Sometimes generating traffic through advertising can be quite expensive. Though it is true that in the Internet, there are a lot of marketing channels you can make use of for free, often, you will be competing with countless other ads in these venues. This could result in difficulties in relation to having your business message stand out amongst all the others.

Hence, quite a number of Internet marketers have tried paid options. One of these is paid solo ads in electronic magazines, or eZines. It is a widely held belief that having a certain space in a popularly distributed eZine can be a very effective way of sending out your business message to others. Let’s analyze it further.

The Power Of Ezines

People subscribe to eZines because they want to keep abreast of the information that is shared by the publication. Basically, they decide to receive the eZine issues. This points to a desire on their part to be able to read about the subject catered to by that eZine. This is why an eZine’s subscriber base is usually called an opt-in list, because users opted to subscribe to the service.

How can this benefit you?

Well, since eZines have a dedicated base of subscribers, you’re sure to tap into a highly targeted market. Often, the failure of most marketing strategies is that they target a general market. The people who would receive their business message may not necessarily have the minutest interest on their products.

With eZines, you’re sure to have a subscriber base that would be perfect targets for your marketing campaign? And why not? They, after all, are subscribed to the eZine because they are involved with its subject. There is no reason why they won’t show the same fascination your what you will advertise.

Choosing The Right Ezine For Your Solo Ad

There is one rule in selecting the right eZine for your solo ad: it’s not the number of subscribers that matter, it’s how responsive they will be. You may find more success with an eZine that has a circulation of 5,000 readers rather than one with 100,000 subscribers. Ezines with a smaller subscriber base usually mean a more focused audience. These are subscribers who opted for the service because they really want to, not because they were swayed by a sweeping promotional campaign that would reward them with a freebie in exchange for their
subscription.

To know whether a particular eZine is responsive enough or your needs, ask the editor the following questions:

• What is the average number of subscribers that decide to make a purchases per offer, vis a vis the total number of subscribers the eZine has?

• What is the conversion rate exhibited in the mailing list, per offer?

• How many repeat advertisements has the editor gathered in the past months?

Writing Your Solo Ad

Once you have chosen the eZine that you know would serve you well, it’s time to write your solo ad. Keep in mind the guidelines below in composing your promotional piece.

• Decide on a format. Should it be a straight advertisement or an article that would promote your business? I would recommend the latter.

• Craft an attention getting headline. The headline is your chance to capture the interests of your readers. This should be enticing enough to compel them to read the entirety of your article.

• Your ad is not a sales page. It would serve you well to treat your ad as a means of capturing leads for future offers instead of directly selling your readers a particular product. People would want to read an informative piece, and they generally dislike being told what to do. Suggest your business if they have relevant needs in the future, instead.

• Make your ad concise. It doesn’t have to be long. The longer your ad, the harder it will be to sustain your readers’ attention. Go straight to the point.

• Enumerate the benefits. This should be the main focus of your ad. What’s in it for them? Why should they select your business? Why should they spend their hard earned cash for what you are offering, and what you will offer in the future?

• Impress upon them a sense of urgency. This would be what is often known as a call to action. Tell them why they should act as quickly as they could. For this purpose, you could afford them a discount or free bonuses if they should decide to buy your goods within a stated period of time.

These guidelines will help ensure that any solo ad you invest in will be value for the money you will spend.

Many marketers shy away from Traffic Exchanges, but it is an often an under used traffic generation technique that can bring floods of traffic to your webpage.

Simply Traffic Exchanges are  websites that let Internet marketers earn credits by viewing the websites of other members on the traffic exchange. The more pages you view, the more credits you earn, and the more often your page will appear in rotation on the Traffic Exchange.

There are dozens of people for who Traffic Exchanges don’t work, with the amount of members in most exchanges it ought to be very successful. The error that most people make when using a traffic exchange is that they try to sell products and services, but seldom are they successful since members are there surfing for credits to show their own pages.

What you need to be doing is showing your squeeze page for your valuable free offer, this then produces a significant change in the members mentality as it barely interupts their own goals of surfing for credits. If your free offer is perceived to be sufficiently valuable enough, you will have targeted visitors signing up for your list.

With so many members, traffic exchanges can provide you with 700 to 800 visitors viewing your page each and every week for around 25 minutes of your time surfing daily.

When you convince other people to sign up for the same traffic exchange through your link, you will receive additional bonus credits for your squeeze page, either as a one off amount of credits or based on the amount of pages they view when they use the traffic exchange you introduced them to.

Clearly, with some work and a well targeted free offer, you can easily develop a powerful stream of targeted visitors who will sign up to your list.

Join some of the leading traffic exchanges, they are free to join and add another traffic source for you to build your list. Here are a couple to get you started:

Bootscootin Traffic
Traffic Witch
Traffic Splash
Gladiator Hits

For the top Traffic Exchanges go to Affiliate Funnel. They publish a list every week of the top exchanges over the previous week.