Internet Advertising, E-Zines And The Small-Business Entrepreneur - Part 4
Someone who helps weave together
several themes from the foregoing
discussion is Ruth Townsend from
upstate New York. She produces a
reasonably priced - in my opinion -
"Directory of Ezines" (This has
been sold to Charlie Page).
Ruth Townsend's product has several
instructive things to teach us. For
instance, her 'Directory of Ezines'
represents an example of how someone
might set about creating a relatively
unique niche on the Web woven from the
fabric of everyday life.
The idea of a Directory of Ezines" arose
out of Ruth's own search for information
concerning advertising and promotion.
As she became more involved in the
process, she realized that her need was
something which was shared by a lot of
other people.
This was a need that did not require
invention but was waiting for someone to
recognize its existence. By coming up
with the idea of a 'Directory of Ezines',
she set in motion her own game which
gave her a competitive edge, of sorts, in
the world of e-commerce and which
permitted her to overcome the problem
of how to avoid falling prey to the
Internet syndrome of 'me-tooism'.
There is another aspect of Ruth
Townsend's 'Directory of Ezines' which
is relevant to a main theme of the present
essay. This concerns the practical value
which her Directory offers to people who
are seeking to learn about one of the
"big three" cost-effective promotional
activities that were mentioned earlier -
namely, the ins and outs of e-mail-e-zines
as a vehicle for advertising.
Her directory lists (and is being updated
all the time) the 400-plus e-mail-e-zines,
of which she is aware, that accept
advertisements. Included in the
information provided by the Directory is
a description of the various e-zines, along
with a run-down of their vital data
vis-a-vis advertising. This includes:
circulation figures, frequency of
publication, cost of advertising, the type
of e-zine it is, whether or not the people
associated with it have facilities for
secured credit transactions, as well as
whatever other details are necessary to
help you make contact with the people in
question and, if so desired, place an ad.
Although there are a few exceptions to
what I am about to say, I have found
most of the advertising prices in the
Directory to be very reasonable.
Naturally, as the circulation for a given
e-zine goes up, then, generally speaking,
so do the prices, but even here, relative
to off-line rates, I think the costs are still
quite cost-effective.
Indeed, one should keep in mind that the
circulation of these e-zines consists of
people who have asked to receive the
e-zine and, therefore, tend to have a
genuine interest in its contents for their
own commercial, intellectual, political,
philosophical, emotional, aesthetic or
spiritual needs. Consequently, given this
level of interest, the contents of the e-zine
are likely to be read, and this means that
curious, interested eyes, minds and
hearts have more than a incidental
inclination to gaze upon, among other
things, one's classified and, maybe, even
stop for a while to reflect on, and
consider, what is being said.
The URL for The 'Directory of Ezines' is:
Directory
There are a few other Web Sites which I
have come across which seem to be
similar, in some ways at least, to what
Ruth Townsend has done, but I haven't,
yet, examined them to know what they
are all about or whether they are a good
value. I do believe, on the other hand,
that the 'Directory of Ezines' is a good
value for its price since I have tried it out
and know what it is about and what it
has to offer - incidentally, I don't know
Ruth Townsend, I am not getting paid to
say any of this, nor has she, or anyone
else, offered me inducements to mention
her Directory.
The one other suggestion I might make
in relation to the foregoing is that, if you
can, try to match up what you are doing
with the character of the e-zine in which
you are contemplating advertising.
Depending on what one is trying to sell,
this is not always easy to do because
there seems to be a limited range of
choices, so far, with respect to the
content of those e-zines which currently
permit advertising, and, therefore, the
audience of these e-zines may have no, or
little, inherent interest in what you are
trying to arouse their passions about.
For example, if most of the e-zines which
accept advertisements are about
marketing or promotion or some other
aspect of e-commerce, then these
readerships may have little interest in a
book on, say, mysticism. But, if you are
pitching a book on the ten most
successful entrepreneurs of the last
twenty years, you might do moderately
well.
Finally, as is true in the non-Internet
business world, persistence is necessary.
Significantly increasing the traffic to
one's enterprise does not happen over
night, but occurs, for the most part,
gradually, a little at a time - unless, of
course, one has just reinvented the
widget or built a better mousetrap.
In lieu of a breath-taking amazing new
gizmo with which to dazzle potential
customers, one should try to find ways to
remind people that one is still alive and
kicking - commercially, if not,
existentially speaking. Some people have
indicated that unless one can spend most
of one's time promoting what one has to
sell, one may be placing oneself at a
disadvantage.
So, the conclusion to my personal
testimonial with respect to commercial
life (or the lack thereof) on the Web is
that after you have done all of the
foregoing, then, do it again, and again,
and .... I'm sure you can see where this is
headed.
If one diligently follows what I consider
to be the three most cost-effective ways
of promoting one's e-commerce business
( i.e, writing for other e-zines, publishing
one's own e-zine and taking out classified
ads in some of these e-zines), then, this
might bring into play a further means (in
addition to the eleven, or so, that already
have been mentioned ) of having one's
products/services advertised. This
additional vehicle for promotion is
entirely free.
In fact, this way of advertising actually
may be the most important feature in any
promotional campaign.& nbsp; This is
the generation of positive word-of-mouth
discussion about one's products, services
and ways of going about business.
In other words, if people like what you
do and how you do it, you can be sure
they will tell other people (friends,
business colleagues, relatives, etc.) about
your Site and what they like about what
you have to offer. This is what I have
done in relation to Ruth Townsend's
Web Site, and the same sort of possibility
awaits you if you do things in a way that
is useful, interesting, or appealing to
others.
The final set of comments I have to make
revolves about an issue which tempers,
or serves to introduce a corrective
balance for, some of what has been said
previously. This cautionary point
involves what I would consider to be a
disturbing trend which may be emerging
in some e-zines that accept advertising.
An unfortunate tendency of humankind is
that once something good has been
discovered, we often set about, both
intentionally and unintentionally, to
destroy it by excesses of one sort or
another. While e-mail e-zine advertising
offers many small-business
entrepreneurs an opportunity to promote
their enterprises in a reasonably
cost-effective manner, some e-zines are
accepting so many ads, that the
newsletters are becoming, primarily,
vehicles for making money rather than
vehicles of communication, instruction
and community.
The sheer volume of advertisements in
some of these e-zines is threatening to
undermine prospects for
cost-effectiveness. After all, if readers no
longer wish to struggle against a
tidal-bore of information in order to find
useful commercial possibilities, then no
matter how cheap an ad may be, it is not
likely to be cost effective, because the
likelihood of people reading it has
substantially diminished as the number of
accompanying ads has gone up.
Furthermore, in some of these
publications, I have noticed a tendency to
separate many ads from the substantive
content of the e-zine. This can be done in
several ways, but the most problematic
choice is when an e-zine is broken into,
say, three parts, with the third part
containing a large number of ads, but
having very little substance in the way of
articles, editorials, tutorials, and the like.
One of the facets of
e-mail-e-zine-advertising which was
initially appealing to many people,
including myself, was the way in which
ads were not only given close proximity
to, but, to a certain extent, were also
woven into the flow of the substantive
content of the digest, newsletter or
magazine. This enhanced the likelihood
that a reader actually would do
something more than just by-pass the
commercial information contained in a
given classified advertisement.
When ad-copy is either removed from an
area which physically borders on the
location where substantive material is
being presented, or when ad-copy is
transformed into noise because of the
volume of ads which surround that copy,
then one must re-examine the criteria for
cost-effectiveness. Under these
circumstances, one can no longer say, in
any meaningful way, that the advertising
cost per reader is found through dividing
the cost of the ad by the circulation
figures for the e-zine.
In reality, the per reader cost in such
circumstances is likely to be far higher.
In fact, if, for example, only one or two
readers ever find their way to your ad
because of the aforementioned kinds of
obstacle that have been introduced into
the cost-equation by the publisher of the
e-zine, then, in truth, one is spending far
too much money per reader to make this
a cost-effective form of advertising.
A number of e-zine publishers indicate
they are actively seeking to boost their
circulation to x-thousand readers. I do
not feel asking them why they are
seeking to do this is an inappropriate
topic for me or anyone else to broach.
Yes, having an e-mail-e-zine which can
boast a large circulation is gratifying.
Nevertheless, this desire is rather
pretentious unless one consistently has
something of vital importance to say -
something which I think few people can
claim with any degree of justification.
Generally speaking - although there are
exceptions to what follows, when
business people begin talking about
generating big circulation figures, it
means only one thing. Somehow money is
involved.
Either advertising rates will go up with
an enhanced circulation, or the number
of clients who will be permitted to
advertise per issue will be increased, or
the enlarged readership is going to be
targeted in some fashion. Irrespective of
what is being mapped out which requires
a larger circulation base as part of an
overall business strategy, the ultimate
purpose underlying this logistical step, is,
in all likelihood, to help generate more
money, rather than being for the
betterment of the readership, the
community or humankind.
An inclination which is growing within
me is to stay away from large circulation
e-zines, or e-zines that are actively
seeking to substantially increase their
circulation. A person who is
contemplating placing one or more
classified ads might be better served by
sticking with e-zines that have a
circulation somewhere between 400 and
1600 readers.
This range seems to me to be likely to
contain conditions in which a number of
factors are present. For example, if
circulation figures for an e-zine are too
small, then this may not be cost-effective
- although whether it is or not could tend
to depend on the rate at which readers
can be started on the way to becoming
paying clients as a result of one's ad(s).
On the other hand, if the circulation of
an e-mail-e-zine is too large, then, as
outlined earlier, this, too, may not be
cost-effective.
In addition, one wants an e-zine where
ad-copy is likely to be in relatively close
proximity to substantive content, and, if
possible, woven into the flow of these
articles, features, and so on.
Furthermore, one would like an
advertising context in which one's
commercial message has some chance of
not only be seen, but of being read, and,
possibly, pursued, and this is less likely
to occur, I feel, if one is competing with a
lot of other messages, as is occurring
increasingly with some large-circulation
and/or rapidly growing e-zines.
The size of circulation which seems to be
most conducive to satisfying the
foregoing conditions rests, I feel, in the
400 - 1600 range. If this is true, then one
might be a lot better off taking out
classified ads in a number of relatively
small-circulation e-mail-e-zines, then in
buying space in a couple of
large-circulation e-zines, even if one may
have to pay, in total, a little more to do
the former, as opposed to the latter.
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