Ezine Advertising Doesn’t Work! Really?

July 5, 2009

Some newbies noticed (or just heard many internet marketers talking) that article marketing is a powerful way of getting free traffic to their websites. And these newbies suddenly started writing ezine articles, irrespective of their knowledge (or lack of knowledge) of the topic they were writing about. Unfortunately, most of the article directories editors are not experts in their niche, but only in their directory publishing guidelines. What’s the result? Many articles flood the market, but their quality is not always as expected.

Let’s explore the ezine advertising niche and see what readers may “learn” from some writers. “If it is on the Internet, it must be true …” is a common wrong conclusion. Some readers learn quickly a weird tip, spread it fast to friends or colleagues, more and more people apply the tip until … everything explodes and then people cry angrily, “Ezine advertising doesn’t work!“

Let’s skip the articles about “enzines” (their writers don’t even know the correct spelling). Let’s skip the articles that don’t have any purpose other than repeating “solo ads” in each sentence only for the sake of trying to rank well in search engines even if the article doesn’t have a clear meaning. Let’s read some tips, so called tips …

So Called Tip # 1 – “Tell in the solo ads the story about how you went from nothing to becoming an expert.”

Facts: Sucessful people usually are busy developing their business and they rarely read articles. Most of the readers of an article are not experts but newbies or average persons who spend their time hoping to discover something new or a solution to their problems.

Conclusion: As a matter of fact, the tip teaches you to lie … This is a no-no in advertising. Unfortunately this tip is very much used by newbies. I’ve seen so many ezine ads telling readers how much money the advertiser earned last month by promoting a certain program, but if you ask the advertiser when she/he joined that program you will be surprised by the answer, “A few days ago, why do you ask?”

So Called Tip # 2 – “People want stories and they want stories about YOU.”

A funny piece of advice related to the first tip. Actually, the truth is that people do NOT care about you unless you’re a famous person. People care about them. Tell them a story about you only if you want to fail. If you want to succeed, tell them how THEIR life can be improved and THEIR problems can be solved.

So Called Tip # 3 – “Before placing an order, ask the ezine publisher these questions …”

It’s very good to contact the publisher before placing the order, but when an experienced ezine advertiser reads the questions the readers of some articles are taught to ask, she/he can only laugh. Here is an example of such question: “How many subscribers does your ezine have?”

Let me give you some practical information taken from real life. If the ezine publisher is professional, then the ezine has its own website, the page containing the advertising packages is easy to be found and contains at least two important pieces of information: the number of subscribers and the prices. If you don’t find such information, you’re not supposed to ask the publisher about them … but to run away. You don’t want to advertise in ezines published by amateurs.

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There are many other so called ezine advertising tips but I didn’t plan to write a novel here … However, I think you already got the point: don’t consider any piece of advice or article as a law that has to be applied. Be a smart ezine advertiser: after reading a certain tip, put yourself in the shoes of the reader who is supposed to read the ezine ad written following that tip.

To Your Success!
Adrian Jock

P.S. Do you want to read some real ezine advertising tips? It’s easy: subscribe to Adrian’s Ezine Advertising Info Newsletter. By the way, if you’re looking to improve the results of your solo ads advertising campaigns, you don’t want to miss Adrian’s recent ebook 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 (the P.S.), without any modification.

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