It still amazes me how many people try to publish an ezine and grow their list using their own everyday email program like Outlook or AOL.
SECRET #1. GIVE GREAT INFORMATION
Any successful ezine has to strike a careful balance.You have to make it useful and interesting to your readers so they get and stay on your list.But you also have to make it SELL so you make money! ($$$)But first,
let’s talk about making it useful and interesting.Of course you want to offer information that is related to your products or services.For example If you are a management consultant, give us tips on how to motivate our teams, deal with problem employees, hire winners.
If you sell vitamins and supplements, give us tips on good nutrition and living healthy.If you are a relationship coach, tell us how to stay happier in our marriages and keep our love alive.You’re not “giving away the store”, you’re not telling us exactly how you consult for clients or giving away your super secret formulas or giving us your products for free. You’re just passing on some nuggets of good information.If you don’t like to write articles, that’s OK! Short tips are fine, and often work even better than long articles.If you dread writing or just don’t have the time, you can find a cheap ghostwriter to do the work for you.Next, let’s talk about the SELLING part.
Here’s where you can use:
• promotions
• advertisements
• case studies
• success stories
• testimonials
that all relate to what your business offers.
The key is to not overdo it – there’s a foolproof formula you can go by.
SECRET #2: MAKE PUBLISHING EASY
It still amazes me how many people try to publish an ezine and grow their list using their own everyday email program like Outlook or AOL. This is going to get you into trouble quickly.One client of mine who is a speaker and consultant in New York City. I’ll call her “Sally” here. About a year ago, she mentioned to me she was sending out her ezine using Outlook on her computer. I told her that this would quickly turn into a nightmare, I mean, she was having to manually add people to the list and take them off if they requested, but she said she didn’t have the time to look into doing this properly right now.So off she went. And then suddenly she began to get complaints from her readers that they weren’t getting her ezine. Turns out that her internet provider was blocking emails going out to more than 15 people. Most internet providers do. Why do you think they do that?That’s right, they assume you’re a spammer!You see, everyday email programs are NOT designed to send bulk email. So Sally had to then create dozens of copies of her ezine to send out to small groups of names.Finally this year, Sally called me in tears because she couldn’t handle it anymore. Managing the list herself was driving her crazy, plus it was getting so big that even though it was time to move over to a real list service, she had no idea how to export her list of thousands of names. So we had to hire someone to come over and help her do that!There is NO reason you have to do any of this monkey work yourself!
That’s why there are systems out there that make the actual publishing part easy. NOW Sally is up and running on what’s called a list service or email publishing service. And these services start at only $20 a month! Well worth it for saving you hours of time. Can you see the value in that?
SECRET #3: GROW THAT LIST!
People think they need a gigantic list to succeed. But in this case, size does NOT matter. (Make your own jokes on that one. :)
It’s better to have a small list of highly targeted, responsive people than a big list of people who don’t want to hear from you.
Remember, it’s not about numbers it’s about people. And if you use the strategies I teach, you’ll have success no matter what your list size. I know of one marketer who with a list of only 1,000 people recently made one MILLION dollars with a giant promotion for one of his home-study courses!
The most obvious place to start collecting names is at your own website.
People pay me $1000.00 an hour to look at their website and figure out why their list isn’t growing, even though they have thousands of website visitors a month. And the biggest mistake I see is that they’re either hiding the signup box, or it only says something like “free ezine” or “free newsletter” on site. Or even worse, “sign up for our mailing list.” (Ooo, that’s enticing!)
You know, 5 years ago that would have worked. But these days you have to SELL me on giving you my email address. If I’m at your website, I need to know two things about your ezine:
1. WHAT will I be getting?
2. WHY do I need that information?
Then, based on those answers, you need to write a concise, 15-WORD invitation for their ezine. A RAVING invitation that makes me feel like if I don’t sign up for this thing I’m going to miss out on information that will change my life or my business.
