Solo ads are the most powerful ezine advertising tools, but any ezine advertiser or email marketer has to know that a poorly written subject line affects dramatically the result of an advertising campaign.
Today’s article shows you a simple method for testing solo ads subject lines, in order to avoid the unwanted and unpleasant failure of your email marketing campaign.
Step 1 – Read once again your sales letter and focus your attention on buyers’ benefits. Then write 8-10 subject lines, none of them longer than 60-65 characters (including the empty spaces between the words).
Step 2 – Take a break! Forget about the product or service you plan to promote, forget about your next advertising campaign, forget about your goals, forget everything. Empty your mind of all your thoughts. Then take a look at the subject lines as if they are not yours. Consider these headlines written by a certain John Doe and always ask yourself, “So what?”
Step 3 – Simply delete two subject lines that you consider the worst ones. I know, they all are your babies, they are all fine in your opinion, but … just do it! I told you to empty your mind and consider them as not being yours.
Step 4 – You still have 6-8 subject lines. Contact some of your friends and don’t tell them anything about your plans. Just send them the subject lines and ask each friend to choose two of them. Don’t tell them that they are headlines. Don’t tell them what criteria to use in making their selection. Tell them not to ask any question but to choose two of the “expressions” you sent. Repeat the same test by posting the question in some online forums.
Step 5 – Based on the answers you received during the Step 4, make a “Top 2 Subject Lines”.
Step 6 – Buy two very cheap solo ads. Free solo ads are even better. It’s best to choose an ezine that is in the same niche like the product you plan to promote. Don’t be bothered by the fact that the ezine or whatever it is doesn’t have thousands of subscribers, but only make sure that both ads are sent to the same readers (don’t buy one solo ad in one ezine and the second ad in another ezine). For these two ads, use the subject lines from Step 5, the same ad copy for both ads and two different tracking links (an ad tracker is a must for such test).
Step 7 – After the ads are published, wait 4-5 days and then analyze the number of clicks generated by each ad. The advertisement that got more clicks is the winner and its subject line is “The One”. You’ve just finished the test.
To Your Email Marketing Success!
Adrian Jock 
P.S. If you want to improve the results of your solo ads advertising campaigns, I recommend you to read Ultimate Guide to Solo Ads.
P.P.S. For more ezine advertising tips, subscribe free to Ezine Advertising Info newsletter.