am promoting a product that anyone can use anywhere (like a digital product or most Clickbank products) then I would not be concerned about where the subscribers are located. If I am promoting a product that is location or language specific (an event in Houston or an English-language course) then I would choose to work with publishers who can help me reach that speciifc audience I hope this helps you target your audience more tightly, which should lead to better response and more sales. Social Marketing Free Tips

For many years I have advised members to subscribe to any ezine in which they are interested in buying ads before buying ad space. Those that took my advice were happy because they got to see what regular readers see before spending their hard-earned money. In some cases members avoided a disaster by simply subscribing first. I would never pay money to an ezine in which I had not yet subscribed for three reasons. When you subscribe you see what your prospects will see. If you like what the publisher sends you they probably will like it too. That sets a favorable environment for sales because readers want quality content, not endless pitching. If you do want to buy ad space and are a subscriber you will have leverage with the publisher. Pubishers will almost always respond better when you can say you are a suscriber and let them kmow why you like their ezine. You can watch the ads that come through to determine what is selling and what is being over-promoted. If you see ads coming through for a particular product it usually indicates that the product is selling well to that audience. This is often a good starting point for contacting a pubisher. I hope you find these tips helpful. They have served me well for many years. http://trck.me/229332/banner.jpg

Ezine Advertising Terms To understand successful ezine advertising, you must know the types of ads available and the costs of those ads. The following describes the types of ads that publishers sell, as well as how they are generally priced. What is an ezine? EZINE - An ezine is an electronic newsletter sent to people who subscribe to it via email. The word "ezine" comes from combiing the "E" in electronic and the "zine" in magazine. Hence the word ezine, which is pronouced "ezeen" like the word Queen. While ezines take many forms -- some are in HTML like a web page while others are plain text -- most ezines include helpful articles about a specific subject. People subscribe to ezines in order to learn more about a subject or stay updated on a subject. Because ezines are so topic-specific they are the perfect advertising vehicle for reaching an audience who has already expressed an interest in a particular subject. Types of Ezine Ads CLASSIFIED - A typical classified ad is usually between 3 to 5 lines long and 60-65 characters per line. These types of ads are generally grouped with other ads in it's own section. SPONSOR AD - An ad that often has the title 'sponsor' or 'a message from our sponsor'. Usually between 7 to 12 lines at 65 characters per line. TOP SPONSOR AD - A sponsor ad located at the top of the ezine. Everyone sees this ad since it shows in the first 'page view' of the ezine. Sells for a premium price. MIDDLE SPONSOR AD - A middle sponsor ad is placed in the middle of the ezine generally after the first article. Sometimes called a "second sponsor ad", in some cases the ad appears within the featured article. Some publishers charge more if it appears within the article. This space cost less than a sponsor ad, but cost more than a bottom sponsor or classified ad. BOTTOM SPONSOR AD - Located at the bottom of the ezine but not included with the classified ads. This spaces sells for more than a classified and less than a middle or sponsor ad. SOLO AD - This 'ad' is actually a mailing sent to the list of subscribers of the ezine. When you buy a solo ad, your ad is the only thing the reader sees. Often can be much longer than a regular ad. Sells for a high premium. Ezine Ad Costs While there are as many ways to price an ad as there are ezines, these pricing models are the most common. Cost Per Thousand (CPM) - This is a cost per thousand subscribers to the ezine. If the ezine has 'double opt-in' subscribers the cost can be more. Cost Per Click (CPC) - This is a cost you pay for every person who visits your website from the ad. This is usually measured by some tracking system the ezine owner provides or suggests so they can ensure they are paid properly. Cost Per Action (CPA) - This is a price you pay only when a person takes the action you desire. For example, you want people to visit your web site and fill out a survey. If they visit and fill out the survey, you pay. If they visit and don't fill out the survey, you don't pay. Very few publishers sell CPA space anymore, preferring to do a Joint Venture instead if they feel the product fits their audience. Cost Per Sale (CPS) - This is a price you pay only when someone purchases your product or service. This type of ad can be sold on a straight percentage basis or on a small fee combined with a percentage basis. Free Ezine: Online Business Success Resources

Doing business online can be confusing. Nothing in the offline world prepares us to deal with terms like 'autoresponder' or 'conversion ratio'. So I've compiled this list of terms to help. If you find yourself confused about a term listed here, or need to understand a term not listed here, just enter a support ticket and we'll add the answer to your question to the site. Thanks! Ad Co-op - A site that sells ad packages comprised of ads from small ezines for a low price. These co-ops often sell classified ads, and sometimes offer sponsor or solo ads as well. The ezines are usually bundled by subject or size of subscriber base. Ad Tracker - A computer program that counts the number of times people click on a special link you create with the program. Some ad trackers can count the number of sales made as well as clicks. AdSense - Google's advertising program for website owners (which Google calls publishers) AdSense ads are displayed on your site by Google based on the keywords appearing on your site. Google will pay you an undisclosed amount of money every time someone clicks on one of the ads being displayed on your site. AdWords - Google's contextual advertising program for advertisers. Advertisers can bid on certain keywords and Google will display text ads on the search results page when people use that keyword to search. Advertorial - A special type of ad that looks and sounds like an article, but is in fact an ad. Very few publishers will allow advertorials. Autoresponder - A computer program that allows email to be sent to a list of subscribers on a scheduled basis. Email messages can be written once, and then delivered to each person who subscribes on a schedule you decide. Blog - The term blog stands for Weblog. A weblog used to be a way for website owners to communicate with a small group of people. Today, blogs have become much more as website owners sell products, offer opinions, syndicate their content, and more with blogging software and services. CAN SPAM - A law enacted in 2004 to help curb the amount of pornographic email and unsolicited commercial email being sent. Character Spacing - The number of letters and numbers making up one line of information. Classified Ad - A small text ad, usually appearing in an ezine. Classified ads are generally three to five lines deep by 65 characters wide. Content - This term simply means the words on your website but has taken on a new meaning as syndication is becoming more widespread. See syndication for more detail. Conversion Ratio - Generally understood to be the percentage of people who come to your site and take the action your site asks them to take. Example- If 2 out of every 100 new visitors buys something, your conversion ratio for sales is 2%. Understanding this percentage is important because it tells you if your site is causing people to take the action you want them to take, be that subscribing to an ezine or buying something today. Copywriting - The process of writing the words for a web page. Co-Registration - This is where a company helps you build your mailing list by getting their visitors to register for your mailing list. Some companies do this for a living and you pay them by the subscriber, usually anywhere from 15 cents to $1.50 per subscriber. CPA / CPS - CPA stands for Cost Per Action, and CPS stands for Cost Per Sale. These are arrangements where the advertiser pays the publisher only when a particular action (like a visit to a website or a sale) occurs. Most publishers don't like CPA advertising because it's hard to verify that the action took place. CPM - Stands for cost per thousand. CPM is a way of pricing ads where the advertiser pays a fixed cost per thousand subscribers to whom the ad is sent. A common way to buy advertising offline, CPM pricing is not widely used online, but is an excellent way to compare costs between different advertising mediums. CTR (Click through rate) - CTR is the number of people who click on your pay per click ad compared to the number of people who view the ad. Example: If 1000 people see your ad and 100 click the ad, your CTR is 10%. Display URL - A pay per click term meaning the web address (URL) you want people to see when they see your ad. In most cases it can be different from the Target URL, which allows you to use an ad tracker without people seeing the long ad tracker link. Directory - A categorized list of information. Yahoo is a directory where Google is a search engine. Double or Verified Opt-in - The process of having subscribers confirm their desire to receive your information by clicking on a confirmation link sent to them via email. This second step ensures that the person verifying their subscription made the original request. Downline - A term that describes the group of people in an MLM who have joined that program under a specific sponsor. Download - The process of saving a file to your personal computer from a website. On Windows PCs it usually involves clicking a link with the right mouse button. On a Mac it usually involves holding down the shift key while clicking a link. In both cases, you then choose where on your computer to store the file. Ebook - An electronic book, suitable for reading on a computer monitor. Some eBooks come in EXE format and can only be viewed on a Windows computer. The new standard is to create eBooks in PDF format, which can be viewed by any computer, or (in most cases) printed. Editor - A person who contributes content to an online publication or webpage. Unlike a webmaster, an editor is usually responsible for only certain pages on a website and can generally only add or edit contributions they make to the site. Ezine - (Electronic magazine) Much like an offline newsletter, ezines exist primarily to deliver information to their readers. They support the costs of publishing by selling advertising. Like their offline counterparts, ezine publishers usually don't write the articles they include in their ezine, but instead use the articles of others to create their ezine content. Follow Up Series - A series of email messages delivered over time to prospective customers who have requested further information. FTP - Stands for File Transfer Protocol. A computer program that allows transfer of files from your personal computer to a web server. Using FTP is the most common way to transfer web pages to a web server when you create a web site. Transferring files is accomplished using a program called an FTP program. Forum - An online gathering of people with a common interest. Forums are run using a forum script (software) that allows the moderator to approve messages to display as well as displaying messages in subject order. HTML - Stands for HyperText Markup Language, HTML is the code that causes web pages to display text and pictures. Joint Venture - Usually an agreement between a person who owns a mailing list and a person who wants to promote a product where the list owner mails an ad for the product and earns a percentage of all sales. Lead Generation - The process of getting people to ask for more information about a particular product. The term lead generation is often used in the MLM business, and sometimes used to describe the process of co-registration. Moderator - The person who controls which messages are displayed on a forum. The moderator is usually an expert in the subject of the forum he or she moderates, and helps keep inappropriate postings off the list of messages forum members see. Inappropriate messages are usually messages that contain foul language, hate, or blatant advertising. MP3 - A type of audio file that can be heard on personal computers or MP3 players. Most teleseminars are recorded in MP3 format for later listening. Name Squeeze - A process invented by Jonathan Mizel that describes a short web page that teases the reader with some information and then encourages them to provide their name and email address to get further information. Name Squeeze is often used for lead generation. Network Marketing (MLM) - A type of business that pays commissions to people based on the sales of other people that they recruit. The person who recruits others is called the upline, while the person who was recruited is called the downline. Niche Marketing - Selling products and services to a group of people with a common interest. Although the name "niche marketing" is heard often these days, marketers have always focused on "niches" in order to make sales. Opt-in - The process of a reader requesting more information from a site. The reader is opting to be included on a mailing list, hence opt-in. All legitimate email marketers use an opt-in process to ensure that their selling messages go only to people who want to receive them. Opt-In Subscriber - Ezines are only sent to people (subscribers) who ask for the ezine by emailing a request to receive the ezine or filling out a form on a website where the ezine is offered. This opt-in process is important because it ensures that the ezine is delivered to people who are interested enough to request it. Ezines are not mailed to non-subscribers, and have nothing to do with bulk email or spam. Opt-out - The process of sending email to people and telling them they must ask to be taken off the list in order to stop receiving email. Opt-out is a bad marketing technique and most often associated with spammers. PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising) - A type of advertising in which the advertiser pays only when someone clicks on his or her ad. Google AdWords and Overture are the best examples of pay-per-click advertising, although some website owners now offer PPC to advertisers as well. PDF - Stands for Portable Document Format. A trademark of the Adobe Company, PDF files can be read by any computer that has the free Adobe PDF reader. Publisher - The person or company who produces an ezine. In the case of a large ezine, there might also be an editor who is responsible for the content of the ezine. Most ezine publishers also edit their ezine. RSS - RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is one format that websites use to syndicate content. To see content that is syndicated you need a special program (called an aggregator) or you can view it on certain websites designed for this purpose. Sales Letter - The words on a webpage that convince visitors to buy products. Script - A set of commands that cause a computer to act in a particular way. There are many scripting languages (such as PERL and PHP) and these languages are the "code" that programmers use to create programs. Search Engine - A site that finds other sites or files based on keywords. Google is a search engine where Yahoo is a directory. SEO - Stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is the process of changing your webpage so that it is more attractive to search engines. When a webpage is properly optimized it is shown more often and in a higher ranking on the search engine results page. Shopping Cart - A script or service that allows website owners to have autoresponders, create order forms, create a catalog of products, manage client lists, deliver digital products, run an affiliate program, and more - all from one site or using one piece of software. Solo Ad - An ad that is mailed to a list of ezine subscribers on its own. Since no other ads are included in the email sent to subscribers, the ad can be said to be running "solo". Split Test - The process of sending visitors to different sales pages in order to test the effectiveness of those sales pages. Often called A/B split testing, a program sends visitors to alternative sales letters randomly even though they clicked the same link. Sponsor Ad - An ezine ad that is larger than a classified but smaller than a solo. Sponsor ads are generally 10 to 20 lines deep by 65 characters wide and appear at the top of the ezine. They can also appear in the middle of the ezine (middle sponsor) or the bottom of the ezine (bottom sponsor). The prices of these ads vary, with top sponsor ads costing the most and bottom sponsor ads the least. Subscriber - A person who asks to join a mailing list. Syndication - The process of displaying content from one site on another site. This is usually accomplished by adding several lines of JavaScript to the HTML code of the web page where the content is to be displayed. Target Marketing - The process of selling goods and services to a group of people who have a common interest. This term is identical to niche marketing. Testing Ads - The process of running one ad multiple times in the same ezine and changing one element of the ad (such as the headline) each time. The goal of testing is to discover which combination of ad elements (headline, body copy, call to action) work best with each other. Testing can also mean running the same ad in different ezines to see how it performs in front of different audiences. Tracking Ads - The process of putting a tracking link in your ad. A tracking link is one that, when clicked, will record the click and redirect the reader to the site you want them to see. Target URL - (Also called the destination URL) A pay per click term meaning the website where people will go when they click on your ad. Teleseminar - A phone call where many people can listen and (usually) several experts discuss a particular topic. Teleseminar calls are often recorded and provided to customers in MP3 format for later listening. Thank You Page - The page a customer is sent to upon successful payment for a product. The thank you page is often where links are provided to download the product purchased. Transactional Email - An email that relates to a purchase made by a customer and one that does not contain a selling message. Upload - The process of transferring a file from a local computer to a web server. Uploading is most often done using software and a process called FTP. Verified Opt-in - See Double Opt In listed above. Web Host - A company that rents space on a web server to customers who want to have a web page. Webmaster - The person who runs a website from a technical standpoint. The webmaster is usually the person who creates and uploads the webpages to the web server and maintains control over the entire site. WYSIWYG - Stands for What You See Is What You Get and means that the page that is printed or displayed will look identical to the one that is composed. http://trck.me/207419/banner.jpg

It’s all too easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life and forget to do those basic things that create real results in our lives. While posting video and Twittering are all fine and good, we MUST use the basic and proven methods of marketing if we want to survive and thrive. And email marketing is one of those basics, one you might be overlooking right now. It is undeniable that the MOST powerful form of marketing online today is email marketing. If you look at any major product launch you will see they are done with email marketing. Even these silly “email is dead” desktop delivery products are sold using the medium they claim to be replacing … email! Ever wonder why? The reason is simple. Email marketing works! Recent studies show that over 40% of people surveyed buy things online based on an email they receive. I know I do, and I’m willing to guess that you have bought products too that you learned about in your email inbox. And who hasn’t visited a site and filled in a form to learn more about a product they were interested in? These things are now a part of all good marketing. The President uses email. Your bank uses email. All online marketers (every single one) uses email. Isn’t it time you experienced the full power of email marketing too? While video might be replacing long written sales letters (it is) nothing will replace email. In fact, every sales letter you see that is done with video contains that ever-present “sign up for the next video” box for you to fill in. And then it’s the email follow up that sells us on taking action. I know you know this because you, like me, get all those “act now” messages! So now the questions is this – how can YOU use ethical, permission based email marketing to promote the products or programs that will help YOU earn a full time living online? Here are five ways you can use email to do more. To sell more. To keep more customers happy. I hope you use each one. 1. CUSTOMER FOLLOW UP Whether it’s a simple as a one-time ‘thank you’ or as elaborate as a 50 message follow up system, customers love to know you care. At a minimum, send one message thanking customers for every order. To power up this idea, create a follow up system using your favorite autoresponder and offer your customer more chances to buy. Share neat ways they can use the product they bought from you. Be helpful in every way you can. If you do nothing more than give a hearty recommendation for the products you use and like you will sell more than ever AND help your customers too. They are likely having the same problems you face. If you have a solution, share it. Keep messages short and they will always be welcome. 2. CUSTOMER LEARNING Do you offer a product that takes a bit of learning to use? Most products do take a bit of instruction to master. Teach your customers how to get the benefits they deserve from your product or service via email. Keep messages on topic and separate your follow up series into bite-size learning pieces. These follow up messages can bring your refund rate to near zero … a good thing indeed. 3. PRE-SALES SERIES This is what most people think of when they think about email marketing. Sending emails to sell a product. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, statistics prove it works! Think about this – if even the best websites out there only convert 2% of visitors into customers on their first visit what happens to the 98% of people who don’t buy? Sadly, this is what happens. They leave They never come back They buy from someone else Bummer. The good news is that all of this can be avoided if you just capture their name and email address so you can remind them to return. After all, they didn’t land on your site by accident. They were looking for something and the odds are YOU have what they want. They just weren’t convinced the first time around. And that’s perfectly natural. How often do you buy the first thing you see? Comparison shopping is the way of the Internet, and getting prospective customers to return to your site is the challenge. A pre-sale series is the answer! This is actually very easy to do. Just write down the top ten reasons why someone should buy from you, then put each in a follow up message. Send one a day until they are all delivered. Offer the series to everyone who visits your site and let time do the selling work for you! Our experience has been that up to 60% of visitors will take your free information if you do a good job of selling the idea. In my 12 or so years online there have been a handful of things I have learned that are absolute. One of them is this – every website can sell more if they use email marketing well. End of story. 4. SPECIAL PRICING AND REVIEWS Use email to deliver insider information on special bargains, limited time pricing, and more. Much like a coupon sheet in your local newspaper, selling advertising in this type of email is a breeze. The idea here is simple – YOU do the research and prove the value of products and then report on that to people on the list. When they buy they buy from YOUR affiliate link and everyone wins! 5. HARD TO FIND NEWS Want to know THE secret to building a loyal mailing list? Give the people what they want! People love offbeat news, especially when it has a connection to their lives. For the best example of this on the Net today visit this site. You’ll love it! I’ve been a subscriber for years and suggest you subscribe too. Even more ways to make money with email marketing. More ideas about how to use email to sell more could include: Announce Special Events Do A JV With Someone Whose Product Compliments Yours Sell A Message In Your Follow Up Series Teach Affiliates How To Sell More FOR You Create A Discussion To Research Your Next Product Email is everywhere and tremendously effective. But it can be one of those methods that gets overlooked in the rush to find the Next Big Thing. Don’t fall into that trap – make sure your email marketing is rock-solid and then experiment all you want with the “next big thing” as time allows. Start to USE email in your business today and I can guarantee you will make more money with less effort in the months to come. And THAT is a beautiful thing indeed! http://trck.me/214806/banner.jpg

There is a gut wrenching mistake that many people who are wanting to succeed online are making. I made this mistake for years before I discovered how easy it was to correct. I can’t imagine how much money I left on the table during those lean years. Ironic because I really needed to make money back then! I was so busy trying this and trying that I ended up overlooking what would have solved my problem! Live and learn. If any of these descriptions fit you then you may be making this mistake right now. If you are I will share with you how to fix the mistake in this very article. Are you … An affiliate marketer Involved in MLM or network marketing? Just starting out and trying to make money online? Needing to build a real online business to replace your day job? Out of work and needing to earn a living online rather than find another job? A product owner who needs to make more sales from the visitors to your site? A person who owns a blog and gets some traffic but is not making sales? Confused about online marketing, suffering from information overload and just not sure what to do next or who to trust? If you answered yes to any of the items on the list above you owe it to yourself to discover and correct the #1 Internet Marketing mistake. You can do that free right now, right here … Let me cut to the chase. No need to beat around the bush. When it comes to making money online there is one overwhelming truth. You either have a list of your own or you are at the mercy of those who do! I know that might sound harsh but it’s true. Having your own mailing list is not optional to online success, it’s mandatory. Quickly think of three people who you consider to be the most successful people you know of online and I can almost guarantee that they all have large lists of their own. Prospect lists Customer lists Multiple buyers lists JV lists Ezine subscriber lists These lists are quite literally gold online. Their lists make them money. Your list can make you money too. Imagine wanting to promote and not having to worry about how to get traffic! You just send a message to your list! You must have your own list, and you need it as soon as possible, which is why … NOT USING AN EMAIL FOLLOW UP SYSTEM IS THE #1 MARKETING MISTAKE! The logic on this simply cannot be denied. Think about it for a moment. If your site is WILDLY successful, it will convert sales at a rate of about 5%. That means that only 5 out of every 100 visitors buys something from the site. This leads us to the most important question of all. WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER 95 VISITORS?? I can tell you right now what happens to them. They forget you. They get distracted. They want to return to your site but forget your URL so they Google you and find other sites! They spend their money on something else. They buy a product like yours from someone else. Bottom line – they do NOT buy from you. The fact is this … on the Internet it is the LAST SITE A PERSON VISITS who gets the sale. This is why we MUST remind them to come back and visit again. WE MUST REMIND THEM, not hope they will return. Now if all of this “lost sales” talk is getting you down let me tell you that you can be of good cheer. There IS an answer. The answer is to create an email follow up system. Email is THE killer application of the Internet. Always has been, and still is today. People can talk until they are blue in the face about alternatives like RSS or desktop readers. But while they are doing that, people everywhere are succeeding using what may be the most low-tech tool online … email. If you are with me so far, and you think that creating a follow up system might be right for you, read on. How To Create An Email Follow Up System TODAY! Here is the five step formula you can use to create a simple follow up system. Using this process will help you create a basic follow up system that WILL increase your sales. I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS METHOD FAIL! There are many ways to create a more sophisticated system, but this basic process works like wings, and is 100% better than no follow up system! Remember, you do NOT need to be a great writer to do this. Something is much better than nothing. Candidly, I have seen nothing more than “Thank you for visiting -I want your business” work very well Step 1 Make a list of 10 reasons someone should buy your product. If you have trouble with this, say it out loud like you were telling your best friend. If you can’t come up with 10 reasons, come up with 5. If you can’t come up with 5, find another product! :-) Step 2 Make each of the 10 reasons into a short message. Here’s how to do that. Write one paragraph of introduction. It can be as simple as “Thank you for visiting my site. I hope this information helps you” Write one paragraph about the reason to buy you are covering. Write one paragraph that summarizes your message, and asks the reader to take a specific action. Please note that being specific is the key. Tell them what to do next. Don’t hope they will figure it out. IMPORTANT: Write your messages in a text editor like NotePad, not a word processor like Word. Step 3 Now that you have your messages, you need a way to deliver them and get people to sign up. Create an account with an autoresponder company or use the autoresponder feature in your shopping cart for this. Any reputable company will help you create a sign up form, and help you get it on your website or blog as well. I use and like Aweber. I suggest you use them too. Step 4 Set your message to go out every three days. Some argue for other schedules, but this one works and is a good starting point when beginning. You can ‘fine tune’ later. Another method that works well is to send a message every day for a week and then send messages about twice a week. The logic here is that people are most interested when they first ask for more information, so it makes sense to send more up front. Step 5 Add a sign up box to every page on your website or blog, inviting visitors to ask for more information. Why every page and not just the home page? Because it takes time for people to get comfortable enough to want more information. Because they might miss it on the first page. Because repetition works on the Internet, and the more you ask, the more you get! When you have time later, you can add power to this by offering a gift, or using a “name squeeze” technique, but for now getting started is what counts. If you have followed the steps above, you now have a basic follow up system that WILL help you make more sales. As time goes by, you can add more messages, make the messages stronger, analyze which messages work best (and more) to make your series work better. But hear me when I say that NOTHING you can do is more important than getting this basic system set up today. IF YOU HAD STARTED BUILDING YOUR OWN LIST THE FIRST DAY YOU STARTED TRYING TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE WOULD YOU BE BETTER OFF TODAY? I believe the answer is yes! When you have a follow up system in place, you have the chance to make more sales automatically, and get a greater return on your advertising dollars than ever before. You have a chance to make the most of every visitor, which is called in fancy language “maximizing visitor value”. Best of all, you make time your ally instead of your enemy, and have the best possible chance of making more sales with less effort. And that is a beautiful thing indeed!

Let's say that you have written a great ad and found just the perfect ezines in which to place your ad by dipping into the rich resources of the Directory of Ezines. Your ad is set. You have found the most cost-effective places to run your ad. Now what? Now it's time to be ready to take advantage of the responses that come in. Did you know that over half of the people who respond to any ad will not buy the first time? In fact, research has shown that it can take an average of seven contacts before a person buys from you. This means you need a plan to capture those sales which otherwise would be lost. To maximize the profit potential from each ad you run, use this five-step formula to create a super charged follow up system. 1. Plan to send each prospect a series of seven messages. These messages can be sent at any interval you like, but covering all seven messages within two weeks is usually accepted as the longest time frame to use. 2. Write your introduction and summary messages first. You don't have to be a great writer to pull this off, just write these messages like you would tell someone about your product. In the introduction and summary, focus on the big picture of how your product or service benefits the prospect. Remember, people buy what your product will do FOR THEM, not only what it will do. 3. Take a sheet of paper and write out the five top reasons to buy your product. Once you have those, write out a benefit statement for each one. Here's a benefit statement for the DOE to use as an example. Clients will SAVE TIME AND MONEY with the Directory of Ezines because they can access a huge database that lists all the details they need to make a smart decision about buying advertising. In this example accessing the huge database is the feature, but saving time and money is the benefit. 4. Write one message about each of the five benefits you listed. This message does NOT need to be long to be powerful. In fact, this is one case where shorter can be better. Make the entire message about how the client will gain this benefit from using your product. Add testimonials from people who have enjoyed this benefit if you have them. 5. Ask for the order in every message!! Don't forget this important step! Your prospect needs to not only hear your selling message an average of seven times, but they also need to hear you ask for the order every time. At the end of each message ask the prospect if they would like to have the benefit you just described. Assume they will say yes and then immediately show them how easy it is to get it by adding a link to your order page. Whether you keep up with those who respond in your email program or use an autoresponder to do it, following up will skyrocket your Return on Investment (ROI) for each ad you run. Take that extra money and buy more ads, which create more sales, and soon you will have a powerful marketing system that will allow you to reach your goals.

f you are like me, you are ALWAYS on the lookout for an easier way to sell your products, get people to join your opportunity, or subscribe to your ezine. Today we take a look at how to do that using safelists. Safelists CAN BE one of the hidden gems of Internet marketing. You can sell any product or service with safelists, but if you are a member of SFI, Cash Evolution, or another opportunity-oriented program, pay special attention. If you've ever wondered "Do people really READ that mail?" or "Isn't that just a trick to get my email address?" then read on. Today we look at the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to safelists. Here's a situation that happens every day. A person, much like you or me, who wants to quit the day-to-day grind of working for someone else, joins an affiliate program. Or maybe they create an eBook. Or maybe they invent a product they want to sell. In any event, they are now entering the world of Internet marketing. That mysterious world that made Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com a billionaire but withholds its rewards to 97% of people who do business online. That's right folks, 97% of us will fail online. The only sure way to become one of the 3% (no, I'm not selling an eBook) is to use EVERY tool to your advantage. Let's look at one of the lesser known, yet more powerful, tools available .... safelists. =====> What Is a Safelist? A safelist is an email mailing list that people join (of their own free will) which enables them to send email offers to all the other members in exchange for agreeing to receive email from those other members. So you get to mail, but you have to agree to receive mail too. And no one gets spammed. Some safelists are free while others charge a small annual fee. Those that charge a fee often offer you the ability to send mail without having to receive any. So how does this crazy arrangement work? Don't people just sign up with a Yahoo account and never read the mail in order to get to send mail? Used to be that way. Ain't that way any more. Today, safelists have grown up. It had to happen. After all, every advertising medium started out rough and then became more polished. Safelists have matured in three important ways. 1. In order to get people to actually read the mail that gets sent, smart safelist operators now give away cash money every week. The trick is, they hide it in some random email. So in order to win the $1000, you've got to read the mail. This strategy alone has caused safelists to become very appealing, since much more of the mail is now being read. 2. Safelist owners have instituted rules to stop people from ruining their list. By placing a limit on how often you post, banning attachments and more safelist operators control their lists tightly. 3. Safelists have become web-based. This is the big one. You NEVER download some list, add them to your address book and send to them via your email program. It's all on the web now and can be done in only a few minutes. And the mail is sent from their web server, not yours. =====> Why Use a Safelist? This one is easy. Ever see those ads, "Send your message to a zillion people a day without spamming!!!" While the message may be what you find at the north end of a south bound bull, the IDEA is not. Safelists attract thousands and thousands of people who want to promote the affiliate program they recently joined, test market a new product or service, get people to sign up for their newsletter, and more. These people are opportunity seekers. While they may not read the latest herbal viagra ad that is sent to them unsolicited, they DO pay attention to ads from the safelist that interest them. And there are thousands of members to advertise to. =====> How To Use a Safelist If you are going to use a safelist to promote your product, service, or opportunity, do it smart. Here are some key elements to help you get started. This is hard-won information, folks, so use it wisely. 1. ONLY use web-based safe lists. NEVER download a list, buy a CD, or anything else where you send the mail from your ISP. You will loose your Internet connection and more. If you stick with web-based safelists you will do well. 2. Follow the rules. I know you wouldn't violate the rules on purpose, but who has time to read all that fine print? Let me save you some time. If you don't promote porn or hate, don't use an autoresponder as the email address where you receive mail, and don't post more often that you are allowed (each list has different rules), you will be fine on 99% of safelists. So go forth and make money! Don't try to sell your primary product on safelists. Told you it sounded stupid. What I mean is this: People on safelist read a *lot* of mail. Don't try to close the sale in the three to five seconds they give you. Think of it just like you would a classified ad. Use a powerful headline (subject line) and try to create *curiosity* about your product. Get the reader to send for more information or visit your website. Use safelists to get them into your marketing system, and let your follow-up system make the sale. Don't hype it up and don't over-promise. What you offer is the real deal. Tell them what's in it for them. That's what they want to hear. And don't copy and paste the same ad that every other affiliate is using. If at all possible, write your own ad or pay someone twenty bucks to write you a good one. But don't sound like everyone else. 4. Target your ad. Really good safelists are broken into categories you choose when you join. This way you can advertise to a smaller, but much more targeted, group of people who have expressed a prior interest in your product or opportunity. 5. Use the power of repetition. Get a great ad. Go to your safelists on a set schedule and post the same ad over and over. This really works! The reason it works is that repetition is the mother of learning (surveys prove people need to see the same ad seven times in order to buy), in addition to the many new people who join the safelist every week. It doesn't matter if you are sick to death of your ad. It matters that your ad works. When it stops working, pull it. Until then, if it ain't broke ... don't fix it. =====> Are Safelists Safe? To be sure, there was a dark side to the old fashioned safelists. You would sign up and get spam out the ... ear. It still makes sense to use a free email account on safelists, although it's not as critical as it was before. And now you can pay a little and never get mail. The good news is that safelists have been around long enough that they have become a legitimate Internet marketing tool, even if most of your competitors haven't figured that out yet. Big-time Internet marketers like Andrew Fox and Lawrence Pryor have started their own safelist services. Most well- known Internet marketers have used safelists from time to time to boost sales or add new subscribers to their ezine. The bottom line is this: safelists can work. How well they work is up to you. Use the information above as a starting point and give some safelists a try. Don't expect to get rich overnight, but you should see results quickly if you do it right. Good luck! f you are like me, you are ALWAYS on the lookout for an easier way to sell your products, get people to join your opportunity, or subscribe to your ezine. Today we take a look at how to do that using safelists. Safelists CAN BE one of the hidden gems of Internet marketing. You can sell any product or service with safelists, but if you are a member of SFI, Cash Evolution, or another opportunity-oriented program, pay special attention. If you've ever wondered "Do people really READ that mail?" or "Isn't that just a trick to get my email address?" then read on. Today we look at the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to safelists. Here's a situation that happens every day. A person, much like you or me, who wants to quit the day-to-day grind of working for someone else, joins an affiliate program. Or maybe they create an eBook. Or maybe they invent a product they want to sell. In any event, they are now entering the world of Internet marketing. That mysterious world that made Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com a billionaire but withholds its rewards to 97% of people who do business online. That's right folks, 97% of us will fail online. The only sure way to become one of the 3% (no, I'm not selling an eBook) is to use EVERY tool to your advantage. Let's look at one of the lesser known, yet more powerful, tools available .... safelists. =====> What Is a Safelist? A safelist is an email mailing list that people join (of their own free will) which enables them to send email offers to all the other members in exchange for agreeing to receive email from those other members. So you get to mail, but you have to agree to receive mail too. And no one gets spammed. Some safelists are free while others charge a small annual fee. Those that charge a fee often offer you the ability to send mail without having to receive any. So how does this crazy arrangement work? Don't people just sign up with a Yahoo account and never read the mail in order to get to send mail? Used to be that way. Ain't that way any more. Today, safelists have grown up. It had to happen. After all, every advertising medium started out rough and then became more polished. Safelists have matured in three important ways. 1. In order to get people to actually read the mail that gets sent, smart safelist operators now give away cash money every week. The trick is, they hide it in some random email. So in order to win the $1000, you've got to read the mail. This strategy alone has caused safelists to become very appealing, since much more of the mail is now being read. 2. Safelist owners have instituted rules to stop people from ruining their list. By placing a limit on how often you post, banning attachments and more safelist operators control their lists tightly. 3. Safelists have become web-based. This is the big one. You NEVER download some list, add them to your address book and send to them via your email program. It's all on the web now and can be done in only a few minutes. And the mail is sent from their web server, not yours. =====> Why Use a Safelist? This one is easy. Ever see those ads, "Send your message to a zillion people a day without spamming!!!" While the message may be what you find at the north end of a south bound bull, the IDEA is not. Safelists attract thousands and thousands of people who want to promote the affiliate program they recently joined, test market a new product or service, get people to sign up for their newsletter, and more. These people are opportunity seekers. While they may not read the latest herbal viagra ad that is sent to them unsolicited, they DO pay attention to ads from the safelist that interest them. And there are thousands of members to advertise to. =====> How To Use a Safelist If you are going to use a safelist to promote your product, service, or opportunity, do it smart. Here are some key elements to help you get started. This is hard-won information, folks, so use it wisely. 1. ONLY use web-based safe lists. NEVER download a list, buy a CD, or anything else where you send the mail from your ISP. You will loose your Internet connection and more. If you stick with web-based safelists you will do well. 2. Follow the rules. I know you wouldn't violate the rules on purpose, but who has time to read all that fine print? Let me save you some time. If you don't promote porn or hate, don't use an autoresponder as the email address where you receive mail, and don't post more often that you are allowed (each list has different rules), you will be fine on 99% of safelists. So go forth and make money! 3. Here's an insider tip from the DOE Insider. This one really works, although it sounds .... stupid. Don't try to sell your primary product on safelists. Told you it sounded stupid. What I mean is this: People on safelist read a *lot* of mail. Don't try to close the sale in the three to five seconds they give you. Think of it just like you would a classified ad. Use a powerful headline (subject line) and try to create *curiosity* about your product. Get the reader to send for more information or visit your website. Use safelists to get them into your marketing system, and let your follow-up system make the sale. Don't hype it up and don't over-promise. What you offer is the real deal. Tell them what's in it for them. That's what they want to hear. And don't copy and paste the same ad that every other affiliate is using. If at all possible, write your own ad or pay someone twenty bucks to write you a good one. But don't sound like everyone else. 4. Target your ad. Really good safelists are broken into categories you choose when you join. This way you can advertise to a smaller, but much more targeted, group of people who have expressed a prior interest in your product or opportunity. 5. Use the power of repetition. Get a great ad. Go to your safelists on a set schedule and post the same ad over and over. This really works! The reason it works is that repetition is the mother of learning (surveys prove people need to see the same ad seven times in order to buy), in addition to the many new people who join the safelist every week. It doesn't matter if you are sick to death of your ad. It matters that your ad works. When it stops working, pull it. Until then, if it ain't broke ... don't fix it. =====> Are Safelists Safe? To be sure, there was a dark side to the old fashioned safelists. You would sign up and get spam out the ... ear. It still makes sense to use a free email account on safelists, although it's not as critical as it was before. And now you can pay a little and never get mail. The good news is that safelists have been around long enough that they have become a legitimate Internet marketing tool, even if most of your competitors haven't figured that out yet. Big-time Internet marketers like Andrew Fox and Lawrence Pryor have started their own safelist services. Most well- known Internet marketers have used safelists from time to time to boost sales or add new subscribers to their ezine. The bottom line is this: safelists can work. How well they work is up to you. Use the information above as a starting point and give some safelists a try. Don't expect to get rich overnight, but you should see results quickly if you do it right. Good luck! http://trck.me/225124/banner.jpg