If you’re looking for an EASY way to get floods of traffic to virtually any website or affiliate offer, I highly recommend you check out running solo ads.

A “solo ad” is where you pay a fee to have your e-mail ad sent out to somebody else’s opt in e-mail list (often called “e-zines” or online newsletters). Not all list owners offer solo advertising, but there are plenty that do—in virtually every niche you can imagine.

I’d like to share a few simple tricks to having success and making good (and quick!) money with solo ads:

1. Get references! When you’re checking out an e-mail list to potentially run your ad in, do a little background research before spending your hard-earned money. Ask for references—those who’ve recently run ads to that particular list—to see how the ad performed.

Also be sure to *sign up* for the e-zine to see what kind of content they send out to their subscribers. If they’re sending nothing but ads, your results probably aren’t going to be as good as with a list owner that sends *quality content* to his or her subscribers.

Ideally, do business with e-zine owners that send *value* out to their subscribers (not *just* ads).

2. Negotiate, and ask for special deals! Often, just by contacting a list owner and *asking*, you can get big discounts on running your solo ad to their list.

If not a discount, ask if and when they have special offers running…2 for 1 deals, etc.

3. Ask the list owner if they’ve run an ad for the product or service you’re promoting in the past couple months. If so, it probably means the product is popular (which can be a *good* sign), BUT, you’ll want to move on and find other lists that have not run the same offer recently There are *always* going to be solo ad opportunities, no matter how popular a product—there’s simply too many lists for this NOT to be true.

4. If you can’t afford a solo ad, consider running what is called a “top sponsor” ad if available. A top sponsor ad is typically a 6-10 line classified style ad that runs toward the top of an article or similar content being sent out to the list.

Solo ads are more expensive, because they’re sent out *alone*, without any accompanying content. But top sponsor ads can still bring in some great results on virtually any budget!

5. Consider promoting an e-mail capture page or website to build your *list* vs. promoting a product *directly*. Set up your page to automatically direct your new subscribers to your affiliate offer (or your own product) right after they subscribe. This way, as you send out solo ads to other peoples’ lists, you’re not only promoting products, you’re also building your OWN list in the process. This is an *ideal* way to take advantage of solo e-zine advertising.

6. Ask the list owner if they’re willing to write a *personal* endorsement of your product for you in exchange for a free copy. Subscribers on a given list have built a relationship with the list owner, and as a result place more value on their recommendation than an ad from an “outsider”. You could even write the endorsement style e-mail ad yourself, and simply have the list owner approve it if they’re willing to endorse your offer.

7. Test small! Don’t go out and spend $500 on a solo ad until you’ve learned the ropes. Often times, smaller lists are fresher and will perform better anyhow. Big lists aren’t always where it’s at, for a variety of reasons.

8. Keep a RECORD of which solo ads perform, and which do not. Also track details such as what particular product you promoted to each list, what ad was used, etc. This is a HUGE KEY to success with solo ads. As you’re starting out, you’ll essentially be testing solo ad providers (various lists) as you go along.

You’ll make a LOT more money in the long run by logging your results.

9. Well-targeted offers are key. Don’t be afraid to get the opinion of the list owner as to whether he or she thinks your product (and solo ad!) will perform well with their list.

Ask what other offers have done well, and use that as a basic guideline as well.

10. Don’t try to “sell the product” in your solo ad. Sign up for other e-zines in your target market and study the solo ads. Keep a “swipe file” of the ads that made YOU want to click the link to learn more. That’s the whole point of a solo ad—getting the CLICK.

The point of the subject line is getting the e-mail *opened*. Use the element of curiosity in BOTH cases to get subscribers to take action!

And don’t forget, a good FREE offer is hard to resist. If you’re capturing e-mails, offer an irresistible free offer in exchange for subscribing.

11. Ask for a *guaranteed* number of clicks. That way, you’ll minimally know that “x” amount of subscribers have clicked on the link in your e-mail ad for “x” amount of ad dollars paid. You can calculate your expense that way and use it to figure your expected profit.

Keep in mind that *residual income* offers are something to strongly consider, since instead of a one time commission, you could be paid month after month—meaning your ad dollars could go a long way!

12. To get started, here are some places where you can find e-zines to run solo ads in (no affiliate links used):

1) Google search results for solo ads

2) Directory Of Ezines

3) Solo ad requests at Warrior Forum

4) Safe-Swaps

5) Reed Floren’s Solo Ad Directory

13. Don’t let excitement get the best of you! It’s very tempting to take the “emotional” route and NOT follow the tips above. But trust me, there’s a *lot* of money to be made when you DO follow them diligently, and money to be LOST if you don’t.

Is it possible to make $1,000+ per month JUST running solo ads (if done right)? You bet it is!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this free guide and Happy New Year to all of you!

Bryan Winters is the architect of the free list building website, 5iphon Hardcore, that gets you 5 *more* subscribers for every ONE you bring in.

Crazy-busy people read their e-mail with their finger on the ‘delete’ key. Follow these guidelines to increase your e-mail prospecting success.

1. Eliminate Delete-Inducing Words

Get rid of all verbiage that activates the delete response. Here are some serious offenders: exciting, state-of-the-art, solution, partner, leading edge, passion, unique and one-stop shopping.

2. Keep Your Message Simple

Your e-mail needs to be less than 90 words. Use 2-sentence paragraphs so it can be scanned. Stick with common black fonts (no colors) and never include more than one link or attachment.

3. Align With Their Objectives

Research your prospect’s specific company, industry or position. Make sure your e-mail mentions an important business objective, strategic imperative, issue or challenge. Relevance is essential.

4. Focus on Immediate Priorities

Identify key business events that may be impact your prospect’s priorities and tie your message into that. Examples might be: relocations, mergers, management changes or new legislation.

5. Be an Invaluable Resource

Your product or service may be a commodity, but you’re not. In your e-mails, focus on the ideas, insights and information you can share that will be of value to your prospect in reaching their goals.

6. Craft Enticing Subject Lines

Your subject line determines if your message gets read. Avoid sales hype and focus on business issues such as: “Quick question re: outsourcing initiative” or “Reducing product launch time”.

7. Launch a Campaign

Do 8-12 touches (via e-mail and phone) over a 4-6 week time period, with each contact building off the previous one. Provide links to resources. Spotlight the value of changing from the status quo.

Your challenge? To quickly capture your prospect’s attention, pique their curiosity and prove your competence.

Visit Jill Konrath’s website, Snap Selling, for more free sales resources.

On more than one occasion, one of my readers has suggested to me that I publish two versions of my e-newsletter.

The first would be the regular edition I offer now—a monthly online newsletter with pure content, supplemented by additional e-mails mixing content and product offers.

The second would be an “advertising-free” edition. You’d get the monthly content e-newsletter, but none of the e-mail marketing messages between monthly issues.

Well, I’m never going to offer an option to get the e-zine only—advertising-free and without the supplemental e-mail marketing messages.

And if you’re an Internet marketer, neither should you.

Why not?

Think of it this way…

As an online information marketer—a “micro publisher”—you spend time and energy creating your e-zine.

Your time, ideas, and information are valuable to others. Or at least they should be. If your content isn’t valuable, why would you bother creating it…and why would your subscribers read it?

As with everyone else who works for a living, you—a content creator—need to earn money by charging for what you produce.

Electricians get paid to splice wires together. Plumbers bill you for fixing leaky pipes.

Why does the world seem to think content creators and owners of intellectual property should give away their creations for free?

As for me, I charge for my e-zine. Not money, mind you. But I do charge a fee.

And the “fee” I charge is that the subscribers agree to receive my e-mails. All my e-mails. Not necessarily to open or read them. But just to receive them.

Usually I send a 50/50 mix of sales messages and content messages.

But even the sales messages offer ideas, solutions, and resources I believe my readers will benefit from.

No one is forced to buy the information products I am recommending. You can go years without spending a dime with me…and still get my e-zine at no cost.

No one is forced to open or read the e-mails. If you are a subscriber to my e-zine, you can simply delete any or all of them.

No one is forced to receive my e-zine. I am not abusing anyone by sending it against their will.

The right to send my subscribers e-mail marketing messages is simply the price I charge for my publication.

If you wish to stop paying the subscription fee, you can unsubscribe with a single mouse click in about 3 seconds. No need to make a phone call or waste a stamp on a letter.

When you unsubscribe, you will no longer receive the e-mails.

But you won’t get my free e-zine either. You take all or none. That’s the deal—non-negotiable.

Amazingly, online subscribers argue with us Internet marketers about this issue from time to time—something they rarely do with a traditional publisher.

After all, if you called Newsweek and told them, “Send me the magazine, but take out the ads first,” what do you think they would do?

Yes, I could offer an “advertising-free” edition of my e-newsletter, but what would be the point? Or as we copywriters say, “What’s in it for me?”

Yes, as an Internet marketer, you can send too many e-mails or have a disproportionately high ratio of sales to content.

But your subscribers will tell you what they consider too much or just right.

For instance, I recently signed up for the e-list of an entertainer I like.

After I got 3 e-mails the first day, I decided his arrangement was not for me, and I opted out with a single click.

But I did not send him an e-mail with obscenities in it.

I did not petition him to put me on a special e-list…or change his publishing model.

I simply unsubscribed.

How do you know when you are sending too many e-mail marketing messages to your e-list?

Just pay attention to the opt-out rate, which is the percentage of subscribers who opt-out after you distribute an e-mail message to your list.

Each time you distribute your e-newsletter or an e-mail message to your subscriber list, a few will opt out. That’s okay.

But if too many are unsubscribing per e-mail—say, more than 2 out of every 1,000 subscribers on the list—you may be selling to your list too much, too hard, and too often.

Solution: cut back on frequency…make the content more educational, less hard-sell…add more content and do less selling…until the opt-out rate drops to below 0.2%.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

The other day, one of my online subscribers, CR, complained about the e-mail marketing of a famous Internet marketer.

“I unsubscribed from his list,” she told me haughtily. “As soon as I joined, I got e-mails from him once or twice every day and there’s no one I or anyone else needs to hear from that much.”

That begs the question: how frequently can you e-mail your online subscribers?

Or: how much e-mail is too much?

People have lots of opinions about this issue, which they support with arguments that are both passionate and logical.

The problem is: their opinions are wholly subjective.

The fact is: there’s an easy way to objectively and accurately determine the optimal e-mail frequency for your online subscribers.

How does it work?

Well, every time you send another e-mail blast to your list, a small portion of your subscribers will opt out of your list.

Why?

They decide that your content is no longer of value to them or you are doing too much selling or they don’t like your style or you are e-mailing them too often.

The “opt-out rate” is a Web metric that you can measure: the percentage of online subscribers who unsubscribe from your list per e-mail blast.

A 0.1% opt-out rate means that if you have 10,000 online subscribers, 10 unsubscribed after getting your most recent e-mail.

When your opt-out rate is around 0.1% or less, you can rest assured that you are not sending too many e-mails to your list too often.

If you were, the opt-out rate would be higher.

On the other hand, when your opt-out rate gets much above 0.2% to 0.4%, you are losing subscribers at too rapid a rate.

For instance, if you have 10,000 subscribers and an opt-out rate of 1%, you lose 100 subscribers every time you send an e-mail to your list.

You should measure and keep track of your opt-out rates with every e-mail you send.

Adjust your e-mail frequency, ratio of sales pitches to content, message length, and topics until your opt-out rate hovers around 0.1% to 0.2% or less.

Now, watch what happens if you increase the e-mail frequency—for instance, go from one e-mail per week to two e-mails per week.

If you get a sharp upward spike in the opt-out rate—double or more—your subscribers are telling you they don’t want to hear from you that often.

And you should probably eliminate the extra e-mail.

On the other hand, if you add an extra e-mail per week and the opt-out rate does not rise significantly, you are safe in continuing at the higher frequency.

But should you?

Yes.

We have lots of preconceived notions about what our market wants—and doesn’t want.

And one of these preconceived notions is that people don’t want too much e-mail.

But when the opt-out rate is low, your subscribers are telling you they DO want to hear from you often via e-mail.

That’s important, because the more times you can reach out to your list with a valuable offer or content, the more money you make online.

My colleague Amy Africa, a top consultant in B2B e-marketing, says that one of the most common online marketing mistakes is not e-mailing your list frequently enough.

And by making that mistake, you are leaving money on the table.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

As more and more folks start their own online business, there’s going to be a glut of promotions and information on the Net. The best way to be outstanding is to continually outdo yourself in terms of quality. One of the best way is to provide an e-course series, yet so few people care to prepare such a series of lessons.

Let me just say all the work is done for you now! You can get 25 top-notch e-courses and newsletter series that are informative, professionally written and formatted for easy editing. Just simply edit the text to reflect you and your company and queue them into your autoresponder and you’re DONE!

Use these messages to provide high quality, useful information to your readers and attract new subscribers. The price is a measly $4.95, but the return on investment is going to be huge. Download your PLR Crash Course Package now!

HAVE A REASON TO MAIL YOUR CUSTOMERS

Here are some ideas that work well:

1) A big fat discount coupon. This can be just for specific products or a blanket store-wide discount. You can set a threshold price for store-wide sales so you don’t end up losing money on your lower profit items, i.e. 10% off orders over $50.

2) Buy one get one free. If you’re promoting a product with enough of a profit margin, buy-one-get-one sales are fantastic sellers. Even if you sell a product people wouldn’t necessarily need more than one of, you can offer buy one get one of equal or lesser value. If you can pull this off it’s a great sales tactic.

3) Buy one get one ½ off. Same basic principle as the buy one-get-one, you just keep more of the profit while still offering the customer a deal.

4) Buy one get a free widget. It works very well for anything that can be accessorized; it’s really one of my favorite promotions

WRITE A KILLER SUBJECT LINE

It’s all well and good to have a great offer for your subscribers, but they won’t know about it unless they open and read your e-mail, right? Subject lines aren’t just as important as content and design…they actually can be more important. Your customers probably subscribe to more than just your newsletter and they’re probably not waiting in anticipation for your next mailing. If your subject is bland, it doesn’t matter how well-written the content is or how amazing the images of your products look, because most of your customers will delete your e-mail without opening it. People are being sold to everywhere they go and it seems everyone is always having a sale so: “Big Sale at My Store” isn’t going to get you the open rate you want.

So what do you write? What will keep them from deleting your e-mail and in fact, coerce them to open and act upon it? How can people decide if they are interested based on what amounts to nothing? Over-communicating is just as bad. For instance “Three Day Buy One Get One Free Sale On Modern Art Tapestries Handmade and Imported from Belgium For Stunning Home Decor.” Too long and it looks like spam.

You want a bite-size hook, not some long boring exposition that will be truncated by your customers’ e-mail client anyway. So make your message clear and concise: adding a call to action doesn’t hurt either. Try “Three Day Buy One Get One Tapestry Sale”, or “Get a Rod with Your Tapestry Purchase”, or “All Tapestries 20% Off This Friday”. These all work.

Don’t use all caps, avoid extra punctuation, and don’t use more than one exclamation point if you must use any at all.

WHAT MAKES FOR GOOD DESIGN?

Now that you’ve gotten your customer to take a look at your content, you need to capture their eye with your design. There are a lot of different elements and considerations that go into design so I’m going to start with the most basic and technically the only necessary one – product pictures.

Your products need to be the focus. Whether you’re featuring just one or a whole menagerie, your images have to be crystal clear and sharp. In other words, your products need to pop.

You can use in-context images or just simple product pictures. One layout I’m fond of using is an in-context image at the top either to the right or left of my offer text, then three to six regular product images in columns underneath. I’ve also had success with nine regular images in three rows arranged by category. But the design that works best for me may not work as well for your products and/or customer base, so always be testing new layouts.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Scheduling is another very important factor in e-mail marketing success. Just as sales ebb and flow with the days of the week, so does e-mail response. There are a lot of different ideas and theories marketers have about the best day to mail but I firmly believe it varies by industry and customer type .This is just something you will have to test.

You need to get a feel for your customer base and how they like to do things. Look at your stats and figure out the day of the week and rough time you get the most orders. By rough time I mean morning, afternoon, or night and schedule your mailing to hit inboxes just before. That’s how you should begin and test from there. You should also test frequency of mailings. Your customer base, again, will dictate this.

If you put as much thought and care into designing your newsletters and e-mails as you do your website you will increase the value of your list and reap the benefits of repeat sales. Keep testing and digging deeper into the wants and needs of your customer base and you will create another income stream from within your existing business, it’s a wonderful thing.

1. Have a reason to e-mail your customers.
2. Create and test different types of sales – Buy one, get one, Single product, Free accessory, etc.
3. Write an eye-catching subject line to describe your sale and subscribers want to click.
4. Test different email design layouts.
5. Figure out your sales cycle and schedule your emails to go out right before your highest sales period.

Extracted from StomperNet SEO Intelligence Report, July 15, 2011.

Annette Iafrate, an executive with Constant Contact, gives the following smart and sensible tips for improving e-mail marketing results:

1. Use your own permission-based list.

2. When people sign up, let them know what kind of e-mails they will receive from you and when they will get them.

3. Keep your list up-to-date by removing inactive subscribers or sending them a one-time e-mail asking them to confirm their interest.

4. Determine the optimal frequency by asking yourself how frequently your customers think about or use your product.

5. Keep your content fresh, useful, and relevant.

Source: Target Marketing magazine

Measuring open and click-through rates can show you just how successful your e-mail marketing campaigns are.

But on the flip side, there’s another metric you should measure: the “complaint rate.” And if it’s too high, you could be in trouble.

Complaint rate is the percentage of recipients receiving your e-mail who complain to their ISP that you are spamming them.

According to e-mail deliverability expert Kevin Senne, the complaint rate should not exceed 0.2%, meaning a maximum of 2 spam complaints per 1,000 e-mails broadcast.

Warning: a number of e-mail services will refuse to distribute e-mails to your list if your spam complaint rate exceeds 0.2% or even 0.1%.

To lower your complaint rate to acceptable levels:

1. Make your e-mail copy more content-heavy…and less sales-oriented.

2. Ask subscribers what they want to read in your e-mails and give it to them.

3. E-mail your list less frequently.

Source: The Marketing Report

In a Dilbert cartoon, the pointy-haired boss chastised Dilbert for forgetting to tell him about an important meeting.

When Dilbert replied that he had notified him by e-mail, the boss replied, “Well, obviously you chose an uninteresting subject line; otherwise I would have opened it.”

He concluded by telling Dilbert, “You’re a bad e-mail sender.”

What about you?

Are you a good e-mail sender or a bad e-mail sender?

Do people on your opt-in e-list actually look forward to getting your e-mails…and order the products you recommend in them?

Or do they view you as a spammer and unsubscribe in droves every time you broadcast to the list?

In my own start-up Internet marketing business, CTC Publishing, I’ve found 3 copywriting tactics that work particularly well in e-mails sent to our subscriber list.

These are: stories, content, and teaser.

A “story” e-mail is just that: an e-mail that tells an amusing story or anecdote.

For instance, to promote our PR course to my subscribers, I sent out an e-mail that told a humorous—and true—story.

It was about what happened when my then-7-year-old son dropped his new gigapet—the latest electronic fad at the time—in the toilet.

The copy read: “Alex took the gigapet with him to the bathroom…and promptly dropped it in the toilet.

“I quickly fished it out. But the water damaged the electronics, and the device was ruined.

“Upon seeing his digital pet was dead, Alex burst into tears.

“‘C-c-can we b-b-bury this one?’ he asked me tearfully.

“Being a soft-hearted dad, I immediately took him to the back yard—and with a shovel, we buried his dead electronic pet, using a brick for a headstone.”

I went on to reveal how I had gotten on the front page of the leisure section of a major NJ daily newspaper by sending out a press release on “Microchip Gardens”—the world’s first gigapet cemetery.

The e-mail was very profitable—and I learned that my list likes stories.

Second, content.

An e-mail marketing message that actually presents an idea, tip, advice, or other content can often work better than one that is merely a sales pitch for a product.

In an e-mail promoting a program I sell on how to write a non-fiction book and get it published, I revealed a secret that many aspiring authors do not know:

“Do you want to write a non-fiction book and get it published?

“Then don’t write the book—at least not yet.

“Publishers don’t want to read an unsolicited book manuscript from an unknown author.

“If you send it, they’ll either mail it back unread…or toss your book in the trash.

“What you need to do is write a book proposal.”

If the reader learns something useful just from reading the e-mail, he appreciates the value you are giving him…and clicks on the link to your site to learn more.

The third type of e-mail I’ve found to be extremely effective is the ultra-short teaser e-mail.

The lead talks about a benefit, a solution to a problem, or something else highly desired by the reader.

And the next paragraph promises to deliver this benefit or solution when the reader clicks on the hyperlink to the landing page. For example:

“A recent survey revealed that writers who earn more than $60,000 a year consistently do 22 things that writers who earn less money don’t.

“To get your hands on this list of 22 habits of highly profitable writers…and master dozens of additional strategies for earning six-figures as a freelance writer…click below now…”

This teaser e-mail generated a 2.5% click-through rate with a 10% conversion to orders for a $29 e-book.

Tell a story…give valuable free content…use a teaser.

These 3 approaches to e-mail copywriting have worked for me.

Perhaps they can work for you, too.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

An autoresponder service allows you to send messages automatically after a user opts in to your landing page or from any other platform that asks them for a name and e-mail.

When looking for an autoresponder service, consider the following:

1) A Friendly User Interface – A Graphical User Interface makes navigating through a program easy for a user by introducing buttons, bars and toolbars that represent themselves with images associated with their function. In times like these, learning curves are considered a liability. So eliminate that by learning on the fly, and nothing does that better than a GUI driven autoresponder service.

2) Flexible API – An API is an interface that allows software and web applications to communicate with each other. Your autoresponder service needs should have a flexible API so you can have them respond from virtually anywhere (landing pages from Facebook, Kajabi, WordPress etc). If an autoresponder service doesn’t have the ability to speak with Facebook or WordPress, you might have a hard time trying to integrate your autoresponders with any landing page.

3) Easy Management of Lists – You need to easily organize your lists for e-mail list segmentation. The ability to segment your email lists according to your subscribers’ background or preference is indispensable because it allows you to make target prospective customers with precision.

4) Diverse selection of E-mail Templates – An e-mail template not only makes a marketer’s message enticing to read, it also provides an opportunity to expose his brand more. However, an emphasis on aesthetics could mean bigger e-mail sizes, which may trigger spam filters on a lot of mail clients. A good autoresponder service has a wide selection of appealing e-mail templates to choose from, all of which are email client-friendly and don’t lead the message to the Spam box.

5) Excellent Reporting – Get an autoresponder service that can show you open, click-through, and unsubscribe rates. It should give you data that’s indicative of the overall performance of your campaign. More importantly, it gives you an idea as to which factors in your campaign are working and which aren’t, thus allowing you to make the changes necessary for it to perform better.

6) Customer Support – Last but not least, you need an autoresponder service that provides great customer support. There are things that an Internet marketer wants to do that aren’t covered by the help wizard or tutorial (or it does, but he/she just doesn’t grasp it). For times like that, he/she needs to turn to support for assistance and a guiding hand.

These are the basic features that every good autoresponder service should have. For more Internet marketing tips, visit Andy Jenkins Blog