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Article by: Silvia Hartmann
99% of all ezines are not "being a reporter"
on current events; that is the first and most important thing
to understand.
This means that you don't have to be publishing your ezine one
day before the "deadline" of when you've decided you'll
be sending it out, and going into a great tizzy over the whole
thing.
Most ezines are highly topical and related to a business, a market
or futher products and services of one kind or the other, and
their function is to keep customers in touch, as well as to convert
interested parties into customers.
This gives you a constantly "rolling" audience of old
hands and newbies, and an ebb and flow of subscribers and unsubscribers.
There are certain evergreen topics in any context that you can
always write about, and write about over and over again, from
many different angles, and it will always be interesting and well
received.
This is the key to successful ezine publishing.
It's not so much about "news", but about enjoyable
content - and that can be as old as the hills, including a 2000
year old quote from a Roman senator; if it is interesting to your
target audience, it is applicable, and it can become an ezine
article.
With that understood, the production of an ezine can change,
and it can become far more manageable.
Tip 1: Prepare a number of issues in advance so you have at least
3-6 in hand and ready to go, all the time. That's what columnists
do so they don't go mad and explode from the stress of constantly
trying to beat deadlines.
Tip 2: An ezine does NOT need more than ONE GOOD ARTICLE, tip,
suggestion etc. In this day and age, people do not sit around
with email as though it was the Times Magazine. Too long and too
much content, and they'll put it aside for later, and later never
comes as you well know with your own email.
Tip 3: As you're the publisher, you can have a flexible schedule.
Base your ezine on something manageable, weekly, bi-monthly, but
be flexible within this to suit yourself and take things like
public holidays, major events in your market like the SuperBowl
or the Olympics into consideration.
Tip 4: You can have a "news space" in your ezine which
you can fill with news, or leave blank and just send out the prepared
column you have already waiting to go. You don't always have to
have some amazing news item in every newsletter, that's way too
stressful (and probably even too much for your audience!)
Tip 5: Make it as easy for yourself as possible! Don't go mad
over mail merging or complicated html formatting if it's a challenge
- it isn't necessary. There are people having fantastically successful
newslists and ezines who stalwardly send in plain text, without
any bells and whistles, but the content is good and it's appreciated
all around.
Tip 6: Remember your floating audience and go back to basics
every third newsletter. Advanced subscribers never mind going
over the basics again, and it's essential for the new subscribers.
So this may be YOUR ezine No. 266, but how many people were even
there for the first 100?
Tip 7: If you are planning to have a commercial newsletter that
carries advertisements, include advertisements right from the
start and as a matter of course. It is the easiest thing to add
a short advertisement for a book on http://Amazon.com
with your own affiliate link in the "ad space section",
even if you have only 3 subscribers at present. Then, it is there,
and later, when you have 3 million subscribers, you can rent out
a space that already exists without disturbing your recipients
or changing the format.
Tip 8: On that topic, pick a format and stick with it. That makes
it MUCH easier to prepare and send newsletters on a regular basis
and takes the stress right out of it. Something like: Personal
greeting - Advert - Article - News - Advert, for example. That
way, you just need to fill in each one and that's easy. Customers
also LIKE a format they can trust and it relieves THEIR stress,
just the same.
To sum up: Make it easy for yourself with pre-prepared, ready
to go, ready formatted ezines that just need a "season's
greeting" or a short topical comment to make them right up
to date. Have a number of them in hand so you can take a holiday
when you want to; keep it short and sweet and stick to a simple
formula.
That's what the professionals do and if you do the same, you'll
find having a top quality, interesting email newsletter or ezine
that goes out on time, a breeze.
(c) Silvia Hartmann 2006
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Silvia Hartmann is the author of MindMillion and the creator
of the amazing 60 Second Wealth Booster series to increase intelligence
and creativity, reduce stress and exercise the wealthy brain.
You can take part for FREE at http://mindmillion.com/60/
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