Email Advertising
Disclosure: email advertising is a very risky way of marketing your websites. Because of the spam problems, if you don't use extreme caution while advertising through emails, your site could be blacklisted and your reputation ruined. So use email advertising only after being sure that the person you buy email ads from is legit.
The best way to going with email advertising is by first finding the email newsletters being published in your market. Use your favourite search engine to find the newsletters. And then subscribe to all these newsletters.
If you then find that any of these newsletters that you receive have ads in them, then contact the publisher and ask her for her "email advertising kit" or "email advertising rates". Also ask her if she is willing to sell solo email advertisements. (Solo email advertisements are emails that have nothing but your ad in them.)
This is the only way in which you should buy email advertisements.
Note: run away from any email ad offers that claim to blast your ad to millions of users. Or any "FFA" email services or "email ad swapping" services. By using them, you'll almost always guarantee that your site will be blacklisted by top internet service providers.
How to Write Effective Email Ads
Writing Smaller Email Ads
Many newsletters will allow you to buy 4-6 line ads. Such ads are easy to write. Here are the things you should pay attention to:
- Headline - Mention how your product solves a problem users face in the headline.
- Bullet Points - Instead of writing a short paragraph, write the ad in bullet points. Write down 3-4 benefit laden bullet points after the headline.
- Website URL - then simply mention that people can receive a free report or subscribe to a free newsletter at yourdomain.com
As with all your other advertising, don't promote any products directly. But rather promote the free autoresponse newsletter. And let your newsletter promote all your other products.
This is a proven email ad: "headline - bullet points - free report website". In my experience, deviating from this formula decreases response rate. For eg, not writing bullet points decrease response rates.
Writing Solo Email Ads
Solo ads are a little harder to write as they have more variables. But the good thing is many newsletter publishers who allow solo email advertising will let your solo email ads be as long as 2-3 pages! Here is the template to write powerful solo email advertisements:
- Start with a powerful Subject line. The only job of subject lines is to get people to open that email. So fill your subject lines with curiosity. Keep them short. If the newsletter publisher allows, personalize the subject lines with the receiver's name. Subject lines like "Top 5 tips to _______" work best.
- Start the email with "Dear <name>" or simply "Dear friend" and then explain to them why they are receiving this email. Being frank works like a charm. "Because this newsletter goes to people who are interested to learn how to cope with diabetes, I thought it best to run an ad to promote a free report that gives 10 quick and delicious diabetes recipes."
- Then dig into your salesletter writing skills. And write about the problems and solutions your report solves. Tell them why you are an expert. Give them benefits. Give them the table of index of your free report. Give testimonials from others who have read the free report.
- Then give them a reason why you are giving the report away for free. This is important. If you don't give a believable reason, many people will think your offer is too good to be true and won't come to your website. Be frank. Even telling that "I'm sharing this report with you for free so that you can see for yourself how helpful my recipes are. After reading the report, you can then decide to buy the entire book with 365 recipes or not. There are no strings attached to this free report offer and you won't be obligated to buy anything" works better than not giving any reason.
- Finally end by giving them a website address where they can come and get their free report from.
Ok, now lets read about one of the quickest and the most cost effective ways to generate traffic to your websites. An idea that revolutionized advertising online.
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