Solo Ads Advertising » Solo Ads Advertising Tips

Solo Ads: Essential Questions & Answers

Adrian Jock — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:16:00 +0000

Almost anyone knows that the solo ads are the best form of ezine advertising. However, many marketers have only some vague ideas on how to properly use them. Some of them understand that something is wrong in what they did only after they failed. Others never understand the reality (it’s easier to blame all the other people but not themselves!)

Today’s article is a mini-guide for email advertisers looking to improve the results of their solo advertising campaigns. For an easier reading and understanding, the essential principles I will talk about today are shown in a Q & A (Questions & Answers) format.

Q: Paid vs. Free Solo Ads. Why should I pay for a solo advert if there are so many places (safelists, text ad exchanges) where I can get them for free?

A: Why do you think that so many online businesses fail? No offence, but where there is a crowd there are also a lot of losers. Choose your model carefully and don’t lose contact with the real world. When was the last time when a stranger gave you something valuable for free? … No one gives away something really valuable. No one. Most of the online freebies value exactly what you pay for them (nothing, to be more specific). If you have something of value, what do you do with it? Do you keep it for yourself or your family, do you sell it, or do you give it away to a stranger?

Q: Where shall I buy solo ads from? Can you recommend a responsive newsletter or a good email marketing service? Shall I type “solo ads” in my favored search engine and buy from the places listed on the first page?

A: All such approaches are wrong.

First you need to understand the difference between targeted and untargeted advertising. Let’s say that you want to promote the latest SF book you wrote. If you promote it in a newsletter distributed to the members of the association “We hate books”, then you will fail. That’s not targeted advertising, neither untargeted advertising, but dumb advertising. If you promote it in a health newsletter, then you shoot in the dark. The people have subscribed to that newsletter because they want to get health info. Some of them may like to read a book from time to time, others may hate books. You don’t have a clue. What you know for sure about them is that they want something you do NOT offer (health info). That’s untargeted
advertising. Finally, if you promote your book to the newsletter distributed to the members of the association “We love SF” … then it’s obvious that you have serious chances to sell your book. That’s targeted advertising.

Now let’s come back to the original questions…

I don’t know what you will promote tomorrow, neither what you will promote next week. If I recommend you a very good health newsletter and you’re gonna promote your SF book, will this help you in any way? Nope …

If you type that keyword in your search engine, what results will you get? The best newsletters in the niche you’re interested in? No way. You’ll get a list of sites arranged by that search engine using a formula that does NOT involve factors like the quality or the topic of the newsletter.

Then … What to do? Be specific, refine your research and always look for ezines that have the same topic like the product or service you plan to promote.

Q: I’m not interested in reading the newsletter I plan to publish my ad in. Shall I waste my time and subscribe to it?

A: That’s a must. You’re not wasting your time, you’re avoiding a potential failure. What if that newsletter doesn’t exist? Or what if only poor quality content is published there? What if the subscribers are bombarded with ads? What if … You’ll never find the answers to these questions and many others unless you subscribe and read the newsletter. Then decide whether you place the order or not.

To Your Success!
Adrian Jock

P.S. For more interesting ezine advertising tips, you can subscribe free to Ezine Advertising Info newsletter.

P.P.S. Recommended reading: Ultimate Guide to Solo Ads

You have permission to use the article above for your ezine, website or any other public print as long as you include the entire article and the resource box (”P.S.”), without any modification.

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Solo Ads: Agony, Ecstasy, or Nothing?

Adrian Jock — Mon, 03 May 2010 16:22:41 +0000

Solo ads advertising is the most effective form of ezine advertising but it has the same risk that all the other types of advertising have: no one can really guarantee you that you’ll get the results you expect. If you don’t prepare carefully your advertising campaign, the failure waits for you just around the corner.

So basically you have three options:

1) Don’t advertise and you won’t fail. However, if you follow this path, there is a “minor” inconvenient: you don’t have any chance to succeed; or

2) Don’t waste too much of your time, write or copy quickly an advert and buy some ad space in an ezine. Then check the results and come to the conclusion that ezine advertising is dead; or

3) Forget marketing messages like “Make money doing nothing/while sleeping”, forget excuses like “I’m not a copywriter” or “This advertisement is very good because my guru told me so” and start working.

You hate the last method, don’t you? Work … brr! I know that, but … doing nothing gets you nothing. Always. So … you have to choose what is gonna be: agony or ecstasy? Or nothing …

If the success is your target, then you have to accept some unpleasant activities: work and test, refine and then test again. Testing is the magic keyword for any serious advertiser. Why? People are so different that no one, not even the best copywriter, can say, “Hey, this ad is the best and it will work great”. Without making tests no one can know in advance the market’s reaction.

Now that hopefully I convinced you to make some tests before starting your solo ads advertising campaign, I guess you’ll ask, “What am I supposed to test?” Well, I will answer by asking you some questions:

If no one opens your solo ad …

1) does it matter how great, useful & affordable your product is?

2) does it matter how great the rest of your marketing message is?

3) does it matter how good your landing page is?

Nope, nothing matters if the recipient of the solo advert doesn’t open it. In email marketing, one of the most important elements is the subject line. That is what you need to test, test, and test again, so that to be sure that your marketing message arrives in front of your readers. Then continue the tests on other elements and don’t forget to choose very carefully who you place the order with. There is a jungle out there …

How long will this take? Well, it depends on many factors and especially it depends on how far you’re willing to go. The more tests you make, the more far away is the failure from you.

To Your Success!
Adrian Jock

P.S. If you want to get the best results from your solo ads advertising campaigns, then you really need to read the Ultimate Guide to Solo Ads.

P.P.S. Be sure that you don’t miss the ezine advertising tips published weekly by Ezine Advertising Info free newsletter.

You have permission to use the article above for your ezine, website or any other public print as long as you include the entire article and the resource box (the “P.S.” & the “P.P.S.”), without any modification.

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Ezine Solo Ads vs. Safelist Solo Ads

Adrian Jock — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:17:13 +0000

You can have your solo ads published in ezines other people publish or you can send the same ads to safelists members. Every time when there are more options, people are asking, “What’s the best?” Let’s try together to find out the answer to the question “What to focus on when advertising with solo adverts?” Ezines or safelists?

Ready?

First of all, we have to split the safelists in two categories: regular safelists and credit based safelists. In case of the first type of safelists, the members are not required to do anything in order to get the right of sending their free ads. Everyone sends his ads to the others, but the main problem is this: who’s reading them? Since very few people read a lot of email ads just for fun or for killing their time, without looking for something or without being required to do it, a comparison between ezines and regular safelists is pointless. The regular safelists will never ever win such a “match”. Therefore, we will compare credit based safelists and ezines.

Now let’s make it easier by using a Q & A (questions & answers) method …

* Q: Are ezines and safelists legal?

A: When it comes to Internet, a global network, usually it is quite hard to know whether something is legal or not. Why? Because the laws are different. What is legal in your country may be illegal in my country. However, in this particular case we can say without making a mistake that ezines and safelists are legal. Both of them are opt-in and people can opt-out at any time. So … the match is still 0-0.

* Q: What are the potential readers interested in?

A: People subscribe to ezines in order to find out resources and get news on a certain topic. For example, people subscribe to a health ezine because they are interested in receiving health related info. If the product you plan to promote is in the same niche like the ezine, then we can say that the readers of that ezine are a perfect target for you.

The goal of anyone who joins a safelist isn’t to read something (your ads) but to send her or his own ads to the other members. Since such people are very far from being a perfect target for an advertiser, the score becomes 1-0 for the ezines team.

* Q: Supposing that my solo ad is very good, what are the chances for my ad to be read?

A: Ezines readers usually are subscribed to more ezines not to one single ezine. However, the number of ezines someone is subscribed to is not that significant. Taking into account the fact that not all ezines are published in the same day and most of the publishers don’t send solo ads each and every day, the number of emails that land daily in someone’s Inbox is reasonable.

When it comes to safelists, even if someone subscribes only to one single safelist, that person will receive tens or even hundreds of emails daily.

Since no one reads emails all day long, the more emails someone receives, the less emails are actually read. A fierce competition for recipient’s attention means less chances to succeed. The score already became 2-0 for ezines.

* Q: What are the costs for sending the solo advertisements?

A: Usually ezine solo ads are not free and the publishers charge you based on the number of subscribers an ezine has. As for safelists, “free solo ads” is the main argument used by the owners in order to get their members. However, even if the ads are free, your costs won’t be zero. Why? Because you need to earn credits before being able to send your free ads and this takes some of your time. The more you value your time, the higher the costs. This evaluation depends only on you. You have to decide alone what’s the new score of the match from your point of view.

Conclusion: Because of the decision that has to be taken regarding the answer to the last question, the score of the match may be different from person to person. However, the winner of this match is the same: the ezines.

To Your Success!
Adrian Jock

P.S. If you want to improve the results of your solo ads advertising campaigns, I recommend you to read the ebook Ultimate Guide to Solo Ads.

P.P.S. For more ezine advertising tips, subscribe free to Ezine Advertising Info newsletter.

You have permission to use the article above for your ezine, website or any other public print as long as you include the entire article and the resource box (”P.S.”), without any modification.

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