What Is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a method of promoting businesses through the Internet, by sending emails to people. These people are usually present on a list that might be created through a lead generation technique. The aims of email marketing could be varied. These could be:-

– Directly promoting a product and interesting the recipient in visiting the website of the business

– Creating awareness of some newly introduced feature in an existing product

– Calling upon people to introduce new people in return of certain incentives

– Interesting recipients in products and opportunities of affiliated businesses in a bid to bring in residual income, etc.

This technique is used by big as well as small businesses and in most cases, the business emails could be helpful to the receivers. These emails could also take the form of newsletters which may or may not be directly inviting people for some business.

What are the Pros of Email Marketing?

Since most marketers will send the emails to a previously generated list of people, the method is less effort-intensive. There will be effort needed to create the copy of the email but other than that, it is a largely automated process. Tracking is possible through autoresponders. These will tell the email sender if any action has been taken. Hence, manual tracking is not needed.

There is usually an instant reply for email marketing because of the speed with which emails are sent. All other methods of marketing – over the Internet or otherwise – can take a lot of time materializing into prospects.

What are the Cons of Email Marketing?

There is a very thin line between email marketing and spamming and this line can very easily be crossed. Action against spammers is quite strict, including legal recourse. The marketing needs to be subtle and done in a way that it provides some value to the receivers.

The emails can be filtered out automatically and end in junk folders. If that happens, there will be no use of this campaign. It is necessary to strictly adhere to anti-spamming rules.

What Are Ezine Solo Ads?

Ezines are electronic newsletters. These are usually delivered to people through their email ids. When people visit websites, they are sometimes asked to subscribe to newsletters on those websites. This is how ezines are delivered. Now, since the ezines are delivered for free, they try to make money through advertising. These ads are sent to people with the newsletter.

There are actually three kinds of ads that ezines carry – classified ads, sponsored ads and solo ads. Out of these three, solo ads are the most significant for marketing purposes because they will be sent without any other content. Their prices may be higher, but they guarantee better visibility and consideration from the receivers.

What are the Pros of Ezine Solo Ads?

These ads are very effective in building targeted leads. People who subscribe to newsletters are those that are interested in the product in some way. Since the ezine solo ads will be only going out to these interested people, the traffic obtained through them is targeted.

Because the solo ads are devoid of any other content except the copy of the ad itself, there are no distractions for the recipient. They concentrate only on the ad and are prompted to take some kind of action.

Autoresponders can be used to automate the responses obtained on these ads. This makes the whole process quite convenient for the advertisers.

What are the Cons of Ezine Solo Ads?

Because of their exclusivity, they can be very costly. A single ezine solo ad can cost about $100. Hence, marketers cannot do this often.

A lot depends on the newsletter that is associated with the solo advertisement. It is important to check the quality of the newsletter, the number of subscribers it has, the frequency of it getting mailed, etc. Though these ads are solo ads, it must be checked what other solo ads the newsletter sends. A lot of solo ads can lead to a loss in credibility.

The Pros and Cons of Press Releases

Press releases are any information, usually business information, that is released to the public through written content. In the online world, press releases are much like articles, with the only difference that these are actually announcing something.

There are press release directories such as PRWeb.com where these press releases can be submitted. The press releases are immediately picked up by the directories because they need to be as current as possible and if they have been optimized efficiently with keywords, they will begin ranking highly on Google and other search engines.

Multilevel marketers and other business people have been using press releases to announce their business opportunities since even before the advent of the Internet. However, with the Internet, it has become possible to submit press releases almost free of cost and have a much wider exposure for them through SEO.

What are the Pros of Press Releases?

Press release directories over the Internet allow placing links of websites. Thus, they can be looked upon as a traffic building or even a lead generation technique. Because of the presence of features such as Google Alerts through which interested people are constantly checking out advancements in their fields of interest, it is very likely that targeted traffic will begin building up soon.

A press release carries with it the impression of something important happening. It helps keep the business “in the news” in the literal sense. That is the reason most marketers are leveraging their promotional campaigns with press releases.

What are the Cons of Press Releases?

Owing to the fact that press releases can bring in a lot of traffic very soon, a lot of marketers have begun using them even when they do not have anything very note worthy to announce. This is bringing a bad name to all online press releases.

A professional writer will be required to write a press release because of the newsy language that is required to draft it. At the same time, the write must know about keyword optimization. It can be difficult to get a writer that has both these qualities and may prove costly.

The Pros and Cons of Ad Swapping

Ad swap is a joint venturing technique in which email ads are exchanged between two webmasters. To do this effectively, the webmasters must have a list of subscribers of their own. These webmasters can then introduce another joint venture partner into the group. This joint venture partner will communicate through email, which can be tracked through autoresponders.

Thus, there are three main steps in joint venture ad swapping. The first step is to create a list of subscribers, which must be at least 500. The second step is to find joint venture partners to swap ads with. The third step is to actually swap ads with them by submitting a proposal to them.

What are the Pros of Ad Swapping?

The most obvious benefit is the fact that it brings a huge list of people to the webmasters. By joint venturing with other people, they are directly multiplying the list that they have.

Ad swapping is a game of equality. It doesn’t matter if one webmaster has a smaller list and the other one has a larger list. If they are in a joint venture, they will still swap ads over their lists. This may benefit one more than the other, but the main point is that both are benefited.

It brings more people to opt in to newsletters from where further promotional tactics can be used. There is a scope for diversifying markets too, because the webmaster is getting a list almost out of the blue.

What are the Cons of Ad Swapping?

It is a slow process. The first step – getting subscribers – will need to be done through article marketing, blogging, etc. This could take time. The second step is both time consuming and difficult. It is not easy to find a person interested in a joint venture and who would also be ready to swap ads.

Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay Per Click advertising is an affiliate marketing method in which the host is paid according to the number of clicks that they can provide to the advertiser’s website. These advertisements are acquired through a service such as Google AdWords, which maintains a listing of advertisers. When an account is created with AdWords, it will provide a list of ads to the subscriber, from which particular niches can be selected. Then AdWords will provide the codes to place these ads on the website. Whenever these ads get a click from a visitor, the host will get a small sum of money.

What are the Pros of Pay Per Click Advertising?

Pay Per Click advertising is a win-win situation for everyone involved. The host benefits from the residual income that the click through visits can create for them. The advertiser is benefited by the exposure obtained. The service, Google AdWords or any other, is benefited because it gets a commission from the advertiser for making its ads visible on the host website.

Pay Per Click ads can be optimized for the search engines. This guarantees a high visibility for them if done correctly. Using this form of advertising in conjunction with lead capture pages, a good list of targeted prospects can be created.

The cost factor is of paramount importance. It takes only a few cents to place these ads on the Internet and keep them there all the time. The process is automated, so it does not require manual intervention even when an ad gets a click through.

What are the Cons of Pay Per Click Advertising?

The ads are provided through a bidding process. If the bids are high, ads are guaranteed a higher page ranking. For most marketers, AdWords is a source of income too; hence, they would want to earn money from AdWords so that they can bid high. This can be possible through a higher page ranking. Thus, there is a cyclic effect in play.

Also, AdWords is all about survival of the fittest. Ads that perform well will persist, while those that don’t will perish, bogged down by the high costs that they will have to face.