Starting your own newsletter (sometimes called an 'ezine') is a great way of getting the word out about your business.
You can develop a good relationship with your subscribers by providing them with high-quality information on the topics that
are of interest to them.
Your newsletter can generate return traffic to your website and build loyal customers over the long term. Not
only is it great for your business, but it can also be fun and challenging.
Determine what format you would like to use to publish your newsletter. There are basically two common methods:
A plain-text newsletter, sent through email.
This has the advantage of being quick to write and simple to format.
Plus everyone will be able to read your newsletter - there's no fancy formatting or any graphics.
Of course, that's also a disadvantage: without being able to bold or italicize words, or add graphics, it's harder to emphasize certain things. The
other thing to remember is that if you choose this option, keep your lines to around 60-65 characters,
maximum. This will ensure that your newsletter is readable by different email programs (some programs will wrap longer
lines; you don't want to publish a messy newsletter! Your subscribers may not bother to read it).
A 'web-zine'.
Web-zines are simply a newsletter that's published using HTML, on the web. The advantage of publishing a web-zine is that you
have access to all the neat little formatting tricks available in HTML - you can add graphics, color, and all sorts of formatting
to your newsletter. Anyone with access to the Internet will be able to read your newsletter, too.
However, when publishing a web-zine remember that you will have to know how to program in HTML if you choose this option. The other disadvantage is that some of your subscribers
may not want to have to connect to the Internet in order to read your newsletter. They may request it by email, so that they can print it out
and read it at their leisure - they can be a problem since not all email programs can read HTML.
How To Manage Your Newsletter
Obviously you'll need a way of subscribing and unsubscribing people to your newsletter. Some newsletter
publishers simply ask that people send them an email with either 'SUBSCRIBE' or 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the subject.
That's okay; it works.
A better is to sign up with any of the free newsletter-management sites. They'll automatically
handle subscriptions and unsubscriptions through their site, without any effort on your part. When you
want to mail out a newsletter, you simply go to their site, type in your message, and press a 'Send' button
(or something similar). That's it. A good newsletter-management site is ListBot, which is the one I use. It
does everything automatically for me, and I'm able to view my subscribers, change my personal information, and so on.
If you're a web-zine publisher, you can still use these services. Instead of sending your newsletter through
email, you can send your subscribers an email with the URL for the current issue of your newsletter.
How To Get Subscribers: Promoting Your Newsletter
Get the word out! First, of course, stick a message somewhere on your website inviting your visitors to subscribe to
your newsletter. After you've done that, then promote your newsletter using the methods below.
List your newsletter on the following sites (and any others you can find!):
NOTE: If you are have a business opportunity to promote, I highly recommend purchasing a membership to
TopEzineAds.com. Membership is $49, and is GUARANTEED
to explode your profits!
Advertise in other newsletters. EZine advertising is highly effective, since your message is going out to a targeted
audience who have chosen to be a part of the mailing list.
Some newsletters will ask you for a reciprocal ad; that is, if they run your ad, you run theirs. Others will run your ad for free,
yet others require you to be a subscriber before their run your ad, and of course there are newsletters that charge a fee to run your ad.
Use a signature with every email you send. A signature is generally a 2-6 line message you include at the end of
your emails. Keep it simple and to the point, such as:
Angela (contact@viz.itgo.com)
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
http://www./
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