How Not to Advertise On The Internet
How Not To Advertise On The Internet
By: Dave Cole
Over a year ago I decided to do a little experiment.
For one solid week I spent 12 hours a day posting my
ads to all the FFA, Link, and free classified ad pages I
could find.
Even bought a fancy high powered submitter that ran off
my computer to put my ad on thousands of more pages,
just plug in the web address and a few lines of text and
off it went sending hundreds of messages per second.
Downloaded several free submitters and used them too.
I was advertising a free subscription to my newsletter
with the ads. Not a thing was mentioned of any selling,
just a free subscription.
A whole weeks worth of work of hard submitting, and
guess what?
At the weeks end, I totaled a whole 5 new subscribers.
Go figure.
One whole weeks worth of solid submitting and 5 new
subscribers and not a penny in revenue.
Was I discouraged....you bet.
Something just wasn't right here.
So I tried a "new" approach.
Got involved with those companies that promised to send
the ads out to thousands more "opt-in" readers, or better
yet, folks who had submitted links to FFA pages and
were "hot", in fact "red hot" prospects for my business,
and were just waiting by the edge of their seat to receive
my advert.
Course they all cost me money to join, a monthly fee,
but I gladly paid their fee cause all the hype told me that
everyone was making scads of money off this new approach
and it was a no fail proposition.
Tried this new way of marketing for about a month along
with various so-called "safelists" and guess what?
Averaged about 5 new subscribers a week.
Hmmmm......
So I did a little experiment.
Loaded up my trusty high powered, high cost submitter
and blasted away. While it was blasting, I also went to
the FFA pages it was submitting to. Sure enough, my ad
showed up. Wow, was I thrilled that the thing actually worked!
But, alas, within 12 minutes time my link disappeared from
the site. Seems that the pages only kept the links for a certain
amount of time until other, newer links would appear.
I deducted from this:
1. Everybody and their brother was posting to these pages
along with me.
2. No one ever actually even went to these pages to
see the links.
3. Even if they did, the links wouldn't be up long enough
for anyone to see.
So much for posting to FFA and link pages. Forget it.
Time and effort waster big time.
Next I tried ezine advertising. Better results, but
it all depended upon which ezine I advertised in and
what adverts I put.
Sent solo ads in one highly popular ezine to 50,000 and
got nothing, on a proven ad I knew was pulling about a
2% response rate. Complained to the editor and graciously
or out of concession, the editor ran it again.
So I've now got a 100,000 run on an ad that should have
brought me at least 200 sales and I got zero.
Hmmmm.....
Later found out the reason for the high number of subscribers
was because he was subscribing everyone who posted to
his FFA pages, with or without their knowledge or consent.
Of course the confirmation email from the posting told you
that you were now subscribed, but who ever reads those
confirmation emails anyway. And of course, no one was
ever really reading that ezine either.
And, who ever posts to FFA pages using a "good" email
address? No one.
Everyone uses a free or bad email address and just dumps
the inbox without ever bothering to even look at the mails
anyway.
So I tried the next new wave of marketing, bulk email.
Of course I was "ethical" and purchased a list of addresses
from a lead broker who guaranteed these addresses were
fresh and hot and just waiting to receive my offer.
Again, I offered a free subscription to my newsletter and
started sending out emails to the huge list of names I
had just purchased (over one million addresses for the
remarkably low price of only $150.00).....Somebody
grin...please....:-)
Loaded about 50,000 in my autoresponder with the
7 follow up, carefully crafted messages that were sure to
get these folks to sign up.
Know what I got?
A ton, and I mean a ton of spam complaints.
More money & time down the drain.
I know what went wrong.....I should have purchased the
software and harvested the addresses myself, this way
I could be assured that at least the email addresses were
"targeted".
So I spent a couple hundred more on buying this new, high
powered software that promised to glean and harvest
addresses that were specifically targeted.
Obviously it worked, the first night my software ran, I got
about 225,000 addresses....Whoopeee! I've got to be in the
money now.
So I diligently loaded another 50,000 in to my autoresponder
with the 7 carefully crafted messages and hit the send button.
Guess what I got this time?
The upline server shut down my entire domain that had
the autoresponder on it because of all the spam complaints.
Not a pretty thing to happen.
So does advertising work on the Internet? Well,
yes it does.See our article on "How To Advertise, Cheaply & Effectively on The Internet"
http://choosetoprosper.com/advertise_online.html
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Dave Cole
Prosperity: The Choice Is Yours
Copyright © 2005
Dave's E-zine provides you with valuable info
on how to market your online business and how
to make money online. Get your Free subscription today.
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