Common reasons why your ad did not work

August 13, 2007 by Shirley Grant · Comment
Filed under: Ezine Advertising 

Have you ever purchased an ad in an ezine and gotten
little or no response?

When this happens, most people get annoyed with the
ezine publisher and vow to never buy advertising in that
ezine ever again.But what never enters their heads, is that
the problem is usually with the ad that they chose to run.

No one wants to hear that their lack of response is due
to the ad they chose to use being the same as dozens of
others that are seen everyday. But with a few
simple fixes, that ad can pull sales the way it was
supposed to.

Here are a few common ad problems and how to twist them
for maximum selling potential.

1. Your ad must stand out in a crowd.
People get dozens of solo ads in their inboxes every
day, and if the subject line of your ad is the same as
every other affiliates/resellers of that program, then
people will have seen it countless times before and
will delete it without ever seeing your ad copy.

2. Once you get them to open your ad.
You sound like everyone else. You may offer a
product or service that many people want, but your ad
does not communicate this because it appears like all
the others. If you cannot let consumers know that you
offer something that stands apart from the rest, they
do not really care.

Look for a benefit only you can provide. A problem only
you can solve. If your product or service offers
nothing entirely unique, highlight something your
competitors fail to mention.

3. You did not give your ad enough time.
Keep in mind the rule of seven. Seven out of ten people
will not respond to your ad the first time they see it.
Try not to give up before you give your ad a good run.
When you advertise the same ad over and over again, you
give the bulk of your audience time to really absorb
the message.

Have a professional write your ad to ensure that it is
written for maximum selling power. Then run the ad over
and over again in different mediums like newspapers,
ezines, sig files in email, etc. Your audience will see
you, remember you, think about you, then buy from you.

4. Your ad worked, but your site did not. Who knows,
maybe your ad did work like a charm. Maybe people
flocked to your site to buy. And maybe when they got to
the site, they decided not to buy because they could
not find the order button or because the information
was not clear.

If your site is not clear, people will not trust you,
and therefore, will not buy from you. Make sure your
site design is simple to navigate and your information
is written in a concise manner.

To instil the confidence of your customers in you, put
up a photo of yourself on the contact page, along with
a phone number. The fact that you can be reached by
phone goes a long way to making people trust you.
Include testimonials from past customers. Make sure you
have the full name of those from whom you include
testimonials.

5. You did not stick to your marketing plan. All
successful marketers have a plan. They do not just
wander randomly through the world of advertising. Your
plan may not work right away, but that is another thing
you have to plan for.

Do not give up. Just when you are ready to throw in the
towel, that is when things are likely to turn around.
These things take time. If you follow the guidelines
above, great response to your ads is inevitable.

When your ad doesn’t bring you the results you hoped
for, look for one of the problems above. Fix the
problem, do not give up and try again. That is the
professional way to advertise your business. Stay with
it and you will see professional results.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Shirley Grant has been online since 2000 and publishing
the MMEzine since 2001.
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Cheap Ezine Ads: What Should You Expect?

August 6, 2007 by Shirley Grant · 3 Comments
Filed under: Ezine Advertising, Traffic Generation 

by Anne Marie, 2007

What should you expect when you buy cheap ezine ads?

Well, in the first instance I have some bad news.
If you think that investing a small amount of money, 5 to 20 dollars, will bring you in return a considerable number
of sales and you’ll be one step further on your way to become wealthier, then you’re very far from reality.

I have recently noticed some advertisers complaining about ezine advertising and claiming that it is no longer what it used
to be. Why is that? Because they purchased some cheap ads and they expected a big return on their investment.

They didn’t understand how and why should be used this vehicle called cheap ezine ads.

Making a short break, I would ask them the following question:

“After the first day of school did you expect your very young girl or boy to know everything on any thing?”. Sure not!

The first day of school is the first step on a long way.

The same is with the cheap ezine ads. Purchasing them is one of the first steps on the way of making a quite reasonable number of sales.

Are you confused? Have you heard about “big boys” getting a lot of money by sending some email advertisements and now I come here to tell you something else? NOPE!

Be patient and open your mind because you’re close to the explanation.

How do you think a successful advertiser knows that a certain ad works?

….

By TESTING the ad copy!

Any serious advertising campaign can deliver optimal results if SMALLER test mailings are previously done, with tests for offer, price, headline, etc. Such tests should always be refined by analyzing the results offered by an ad tracker. Without this tool the tests will be meaningless because while testing you must not look very much at the number of sales but at other performance metrics. You should also take very much care with the vocabulary you use. If it is not too much different from a spammer’s vocabulary, then the spam filters may grant you surprising results and not the ezines will be to be blamed. You don’t have to make wrong assumptions about spammer’s vocabulary and you rather test yours in order not to have some unpleasant surprises …

Returning to our topic, did the wording “smaller test malings” get your full attention? That’s the whole point!

If you test your ad copy in large ezines having a significant number of subscribers, then you may spend your whole budget even before starting the actual advertising campaign.

Here come the small ezines and the classified ad co-ops which offer you low cost advertising.

However always remember one fact: the bread is not as sweet as a cake, but this fact doesn’t mean that the bread is worse than the cake.

They only have different purposes …

Good luck with your ezine advertising campaign!

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Low Cost Advertising Campaigns In Multiple Ezines
Your FIVE STAR KEY to Successful Branding
ADSHOME Ezine Advertising Co-op
http://www.shirleyagrant.com/track/go.php?c=adshome
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