Bob's Home Business Blog

Ezine advertising is a great alternative for people just starting out online with their home based business especially if they have a few extra dollars in their marketing budget to spend. The reason this is so advantageous to new Internet marketers is they can promote their products to a targeted list of buyers even though they don’t have an email list of their own. They can also select the type of ad they would like to run that’s within their budget because there are 5 different options available at various costs.

1. First of all, there’s the much celebrated solo ad which can be the most expensive of the selections available but it can also deliver the best results. This promotional technique allows you to sometimes reach hundreds of thousands of targeted buyers with one email message. The beauty of this technique is your message is going out alone which is a great way to eliminate the competition and to put your product at center stage.

Another major perk that results from using this Internet marketing tactic is if you carefully select who will receive your message you’ll know before you send it that they’re very interested in your offer so the return on your investment should be very respectable.

2. Next in importance or perhaps just as effective is the top sponsor ad which appears at the very top of the Ezine and therefore receives maximum exposure for a longer period of time than your solo ad does. However, the top sponsor message is much shorter than your solo ad, usually half the size.

Because of this you can’t get as much information across to your audience so it doesn’t usually have as big an impact as the solo ad but it can be very successful. Also, these ads are usually cheaper than the solo variety.

3. The middle sponsor ad, as you might guess, appears in the middle of the Ezine and as a result isn’t as popular as either of the first two types. These are also much cheaper because they usually don’t produce the results that the solo and top sponsor ads do. Some publishers don’t even offer this type of ad because of its lack of popularity and because of the lack of demand for it.

4. Then there’s the bottom sponsor ad which brings up the rear in terms of Ezine advertising in more ways than one. First of all, as you already know this promotion appears at the bottom of the page and as a result doesn’t attract much attention so its popularity ranks right up there with the likes of Monday mornings. Once again for these reasons most webmasters don’t offer these ads for sale.

5. Last, but certainly not least, we have the old standby, the classified ad. They can also be very effective on Ezines because they’re usually displayed for a month or for several mailings; however you must be short and to the point in order to get your message across because the limited amount of text you’re allowed.

Ezine marketing offers advantages for Internet marketers and online home business owners of all levels of experience; however they’re especially advantageous for anyone who is new to the industry and who’s trying to build a list and make a living online.

Bob Withers

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Ezine advertising is perhaps one of the most overlooked Internet marketing opportunities on the Web today. This strategy involves contacting websites related to your home business theme who run ezines and asking if you can advertise to their list of subscribers.

For some reason Internet marketers don’t seem to take advantage of this technique as often as you would think which is difficult to understand because of the advantages it provides for the user.

1. First of all, this is a tremendous way to target your prospects because you would only approach ezines whose members would be absolutely interested in your product offer. For example, if your selling golf clubs online you would only approach websites that have a golfing electronic magazine.

This way you can focus your search on golf related ezines which should improve your click rate and your sales because these people would definitely be interested in reading your advertisement.

2. This Internet marketing technique can be as economical as you want it to be because you can approach several different publishers until the price is right for your budget. Each individual website owner sets their own rates which makes it easy to shop around.

The price is usually based on the size of their list, therefore smaller ezine lists will usually cost less to promote to than larger ones. Also when you check out the cost of offline advertising in magazines and on radio and television you will quickly realize how great a bargain you’re getting to get your home business message in front of sometimes hundreds of thousands of targeted readers via ezine marketing.

3. This type of advertising is highly personal because you’re sending a message to each list member individually through their in box. Also, if you choose to take the solo ad route your message will stand alone because it will be the only one sent to everyone on that particular list.

4. Ezine publishers often archive the ads they receive on their websites so your message, similar to articles, could be online for people to read for a long time to come. This of course will set up a permanent income stream for as long as people are exposed to your ad.

5. This type of advertising makes it very easy for people to respond so they can take advantage of your offer. When you state your call to action in your email message and tell people what to do next you can include a 1-800 number for them to call and order as well as a link to Paypal or Click Bank and also a credit card payment page for all the major providers.  By giving them as many options as possible you’ll make it easier for them to make their decision to buy.

So as you can see, ezine marketing gives you access to your targeted niche at a very reasonable cost while adding a personal touch to your message and providing your online home business product offer massive exposure on the Web for a long time to come.

Bob Withers

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Many Internet marketers and home business owners online offer free subscriptions to their ezine, or online magazine or newsletter, to their website visitors in return for their email address in order to build their list of potential customers. This is a very effective strategy to employ to gather your visitor’s contact information so you can follow up with them and try to persuade them to become paying customers.

However, you can also charge a fee to your website visitors for subscribing to your monthly or bi-weekly Internet publication for various reasons which will ultimately benefit your online home based business.

1. Not only will you be collecting a monthly fee for delivery of your ezine but you will also have the opportunity to advertise your products to your subscribers on a regular basis. This provides the possibility of creating a dual income stream from each member of your email list if you’re successful in persuading them to also become paying customers of your enterprise.

For example, not only will you be receiving a monthly revenue stream from your Internet magazine but you’ll also be collecting regular payments for your merchandise if it happens to be access to your membership website.

2. Ezine subscription fees are one of the most cost effective ways to create a monthly income on the web. By emailing your periodical to your members, the only personal costs involved are your time and energy dedicated to writing your editorials. There’s no overhead in terms of inventory expenditures or shipping and delivery charges as there are with some  other Internet businesses.

3. Residual income is one of the most effective ways of ensuring long term success on the web; and by subscribing people to your monthly newsletter for a fee you’re creating a regular and ongoing revenue stream for your home based business. Your main objective now is to keep your subscribers interested by providing quality content on an ongoing basis.

4. By selling your online magazine to your potential customers you’re beginning to establish yourself on the web as a professional writer. Your website visitors will start to perceive you as an expert on your chosen topic which will help enhance your reputation personally and will help establish your enterprise on the web. When people feel they know you and trust your home business opportunity they will be more inclined to do business with you than with a perfect stranger.

5. You can create a spin-off of your original monthly publication in order to create yet another income stream. We’ve all heard of spin-offs of television shows where the creators decide to expand their market share by creating a new series based on one of the original characters; well, you can apply this to your monthly newsletter after you’ve published enough periodicals by turning them into another product. For example, you can produce an Internet course related to your topic or fashion videos and or audios of your original ezines to promote online.

There are many ways to create a home based business income on the web and instead of giving away your monthly newsletter you can charge a fee for your efforts and create another revenue source for your enterprise.           

Bob Withers

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After creating your online home based business you’ve decided to take the successful Internet marketer’s advice and begin building your email list. As everyone has heard many times before “the money is in the list” and the more subscribers you have the bigger opportunity you have to become successful online.

One way to create this directory of email addresses is to offer a free subscription to your ezine or electronic magazine in exchange for your visitor’s contact information.

Here are 5 incredible techniques you can use to entice people to provide their name and email address for access to your ezine:

1. Offer your potential customers a 20% discount on one or more of your products if they agree to subscribe to your bi-monthly online magazine. People enjoy receiving bargains and if you can provide them value in return for their contact information more often than not they will agree to sign up.

2. Peak your visitors curiosity by creating attention getting headlines for your ezine such as: “How to retire in 10 years” or “How to quit your day job”. Everyone is looking for ways to earn additional income or looking for ways to make their retirement happen faster. Therefore these eye catching headers will make these people want to read more, so naturally they will be happy to provide their name and email address to gain access to this information.

3. Provide freebies with each publication of your ezine. When you deliver their bi-weekly issues includes a link to a free download such as an e-book or a report which has value for your readers. 

For example, if your niche is home business opportunities you could give them access to an e-book of the top 20 home business opportunities available online today. This will encourage them to subscribe and they may also tell their friends and family about your free gifts which will help increase your list of potential customers.

4. Give your visitors access to a free issue of your ezine from your website. Include eye catching headlines and peak their interest by blacking out certain sections of your articles so they will have to subscribe to get access to the remaining information they need.

Articles with titles such as: “5 Ways To Triple Your Monthly Income Online” will get their attention and then if you black out four of these techniques they will want to gain access to the other four tactics to increase their income.

5. Create a business arrangement with other home business owners online by agreeing to give away a free subscription to their ezine with every purchase of one of your products if they agree to do the same from their website. This will help increase the size of your email list as well as potentially increase your sales.

These techniques, when employed correctly, will help grow your subscription list, help increase your sales and also help expand your home based business’s visibility on the web.      

Bob Withers

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Ezine advertising can be a very lucrative component of your online home based business Internet marketing strategy if implemented correctly. First of all, for the uninitiated, what is an ezine? According to the marketing terms website: “An ezine is an electronic magazine, whether delivered via a Web site or an email newsletter.”

“Ezines range greatly in size and scope, from irregular newsletters reaching a handful of subscribers to daily journals reaching hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Some ezines are strictly non-profit. Some are extremely profitable. Others would be for-profit if they could attract the necessary audience and advertisers.”

Ezine advertising can be very profitable if you do your research to find the online magazines who sell advertising and more importantly to find ezines whose content matches your product. For example, you wouldn’t want to promote your Internet marketing merchandise to a dog lover’s ezine. You must make sure the subscriber group you are sending your solo ad to are highly targeted in that they subscribed to their particular ezine to receive information about your type of product.

There are several ways to search for ezines which complement your product with Google leading the way. This type of research can be very time consuming but is necessary if you want to be successful with this strategy. When using Google it’s best to structure your search by combining the category with the word ezine. For example, “Internet marketing ezine”, “health ezine” or “poker ezine” and be sure to enclose your phrase in quotes. For our example our “health ezine” search yielded 52,800 results.

Pay close attention to the first 100 or so results and visit each website to see if they do publish an ezine and if they sell advertising. When you find a group of ezines that fit your category or niche you should then subscribe to each one in order to check out the quality of the publication as well as the value of their ads. If the ezine doesn’t measure up to your standards move on to the next one. If it does meet your expectations then check out the cost of placing an ad to make sure it fits within your marketing budget and then place your advertisement.

Once you’ve selected your ezines and placed your ads be sure to use ad tracker to monitor your results. When your ad has been visible for a week write down the results for each one to determine their profitability. For ads that haven’t yielded revenue it may be necessary to tweak your ad text, test it for another week and then check your results.

Ads that have been profitable should be rerun again in the same magazine until they’re no longer yielding a gain. However, you now have successful ads which you can run as is in other similar ezines which should make you a profit time after time. If you’re just starting out with ezine marketing it may be best to begin with the smaller ezines in order to test your ads and once they’ve proven successful they can graduate to the larger publications so as to increase your profits.

Be sure to use a spreadsheet or word software package to record the successful ezines as well as the ads you ran and the profits you made. You can then use these same newsletters over and over again to promote similar products using your winning ads.

The most important point to remember with ezine advertising is to match your product with the ezine’s content. This will produce a highly targeted group of hungry buyers which will ensure profitability for your home based business for a long time to come.   

Bob Withers

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After creating your home business website, adding your content and developing your Internet marketing strategy you’ve decided to publish an electronic magazine also known on the web as an ezine. You’ve been told by more experienced online marketers that offering a free subscription to your ezine is a great way to build your email list.

So now you’ve published your first edition however subscribers are few and far between. Here are several techniques you can employ to entice your website visitors into signing up for your bi-weekly publication.

1. First of all you must provide a powerful motivating reason why they should subscribe. Outline the benefits for them without being too long winded. Present the advantages in a bullet point format with attention getting script which will draw them in and leave them wanting more information.

2. Offer your visitors a freebie or free gift for subscribing. However you must make it something which will offer value for them. For example, if you’re home business theme is Internet marketing give away an e-book on how to generate traffic online. This will be something they can derive some benefit from and should attract them to your ezine.

3. Provide excellent well organized content on your website. If people find your home page information of interest  they are more likely to want more quality content via your magazine and will subscribe.

4. Submit your ezine to some of the major ezine directories on the web. The more exposure your publication receives the more attention it will garner from surfers online and the more targeted traffic you will receive on your home business site. If these people enjoyed your ezine they will probably be more inclined to subscribe through your website.

5. Advertise your ezine in newsgroups, in forums and on social media websites. This will attract extra traffic to your website resulting in more subscribers for your publication.

6. Create and publish a press release on the web. The more attention you can draw to your new online magazine the better and a well crafted news release can do just that and further increase your traffic and subscribers.

7. Pay to advertise in other ezines. This is a great way to gain exposure from people who already subscribe to ezines and as a result they may want to subscribe to yours as well.

These are just some of the more effective methods of attracting new members to your home business periodical and by employing some or all of these techniques your subscriber list should grow and continue to develop to your satisfaction.    

When you’ve built your subscriber list to an acceptable level you now have to retain your members. You can do this by continuing to provide quality information presented in a professional manner while at the same time restricting your promotional mailings to a tolerable number. All of these strategies, when combined, should result in a large, targeted subscriber list which should provide a handsome income for your home business online for a long time to come. 

Bob Withers 

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