Buy Exposure to Other People’s Audience
Forum Ads
Forums that are bustling with an active member base can be wonderful places for you to find new subscribers to your list. And many allow you to purchase ad space, too.
There are different types of ads. Let’s use the WarriorForum.com site as an example. Here, not only can you purchase a rotating banner ad for 24 hours, but there are ad spots in different sections of the site, too, such as the Warrior Special Offers area.
Some forums will also have things where you can buy ad space that gets blasted out to the members in their email or private message box, depending upon their communication preferences and settings.
You obviously want to choose a forum where your target audience would reside. If you’re promoting your opt in freebie, then it should be highly targeted so that you maximize the use of your funds.
Is the forum active? Does the audience post there regularly? You want a well-trafficked site with plenty of potential to help you grow your list. Check out the threads to see how long it’s been since anyone posted in them.
When you’re taking a peek, look to see what kinds of posts are being placed there, too. Is it all spammy ads being placed in there? You want a well-moderated forum that keeps spam and forum abusers out.
Study the rules of the advertising areas. On the Warrior Forum, for example, there are rules for both the banner ads and the Warrior Special Offers that you can pay to run.
If you break the rules in a forum, chances are your ad will be disabled because someone will report it – and you’ll be out the money you spent on listing it because it’s your fault for not reading the rules.
Send your ad viewers to the opt in offer freebie on your squeeze page. You want to get the name and email address above any instant sales. That way you can cater to them over time and get the most return on your investment.
Study the ROI to see if it’s worth repeating the ad block again in the future. If not, move on and try another forum or blog or ad opportunity. You can also test and tweak your ad blocks to see what elements perform best.
Social Networking Sites
Social networking sites usually start off as a participant-based platform. Then they launch some sort of advertising opportunity and the member base complains, but the advertising works anyway, so it grows.
You can check with a myriad of social networking platforms and see if they offer advertising opportunities. Two that are solid buys are Facebook and Twitter ads that you can pay for to reach an audience.
Facebook ad buys are very popular. You can create a fan page for your business and then once inside the fan page, click on Build Audience and Ads Manager. Inside here, you can click on Create Ad to get started.
The system will first ask you what results you want. You can choose clicks to your website, conversions, post engagements, likes, installation of apps, offer claims and more.
Then you’ll enter your web URL. Send them to a squeeze page where the only option for them to take action is to sign up to your list. If you send them to a blog, they’ll end up with other actions to distract them.
You’ll choose which image(s) you want to use in your ad. You will choose which Fan Page you want the ad to represent, if you have multiple pages on this social network.
You’ll add a headline and some limited text about the ad and then choose a button (or choose not to have one). After setting up your ad, you’ll get to pick your audience.
Do you want viewers from a certain country? Age demographic? Gender? With specific interests? This is where you pick all of those details. You’ll then set a budget and let the ad go live.
Twitter paid promotions are another option for you. You have different options here. For example, you can use a Promoted Tweet. This is when you pay for a Tweet to be exposed to a wider audience than your regular followers.
One element you want to include in promoted Tweets is the request for people to “Please RT” for you. That means they will ReTweet (share) your Tweet with others, only you won’t have to pay for those shares!
You can also use a Promoted Account ad. Some people choose this option because they want the follower to start following all of their Tweets in the future. But you can also use the Promoted Tweets to send them straight to your opt in freebie, so either one will work – and testing should prove valuable.
You can target your audience who will see the ad based on gender, language, geography and more. You can target keywords and interests. Set your budget and bidding specifics and watch your ad help you build a list of interested subscribers!
You always want to invest time into free list building efforts, and if you can’t get the results you want, put money into paid list building opportunities. But never get mired in either one to the point that it destroys your bank account or your momentum for success.