What do you want for nuthin'?

May be used in ezine or web page. Keep article in tact
including URL and email address. Word count: 1023
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What do you want for nuthin'?
© 2002 by Dale Sexton

Sometimes you have to be willing to take trade offs or make
sacrifices. I am using my experience as an example, and you
may have a better way to achieve the success I've been
seeing.

I signed up for Tucats Ezine Ad Co-op to send free ads to a
list of ezines accepting free ads. I knew what I was getting
into because my newsletter is part of the co-op.

http://www.roibot.com/w.cgi?IM8301_coop

I knew I would be getting confirmation of subscriptions,
solo ads, and monthly, weekly and twice weekly issues to my
email address from over 100 newsletters and ezines. It is my
trade off to getting my free ad out to over 500,000 readers.

Updates from the Tucats Ad Co-op tell of people who have
signed up to take advantage of the free ads, then are mad
about being spammed, or didn't realize they would get so
much email. Keep in mind, when you sign up for something,
you might want to do some reading first. You can't call it
spam when you sign up for it.

You can get a free web based email address to use to sign up
for multiple ezines, such as the one at PageCrafters.net
Free Email Service.

http://pagecrafters.net/services.html#mail

By doing this, you keep your personal or business address
from being bombarded but two problems arise:

1) You have to constantly clean out the mailbox, because
some of the ezines will drop you if your email address
bounces.

2) You miss out on some good information by not reading the
ezines. Some of these ezines require you to read them as
they contain ad code that must be used to get your weekly
ads approved.

This is what I found that works best for me. I use OutLook,
but OutLook Express and any other email client can be
configured just as easily. Set up the rules in OutLook or
your favorite email client. In OutLook, go to tools, then
rules. In most clients look for tools or options.

What you want to do is set your client up to filter words in
the subject or body of your emails. You can even filter by
'received from address'. Key words to filter may be
'newsletter', 'ezine' or 'issue'.

I've made a folder I call Mags (short for magazines) to
place the filtered ezines into. I now have the option to
read them later or look for ad codes when I'm ready to
submit my free ads. Some of the info I've collected is good
stuff and I archive it for reference later.

All of the newsletter and ezines you've just subscribed to
offer at least one free ad. Most offer weekly ads. Drop the
newsletters you don't wish to continue receiving, but if you
take the one free ad, have enough netiquette to stay
subscribed until your ad is shown. If you drop them before
your ad is shown, it may never be shown.

This is the hard part. It took me about a week, and still
some ezine confirmations came in. Believe me, the process is
worth it. I do get responses to my ads and after I competed
this part, the rest was easy.

Any one of these tools, or combinations of, work great for
your free ad submissions. Both organization and posting are
made easy after the initial setup.

Below is the lowdown of each, listing strengths and
weaknesses, in my opinion. In all honesty I like them all,
but read on, use them, and make your own decision.
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AI RoboForm

AI RoboForm is great for filling in forms. After you teach
it how, it will fill them in automatically when your browser
finds one. As you go to a newsletter form page, you can name
the settings for the newsletter, then every time you go to
that site, AI RoboForm will fill out the form. All you have
to do is hit the submit button.

The free version can be used immediately. The way we are
using this tool is hindered very little in the free version,
although the full version does have some great features.
There is no way to organize your ezines, but I find it an
excellent form filler.

http://pagecrafters.net/programs/AiRoboForm.zip

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AdWizard

One of AdWizard's better features is that it keeps a
database that is easily accessed and modified. It also lets
you know when it is time to send your ads again. AdWizard is
a slower than AI RoboForm or EzineAnnouncer, but is the most
configurable of the three when filling forms.

AdWizard is usable immediately, but requires that you
register it after 60 days of use.

http://hop.clickbank.net/?dsextonj/pbeuger

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EzineAnnouncer

Although I like all of these tools, the most versatile is
EzineAnnouncer. Like AdWizard, it will also let you know
when to send your ads out.

Between AdWizard and EzineAnnouncer, the former is the most
configurable using forms, but neither AdWizard or AI
RoboForm have the ability to send email to ezines that
require your ad to be sent via email.

The demo version of EzineAnnouncer is usable for 15 days.
After that it must be registered for continued use. If you
use it, you might get addicted.

http://wetrack.it/eza/af.cgi?354
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None of these tools are expensive. The cost is less than
$150 if you were to buy them all. Consider the cost of
advertising and what a premium ad runs. This now becomes a
bargain.

The length of time involved is the setup of each ezine. It's
not too bad unless you have a hundred or so to do. After
you've finished doing a bulk load like at Tucats Co-op,
onezies and twozies are easy and don't take that long.

Remember, don't blow off those ezines after you've
subscribed. You could be missing some good articles and
might find an ad or two that you may find useful.

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Dale Sexton owns & operates 'PageCrafters.net', &
publishes 'Small Business Tools magazine'. Both
focus on tools & tips for small business.
mailto:pagecrafters@pagecrafters.net
Sign up for 'SBT magazine' at:
http://pagecrafters.net/newsletter.html
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