Make Your Ezine An Important Part Of Your Arsenal
I have seen a number of newbies to Internet marketing get themselves a few free and easy to set up media applications as they try to create an online business for themselves and create a responsive list. Two of the more popular choices are blogs and newsletters, or ezines as they are commonly called.
As you get going in the online business, it is sometimes hard to understand that marketing is your real job and your products are what you market and sell, nothing more. You will find that the easiest way to market your products is to publish an ezine that you send to your list. If you haven’t started a list as of yet, join forums and blogs related to your niche or passion, then add a link to your newsletter in your signature. Perhaps you could add a downloadable giveaway for the subscription to your newsletter.
Understanding the true use for newsletters is probably the worst mistake any new marketer can make when they are just starting out. Lots of people use the internet for information and even use email to stay in contact with friends and family. By making your newsletter informative, you will keep your subscribers happy when they see your newsletter in their email.
You also want to make sure that your newsletter in not just sales pitches for one or several of your products. There is no easier way for you to lose subscribers you have gained. Don’t ever think you can use your newsletter like an email sales letter though. It will get you placed in with hundreds of marketers who just send emails hyped full of empty promises. It can remind you of what you do when you receive emails and other marketing emails that are just sales hype and unbelievable promises.
The important part you must understand is when you are dealing with real people, and yes your subscribers are real people, just be sure to treat them like family and make them feel special, like they are an important part of your business. You will be able to do that by providing real content and other helpful information to your subscribers more times than if you were promoting something you were selling.
It is definitely a fact that it is harder to build trust online. People have so much crap to filter through that a lot of users become quite jaded and not willing to sign up for just anything, especially more hype. But how can you build trust?
Start out by defining your niche and just figure out what the members of that niche want. Maybe they are looking for training and tutorials. How about ecourses? Find out if they want step-by-step vidoes teaching them how to solve some problems. After you find out that information, you now have a formula for marketing to willing buyers.
Having a notebook available could be one of your best tools to determine what your subscribers’ future needs for information might be. Look for questions that get asked in the forums and blogs related to your niche. As your subscribers ask questions be sure to write them down in your notebook, along with your answer. As others praise a product or discredit it, write it down. These can be your focused topics for future newsletters.
What better way to promote loyalty than by asking your subscribers what they want to read about in your newsetter. It will help to draw them inside your newsletter and make them feel like they are a part of it. That’s Golden Loyalty!
Still thinking along those same lines, you might consider running a poll once in a while. You might want to ask what is the best and worse products they have ever used or what they like best or could live without on your newsletter. Show them you appreciate their responses and send them a free ebook or a piece of software that they would consider useful.
Be sure to use your subscribers name in every email or newsletter. and don’t send anything to anybody with “[Name]” in the greeting. You should be able to find scripts on your autoresponders that will add your subscriber’s name where you want it to be. And if you find that it works, put their name in the headline of your topics. You will find that is a real attention-getter and a loyalty builder. Do you remember how many times you have seen your name in the headline on anything sent to you?
And every once in a while entertain your readers with some lighthearted content, like a list of the “Top 10_______” or “The Most Amazing______,” as a filler.
You must remember that your subscribers are people who want information and solutions. All they want is to be entertained occasionally and appreciated all the time, just like you do.
Twitter: mikepaetzold
says:
The big point here is that your subscribers are people and you need to provide them with value. Give them great value and avoid all the problems. The ezines that do that get my attention no matter how full the inbox is.
Good points are made in this post, and one of the easy ones is that your subscribers are real people. They are also your future so as you say you need to treat them well. Help them out with their problems and provide them with info that they can use.
Your idea about using a poll is a good one. It could help you to know what they want and more importantly what they need. Building a relationship with them is important. However, it is also important to keep in mind that what they need could be a product that you are selling or that you are an affiliate for. In that case, you should feel free to send them a sales pitch.
Some great tips Andre!
I see a lot of marketers send email after email (sometimes multiple times a day) just promoting their own or affiliate products.
Those I un-subscribe from immediately.
You are right that you need to be sending people good content and some free offers along with your marketing messages.
One of the ways I find for getting some good ideas for some of my niche content is to go to the local bookstore and just spend some time browsing through some of the books and magazines available on the topic.
Make sure you take a notebook and just start jotting down ideas. You can get enough ideas to last weeks or months in just a short time.
An e-zine is definitely one of the most important tools for marketing online, whether as an online marketer or promoting an offline business. Building a relationship with your lists will require a regular mailing schedule they get to know and rely on, but the returns can be well worth the effort!
I tend to use my blog for information and my emails for sales pitches, although most of mime emails are adswap freebies. I may want to give some thought to mixing them up a bit more, but in general I think your email list self selects itself to what ever style you send. Now that may mean that you loose a “class” of people who don’t like what you are sending, but that may be okay. Those who stay presumably like what you are offering. Unless of course they aren’t reading it at all and just don’t bother to cull you from their email inbox.
There are some really great tips in here that I can see that I have to implement in my own newsletter. An excellent way to build a relationship with your subscribers. That is what it is all about. Including your subscribers as one of your friends or a part of your family.
What better way is there for your readers and subscribers to get to know you than from your emails. You make some very good points here and some that I’ll implement in my ezine. Especially your tip to mix up the content to include some fun stuff