For a text version of this article click here 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 free. 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. 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 free 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 money 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