EZ Marketing | Updates | Tips

If you want to get free exposure get your site monitored.  Monitors are companies that track your picks independently and rank them according to success.  Some are free and others require payment.  EZCapper clients get the first 3 months for free when they signup at TrackPicks.com .  Just make sure you contact them and let them know that we sent you over (you must have a website from us) to qualify.

• http://www.sportspickmonitor.com
• http://www.pickmonitor.com
• http://www.trackpicks.com (* free for 3 months for EZCapper Clients)
• http://www.cappersmonitor.com
• http://www.parlayhelp.com (* contact them for a free offer)
• http://www.capperswatchdog.com
• http://www.handicapperswatchdog.com
• http://www.myhandicapper.com
• http://www.prosportsmonitor.com (* free for 2 months for EZCapper Clients)
• http://www.covers.com  (they have a monitoring system e.g. MLB)
• http://www.scamdicappers.com/
• http://www.sports-bettors.com/
• http://www.usasportsmonitor.net

If you know of others please leave a comment below.

Ever wonder why it is so expensive to do an email campaign?  The biggest reason boils down to economics 101, the fact that most cappers do not have economy of scale.  Unless your name is Jim Feist, you don’t have the economy of scale to acquire all the components to do a campaign cost effectively.  This means that you pay for services such as email delivery, design services and lead acquisition at low volumes which are typically the priciest.

Is their a solution to lower costs on your email campaigns?

Cooperative advertising is the answer.  Cooperative advertising means sharing the costs of the campaign among a group of cappers so as to share the costs.   Working together allows all the costs of a campaign to be spread out among 4-5  different cappers (that’s the most we recommend).  Most customers know that any capper is typically only good at one sport and at most two.  Our newsletter is written to promote a single capper in each of the key betting sports (i.e. NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAAF or NCAAB).  They are written in a format that appears less like advertising and more like a magazine review.  This appealing format increases readability.  We also include in our newsletter free giveaways and a free-ebook to increase the attractiveness of the creative content.

To see a our template sample click here or click the image at the bottom of this post.

What are the costs of email to do it yourself?

The costs for setting up a mail campaign can be substantial.  Here are some of the typical costs:

• Design of creative (e.g. image creation, layout)
• Setup and monitoring of campaign
• Acquisition of quality email lists
• Email delivery costs (based on number of emails and bandwidth consumed)

Our New Full-Service Email Solution

EZCapper is launching a cooperative email program that allows up to 5 cappers in any week to promote their services to our highest quality lists.  Our lists includes those listed on this blog at the “Email | List Marketing” category and most include full names.  This list is constantly monitored and renewed to ensure only the best and freshest leads are included.

Note: For those cappers that have the budget, they can choose to use our service to deliver a newsletter that exclusively advertises their service only.

Each week a newsletter highlighting a capper for each of the 3 sports (e.g. NFL, MLB, NBA etc.) plus a headline sponsor will get a mini-review that acts as an advertorial.  The headline sponsor will provide a free pick.  An advertorial will be written up on the sponsoring capper.  Here are the details of our delivery:

• Once per week from 10,000 up to 250,000 deliveries
• Cost will be based on whether or not the capper wants to sponsor the entire newsletter or do a coop with other cappers.
• Creative costs are included in coop deliveries.
• Delivery costs are based on the lists size and the actual cpm.  We will provide credits for future deliveries on emails that are not delivered (“undeliverables“).
• Prices are based on position in the coop ad (refer to the sample template)
• Reporting is provided 5 days after the delivery (for accuracy as it takes a few days for the reporting)

The advantages of using our service?

• The difference from owning your own email lists is that first of all you don’t own but are renting which is far cheaper.  As we are managing the lists, the lists are better quality than what you can get on your own.  Purchasing lists often results in a high number of undeliverables plus they are often a bit outdated.
• With our service you don’t need to manage the delivery or design the creative which is very time consuming.
• Technical issues.  If you have ever tried to send your own emails in large quantity you know the difficulties.

The cost of using our services?

As our lists are constantly growing we charge on a CPM (cost per thousand basis).  The costs depend on the specific position in the newsletter.  Here are the variables:

• Do you want to do a email on your own without cooperation with other advertisers?  If you want to do a customer newsletter where you are the sole advertiser it will cost $30 cpm with a minimum order requirement of 5000 recipients.  This works out to $150 ($30 cpm x 5) for a delivery to 5000 recipients and you need to do your own design work.  For us to design a newsletter for you will cost about $50 based on $25 per hour.With custom deliveries the exact number can be requested, so if you want to deliver to 5000 or 1,000,000 recipients we can accommodate custom delivery sizes.

• If you do coop advertising you cannot specify how many emails will be delivered to.  We charge only for emails delivered.  All emails that are undelivered are refunded in the form of credits to be applied to your next order.  For example if you are to do a Main Sponsor ad then your cost per CPM is $15.  We currently have a list of 125,000 recipients (this is changing daily as our opt-in lists are growing).To deliver to this would then cost $1875 (125 x $15).  At the end of each delivery we will receive undeliverable reports.  If say 12,500 emails or 10% are undelivered we will provide you with a credit of $187.50 ($15 cpm x 12.5)  in credits  to be applied as a reduction in the next mailing.

• If you want to do coop advertising this will cost depending on position.  Please refer to our template sample or http://topsportstips.com/newsletter/sports/handicapper_referral.htm

Will I make positive ROI?

A lot of customers have difficulty in doing calculations to arrive at what their return on investment is.  The first key is to determine what the lifetime value per average customer is (commonly known as LTPV).  Say for example:

• Average package size sold is $100
• Average length of customer using services is 4 months

Then the LTPV is simply $100 x 4 = $400 per customer.  Note that a lot of cappers upsell picks and provide other services that increase LTPV considerably.  The LTPV  range for some cappers can range up to $1700 per customer.

Now let’s say that you do 125,000 emails on our coop program at a rate of $15 cpm as a main sponsor.  The cost will work out to 125 x $15 = $1875.

So to break even on the campaign you would need 5 customers, 5 customers x $400 would yield $2000. A $2000 revenue on $1875 in expenses is a ROI of (2000-1875)/1875 = 6.67%.  ROI calculations for 10 signups would yield a return of (4000-1875)/1875 = 113.3%

To obtain just 5 customers on a mailing of 125,000 would require a signup rate of 0.004%.  That is only 1 out of 25,000 recipients would need to signup for your service in order for you to be profitable!

For EZCapper customers we provide an additional guarantee…. if you do not achieve a positive ROI on your first campaign we’ll include you on a second campaign for FREE.  To qualify for this offer you need to contact us so we can confirm your campaign details.

The way to keep people on your site is to put relevant and “sticky” content on your website.  What exactly is sticky content? Sticky content is content that keeps users engaged on the website and keeps them coming back on a regular basis.  Keeping users coming back to your site means more sales!

At EZCapper we’ve come up with three new features.

1.  Play for fun sportsbook with live betting lines

2.  Live Dealer Casino with real dealers (gorgeous and sexy!)

3.  Player to Player Poker coming soon!

To see how this works take a look at  http://www.atsinsider.biz/ , from here click on either the Sportsbook or Live Dealer Tabs.  To see the live dealer in action contact us for the passwords.

Then click on Live Games.  Select your game and have some fun.  This live-dealer product we are offering is totally amazing and keeps users on the site for hours.

Inquire with us on how you can get setup with these amazing add-ons.

For savvy marketers, they should take advantage of our offer on expired sites.  What exactly is an expired site?  These are sites that clients have not renewed for the following reasons.

1. Decided to not continue in the business or lost interest.
2. Have not paid their bills and have had their sites claimed by us according to our stated payment policies

3. Have terminated either a sent invoice or a subscription indicating they are not continuing with the site.

These sites are valuable in the following ways:

1. Most have existing customers registrations and some have paying customers.  The following they have gained is valuable to the new owner.
2. Have invested money in marketing and promoting the brand of their site.  This may include SEO, registering in directories, monitoring services and creating valuable link exchanges.
3. Domains have a history which is very valuable for SEO.
4. Have unique content which is also valuable for SEO.

I often get asked if it is easy to take over another person’s site if they have had a bad capping record.  The answer is yes.  Most of the time the key thing to put on the site is that it is “under new management”.  Most customers will give the new owner a second chance to prove themselves.

I also get asked what happens if the guy who gave it up owns the domain.  What we typically advise is to register a domain with the same name but a different suffix.  So if the old owner registered ABC.com we’ll register ABC.info or another suffix.  This is the best way to work around the issue.

How much do we charge for Expired Sites?

The new owner would take over the site on the existing plan that the site was on.  So if were a Pro Plan then the monthly fee would be $99.99.  For our current prices refer to http://www.ezcapper.com/purchase.asp

The default setup fee is $50 for a transfer which covers administration and configuration charges. For sites with more than 20 registered users we charge $5 per registered user.  So if the site has 50 users then it would cost $250 as the setup fee.

Interested or have more questions?  Contact us.

Often when we create a website for our clients they never change the default banner on their website.  Selling advertising is not something that they feel is important as their main business is selling subscriptions.  As the default banner that runs on various sites is our own banner network, we offer advertising to our customers on a CPM (cost for 1000 impression basis) of $17 with a minimum order of $250 for EZCapper clients.  For non-EZCapper clients the cost is $30 CPM.  The ads continue to run until the impression runs out and a report is provided to the client on a regular weekly basis.  So if you are an EZCapper client you order 20,000 impressions  and it will cost you $340.  The cost of creating a banner will range from $20-$50 depending upon the complexity and style.  We encourage our clients to create their own banners if possible.  We also  offer banner creation services through our partner.

The main advantage of advertising on the EZCapper network is that the medium is highly targeted and relevant to your business unlike that of other ad networks which run on sites that have nothing to do with sports handicapping.  The conversion rates are far higher and much more effective.

Banners that run on the EZCapper network come in 3 main sizes:

1.  728×90

2. 120×600

3. 120×240

You may choose which sizes of ads you want to run.  Take a look below at the locations of the banners.

In my time working in the business I’ve been a very successful affiliate marketer at one time among the top in the industry.  I also worked on the other side of the fence as well and as a result know what goes on in the industry. Here are your options:

1.  Affiliate marketing :  If you want to take advantage of your player traffic send them out to the numerous sportsbook programs out there and join as an affiliate.  They will typically give you a deal of 25-35% in terms of revenue share.  This isn’t bad but the problem is that how do you know if they are reporting honestly.  Being on the other side of the fence I can tell you there are a lot of dishonest operators and clerks.  For example a clerk can simply reassign a player from one affiliate to another (most likely his friend) and often times, cash-flow starved operators will ‘untag’ a player from the affiliate.  Needless to say you typically have no idea on which player signs up and how much they actually deposit.  This type of reporting is useless and worse of all you help promote a brand you don’t control!

The benefits? Well the only benefit is that an affiliate is very rarely punished (if ever) by the authorities.  They simply don’t have the time to go after small time stuff like this.

Contact us and we can recommend the best affiliate programs for you.

2.  Start your own sportsbook.  Unless you have about $1M in operating capital and the balls to move to Costa Rica and never return to the US then this is not an option.  If you want to do this, we can provide introductions.

3.  Start your own white label.  This is the best option going because it addresses all the main concerns:

• You get a higher revenue share than you do being an affiliate!
• You get to own the brand and move your brand to any operator out there if they choose to screw you.
• You get to see all the player data so you know who is active, what they do and how to cross-sell your players.
• You own something that can be resold in the future.  Affiliate accounts have no residual value. You essentially own your own domain and the data assets.
• You have the same legal risk as an affiliate which is near zero since you are technically an affiliate.  The operator takes all the risk since he is doing the cash processing.
• You do not have to do any hosting, customer support, bookmaking or anything.  All you do is get the players which most of you already have.
• Your profit upside is unlimited.

Here’s an example of the front end of a sportsbook white label, GoSportsBet.com

Here’s the backend of a sportsbook white label.  Note that you can see all the details of the players.:

The only disadvantage is that there is a setup fee.  This setup varies according to the quality and revenue share with the operator as well as your ability to bring players.  For more information on setting up a white label contact us.

Igamebiz, the company that recently acquired EZCapper, has been operating free tips sites as lead generation sites for more than 5 years.  During this time the sites have been heavily SEO’d and a lot of PPC had been performed on it.  The sites rank very highly for all relevant keywords originating from natural organic search.  We also plan to resume our Pay Per Click marketing shortly.  Here’s a list of these 8 sites:

topsportstips.com mlbtoppicks.com nfltoppicks.com nbatoppicks.com nhltoppicks.com parlaypick.com ncaatips.com sportsbettingscams.com

The sites are a perfect marketing medium for handicappers since all the people who sign up are looking for tips.  We have NEVER marketed any sports information sites to the userbase.  The only marketing that had been done was an occasional email promoting the affiliate program of a few poker sites and online sportsbooks.  During the time we’ve had the sites we’ve sent less than 10 email blasts, so the emails leads are very untouched.  This represents opportunity!

There are several category of opportunities.  First are the sponsorships which include a listing in the confirmation pages of each of the sites called Confirmation Form Sponsorships. There are 2 confirmation pages, 1 after the initial entry of the email and the second if they enter all of their details. A sponsorship on these are $100 per month for all 8 sites with a minimum engagement of 3 months.

See below or try it out for yourself (Click on the images to see in a larger view).

There are also opportunities for sponsoring the email that gets sent out after they complete each form, called Email Sponsorships.  These sponsorships sell for $100 per month for all 8 sites with a minimum engagement of 3 months.

and here is what the auto responder email looks like

The list keeps growing but I’ve attached a list of the backend screenshots to show advertisers the quality of the list without any pay per click advertising.  From the backend you can see the size of the list, the frequency and validate the quality of the list.

The emails from each list consist of users who signup only for email and others that register their full details including phone numbers.  Emails blasts are charged only for deliverables and costs vary according to whether the blasts are exclusive or part of a group.  We also sell phone leads at a higher rate.  Please contact us to find out more.

This blog is to keep our customers apprised on all our developments.  As a full-service company we provide complete solutions to help our customers earn more money.  Subscribe to our RSS Feed by adding us to Google Reader or other RSS reading tool.

Contact us if you have any questions on any of our services.  We can be reached at your convenience.