2005 REALITY CHECK
by Theresa Cahill
Copyright 2005 - All Rights Reserved


It's all well and good for someone with a mailing list
of a quarter of a million or more to tell you that
advertising is easy on the net. Their lists are filled
to overflowing with a huge handful of individuals that,
no matter what they sell, push, or announce, jump on
the bandwagon and buy, buy, buy.

Are they really advertising? Personally, I say no.

What they are doing is sharing prime real estate be it
their own mailing lists or websites amongst themselves.
Joint ventures are highly useful, highly effective. 
Joint ventures with those of "influence" granted even 
more so. Where else can you hook your name with someone 
of reknown and become almost an overnight success? 
... Only on the net.

However, for the rest of us, life online is spent really
advertising; marketing our little hearts out, building
one brick at a time our own mailing lists.

Building your own list IS the critical key.

To build a list though takes marketing. The beauty is
advertising online is straightforward and really doesn't
change all that much. While fads do come and go, the 
foundation of online advertising remains the same.

You have:

1.  Text ads
2.  Solo ads
3.  Targeted website visitors
4.  Signups
5.  Viral marketing
6.  Joint ventures
7.  RSS feeds and weblogs
8.  Banner advertising
9.  Search engines
10. Article writing
11. Press releases
12. Pay-per-click
13. Report and ebook writing
14. Ezine/newsletter publishing

Now I may have missed a subheading somewhere, but all
in all, that's about it.

If you're reading this in an ezine, you understand the
importance of many items on the list - from text ads
to article writing to publishing.

However, I'm often surprised when talking with advertisers
that they haven't covered the very first step - submitting
their url to the search engines... for fr.ee.

Do this, not just once, but every 31 days or so, and do
it religiously. Once is not enough.

Personally I've done the pay-per-click, and while others
may have tremendous success with it, I do not. So, having
my own limited funds for marketing, I stay away from it.
I've seen my money fly out the window in one morning,
with absolutely zero results. Your own experience may
be different - I hope so!

So what's "new?"

We've all heard of rss and weblogs lately (or at least
I hope you have). By no means "new" to the net, feeds
though are currently catching on with online marketers.
I drove myself crazy trying to find a writeup about how 
to do it before I finally found how to set it up, update 
it, and where to submit both types.

For straightforward information on making an RSS feed:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2175271

It won't cost you a dime.

Weblogs are different from RSS feeds. The coding is
completely different, but the purpose is the same - a
mini-platform for you to do anything from rant and rave
to peddle your goods.

My choice of weblogs is http://www.blogger.com. Once I
understood the process, it's truly not hard to do.

Check out http://www.google4you.com for my example of
a weblog.

The beauty of feeds is they are quickly picked up by
search engines (in most cases). The downside of RSS 
feeds is you must have your own website, but this is
actually a good thing.

Looking back I realize I've left off something very
critical to my list above - having and maintaining
your own website. If you haven't bought a domain name
and purchased hosting you're more or less shooting
yourself in the foot. Having your own website is a
critical plus to advertising online.

Why? Because trying to market affiliate urls can be
a royal pain. You're out there up against every other
affiliate also vying for your traffic.

However, when you market your own website, it's
unique. You're able to describe (content) and list
the programs you wholeheartedly endorse. All from
one domain name. Makes sense right? And the benefit
is it costs much less to advertise one url then many.

My personal favorite? 
http://www.mywizardads.com/RD/IR.html

A good publisher friend of mine has worked her
way steadily through my articles presenting them to
her readers over the past several months. I'm only
slightly surprised when I reread them to find out
that be it 2002 or 2005, things don't really change
all that much.

Marketing is marketing. Marketing is work. Marketing
can, and will, ultimately cost you some cash once
you've thoroughly exhausted the fre.e methods of
getting your word out.

Multi-million dollar mailing lists? Definitely
possible... with strategic planning, good teaming
up, and consistent advertising.

My parting bit of advice, which I'd appreciate you
re-reading several times is...

READ FIRST! Any time you are asked to part with
your mo'ney make sure you completely and fully 
understand what it is you are either becoming a part 
of or paying for.

No one is sitting there with you most likely. No
one is going to read it to you (most likely). No
one is responsible for your understanding, or lack
thereof, but you.

Due diligence and happy marketing to you!

=======================================

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Theresa Cahill is the owner of My Wizard Ads, a 
true one-stop spot for your online advertising 
needs. http://www.mywizardads.com