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10 Easy Ezine Development and Promotion Tips |
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Articles, How-To's and Interviews -
DIY and How-To's
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Written by Maria Marsala
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10 Easy Ezine Development and Promotion Tips
Either do it right or don't do it at all: Don't create an
ezine just because you're reading or seeing that others are
creating them. While ezines can be a way to market your
business, they are also time consuming. Remember to always
market your business while keeping your integrity intact.
Tell them and then do it: Create a schedule
for your ezine and stick to it. If you'll be providing additional
mailings - such as I do - for important Internet announcements,
monthly specials, etc. tell people. On your web site, in any
advertising, and then include the information in the welcome
letters, too. At a minimum, send out a message to your
readers at least monthly.
Don't use BCC: In 1995 or so, most email programs
added "BCC" as
a way to send email. BCC is short for blind carbon copy or blind
courtesy copy if you have never placed a piece of
carbon paper between two sheets of regular paper. Using BCC,
email is distributed to "undisclosed recipients" and
you can
see why it was the way to send out ezines. However, now if
you use it for sending more than 20-40 emails at a time, you
can get your email account closed. Why? BCC is the common
email choice of spammers and your email company watches out
for "batches" of BCCs.
Do use double opt-in: Opt-in provides your ezine
readers with the option of subscribing either at your web site
or via
email. The system also may send a subscriber an email
letting them know that they subscribed (just in case someone
else subscribed them). It is better is to use a double
opt-in system sends an email to a subscriber requesting that
they re-confirm their subscription.
Design It Your Way: Of course, you want to reach
your ideal clients, however, more isn't necessarily better. Create
an
ezine you can consistently produce and one your readers will
consistently read.
Who is your ideal reader? Knowing who your
ideal reader is,
helps you determine the best places to market your newsletter and process saves you time and money in the
process. Use this Word 2000 document to assist you
http://coachmaria.com/documents/idealclient.doc
Low cost ezine hosting: If you have more than
one ezine, you know how expensive monthly ezine hosting services
can be. An
inexpensive program I recommend for do it yourselfers is
MOJO http://mojo.skazat.com/ It allows you (or your Virtual
Assistant) to create as many ezines as you'd like, on your
server, using one control panel. If you don't like touching
your hosting server, ask me for my programmer
recommendations.
The box vs. the link: In an unscientific experiment
I conducted last year my research showed that people prefer to add their email addresses to subscription boxes than to
click a link to send you the same information. Create
informative ezine subscription boxes and post them
throughout your web site.
Don't bother using these: Members of yahoogroups,
smartgroups, topica, cool list and other no-cost (with ad)
ezine hosting program, offer a large number of elists
especially for ezine publishers. They are places you
advertise your ezine and take it from me, are not worth the
trouble signing up for or using.
Easy way to add ezine subscribers: Gain ezine
subscribers, in person, with permission based forms. Design postcards,
index
card or add an area to your evaluation sheet providing the
name and content of your ezine, how often they'll receive
it, and request at least their full name and email address.
© 2003 Maria Marsala, Business Growth Specialist. Helping
business owners leverage their services and products by
designing, packaging and promoting their business with
ezines. Author of the most comprehensive ezine marketing
program on the Internet. Since 2000! Learn more now.
Visit http://coachmaria.com/events/ezineclass.html
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