How To Start Your Own NewsletterYour Road Plan To Email Marketing Success |
12. Tracking Your CampaignTracking your campaign Tracking your advertisements, as discussed above, is essential for the success of the campaign. By employing some sort of a tracking system you would be able to figure out which advertisements bring you the highest number of responses. This is so very important, especially initially. It not only focuses your efforts on the right advertising strategies but also helps in achieving maximum ROI. More information on Ad Tracking systems is given later on in this chapter. Analyzing your visitors There are two phases involved in measuring the performance of your ads. One is tracking which ads get you good responses. The second is to identify those visitors who actually go on to sign up for your newsletter from your website. You would probably have a text box to allow visitors to enter their email address and sign up for your ezine. In the section on websites, I recommended that you have a separate page for each ezine. Apart from other benefits already discussed, this would also enable you to identify visitors who sign up for your ezine. This can be done by simply studying the traffic logs to track the hits on the sign up page. You could also ask your web host to set up specific CGI scripts that can make tracking and analyzing visitors easier and less complicated. Documenting tracking results Tracking the performance of your advertising campaign means nothing if you do not have all results documented for later analysis. Results could be documented in an excel spreadsheet, a database, or any other system you are comfortable with. Given below is some of the data that you should record. Advertising medium Website address Email Address Number of Visitors per day/week/month Date of advertisement Cost of advertisement Tracking tool Inquiries per Ad Sales per Ad These are some of the guidelines that can help make your campaign successful. The next phase is to figure out where to advertise your ezines. Just like advertising options, the net offers a range of advertising locations as well. There are many places where you could advertise your Ezines successfully. Some locations can be expensive, whereas some are free of cost. The key is to figure out the right balance of places to advertise your ezines. Given here are some of the popular avenues for advertising ezines. Advertising in Search Engines Listing your newsletters in popular Search Engines is probably the best way to spread your message to a wide as well as focused audience. Most marketers use Search Engines as their primary marketing tool. There are innumerable search engines on the Internet – some list your ad for free, whereas some are quite expensive. Some of the most popular search engines are: Yahoo AltaVista Overture Lycos Excite Northern Light Infoseek Hotbot Ask Jeeves Every Search Engine has its own set of rules on how to submit ads. Apart from these, rankings in the Search Engine Listing play a major role in reaching targeted audience. There are many guidelines to follow to improve your rankings without having to increase the cost of submission to various search engines. Apart from these, there are also paid programs such as Google AdWords that can get you a wide base of subscribers. My book on Search Engine Marketing would give you excellent detailed insights on how to attain great results through Search Engines. Setting up Joint Ventures We saw earlier how you could earn money by selling ad spaces in your Ezine. While earning income out of advertisements is a good option it may not hurt you to be a bit creative in your advertising. Instead of asking for cash in return for advertising space, you can ask for a reciprocal promotion on a partner’s newsletter. As long as you’re not competing, setting up joint ventures with complementary businesses is a great way to increase your customer base—and boost your sales. For example, you could trade articles or interview other ‘experts.’ Or offer special deals on your partner’s goods. In its simplest form you would select a complimentary product, take a good look at it and, if you are happy with it, make it the subject of a feature article in your newsletter, recommending it to your readers. Your joint venture partner would do the same thing with one of your products or services. Giving a product an 'independent' third party recommendation is an excellent way to increase sales with both parties benefiting. Advertising in Newsgroups, discussion forums, and announcement lists Newsgroups are great sources to target your ezines to focused audiences. There are numerous free newsgroups catering to all kinds of subjects. You should start by listing out a few newsgroups that address your industry or subject. However, whenever submitting messages and ads to newsgroups ensure that you follow the rules. Responding to any messages that you may receive from readers is essential. It is imperative that you post a clear response to a message from all readers who show interest in your ad. This will ad to your time and effort but it is certainly worth it. Similarly, you could also post ads in discussion forums. Discussion forums are very similar to newsgroups. Like newsgroups you could find numerous forums on particular subjects. Lastly, there are also lists known as announcement lists, which are a great way to announce your ezine to targeted audience. Submitting your ezine to directories This is one of the most popular forms of advertisement for ezines. There are many Ezine directories that list several Ezines by type and category. For instance Ezines are listed by Subject, Industry, and so on. All directories would ask you to provide a description of your Ezine. This is where you can score above your competitors. Write an eye catching description highlighting most benefits of your Ezine and your product. Write in brief how your ezine could help a reader. Detail any offers or incentives that you may provide to your subscribers. I would recommend that you study similar ezine descriptions before you submit your own description. There are two main factors that make an Ad effective – Content of the Ad and the sites where it is advertised. Most experts would agree that constant testing and experimenting is the only way to ensure that you get the right combination. However, the question arises – How do you test your Ads? An integral part of any advertising campaign is, knowing which ads bring you the most visitors. After all, you may have banner ads, newsgroups ads, ads in other newsletters and articles, ads in autoresponders, or a simple classified ad on a website. Every marketer can only benefit by knowing: which of the ads received the best response whether free classified sites are worth the effort what other ezines are the most profitable how a sponsored newsletter ad compares to the standard one whether animated banners are better than static ones how effective are your email ads does the ad at the start of an newsletter or article outperform the one at the end Ad Tracking programs would answer all of these questions. They can help you analyze the effectiveness of every single ad and hence they should be an integral part of every marketing campaign. There are many comprehensive Ezine Ad Tracking programs available on the net for reasonable costs. Just as you can sell advertising space in your ezines, you can also advertise your ezine in other newsletters. You can use those ads to promote your business or to invite people who read newsletters to read your own. The key is to pick your partners carefully. There’s no point just picking a newsletter with the cheapest rates; you want to make sure you choose an outlet that appeals to the same buyers as you. You also need to think about where your ad is going to be placed. In general, the higher the position the better. Besides, the more the merrier too. Don’t expect a huge response from a single ad. It’s always best to think of advertising in terms of a campaign. You’ll get a better deal—and better results—if you reserve an advertising slot for four or five issues than if you buy them one at a time. Let us look at some of the aspects of advertising in other ezines a little more closely. I touched on this point earlier. Unless you advertise in ezines that are read by your target audience, your advertising efforts would hardly yield any benefits. Think about it – wouldn’t it be crazy to advertise in an Ezines that cater to the business audience when your ezine talks about something completely unrelated, say horses. The best way to go about finding ezines that are similar to yours or even compliment yours is to analyze some of the most popular listing directories, forums, and discussion boards. A huge list of resources is provided in the last chapter of this eBook. List out all the ezines that seem similar, and if possible, get subscribed to receive a few issues of the newsletters to check out if they are worth advertising in. Finally, remember you should look for ezines that are similar but certainly not your direct competitors. Your competitors would firstly be very reluctant to advertise a competitor in their ezine. Besides, you would not want two different ads for the same product in the same newsletter, especially when the newsletter is your competitor’s. This will certainly reduce your prospects of getting subscribers vastly. With similar ezines you would ensure that your ad would be read by the right audience, thus, immensely improving its success rate. To make it a little easier for you, I have provided a list of ezines in the ‘resources’ section that sell advertising space to other publishers. These are some of the well known ezines. With thousands of ezines being published on the Internet it is very likely that you would find innumerable ezines that cater to the right audience. You can surely not advertise in each and every ezine, unless you have an exorbitant budget. Besides, how do you know which ones are good and which ones are junk? After all, you would not want to spend money on advertising in ezines that have an ill repute. Here are some guidelines that might help. Let us first look at some of the qualities you should look for in an ezine: Continued...
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Browse Site3. Invite Guest Writers to Write in Your Ezine 5. Free Resources on Writing Skills 6. Write Attractive Descriptions 8. Free Hosts – a Definite No No 10. Suggest the Change Subtly to Your Readers 11. Creating a Comprehensive Online Media Kit 13. Always Look for Opt in Ezines 14. Auto Responder Improvements |
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