Start Your Own Newsletter (Ezine)

  • How and Why to start an Ezine

    • Decide the exact purpose of your ezine and what audience you want to reach.   These two factors will guide your design, promotion and recruiting efforts.

    • An ezine may be as simple as a routine communication channel between you and your clients, customers or Web site visitors.   Or, it could be a means to prove yourself to be an expert in some specialized field.   In that case, your ezine will be a tool for building a reputation and making people comfortable doing business with you.

    • Opinions vary widely on how to operate your ezine, but one fact is clear.   You need one.   To avoid mistakes that would cost you a lot of time and money,  you need to read the e-book   "The Ezine Marketing Machine"  ,  by Rick Beneteau.   There's just no substitute for this informative look at the  "how,  where,  why  and when" of electronic newsletter publishing.

    • There are many different opinions about how often you should publish your ezine, but I have a few suggestions.   If you publish monthly, people may not remember that they subscribed and fail to recognize your ezine when it comes out.   At the other extreme, if you publish daily, people may not respond well to the ads you run.   A weekly ezine seems to offer the best balance.  

    • Once you've been publishing a while,  solicit testimonials from your readers.   Display them prominently on the page where people go to sign up for the newsletter.

  • Publish the Ezine

    • You have many options for this; some are better than others.   While your list is small, I suggest using a free or very low-cost option.   Upgrade to a more powerful solution as your list size grows and you are making sufficient profits to afford one.

    • There are several companies that will host your list free, or for a small fee of around $5/month.   Yahoo! Groups (formerly eGroups) and Topica are two of the well-known ones.

    • These companies either host your list for free and insert an ad in every issue you publish or charge a fee for the ad-free version.   They provide a convenient Web-based control panel with many features to allow you to control your list.

    • Other companies, such as those who have a license to use the Lyris software, charge a fee based on the total number of messages you send each month.   Multiply the number of issues, including Solo Ads, by the number of subscribers for an estimate of this total. Prices range from $0.25/1000 to $45.00/1000.  

    • Another option is to use Aureate Group Mail or Outlook Express and send all the mail yourself through your ISP (Internet Service Provider).   This can be slow and can lead to you being dropped by your ISP.    I don't recommend this, as a rule.

    • Yet another possibility is to purchase a listserver program (Lyris, for example) and install it on your server.   This is a powerful (but expensive!) solution, which allows you to run many lists of very large sizes.   You can also host others' lists for a fee.    Be prepared to pay up to several thousand dollars for such a program.   You'll most likely need a "dedicated" server for this purpose, which costs a great deal more than the usual "virtual" server that hosts your Web site.

    • One final possibility is the one I used to publish my ezine.   On most NT Web servers, there is a mail program called iMail.   Among its many features is the capacity to set up and operate multiple mailing lists.   If your site is on an NT host, you may be able to use iMail to run your list(s).

  • Promote the Ezine

    • List your ezine with as many of the online ezine directories as possible; this will help you get a steady stream of new subscribers.

    • Buy ads in other newsletters/ezines that reach a similar market segment as you.   Aim for ezines with 1000-1500 subscribers at first.   You'll find plenty of info about the subscriber base and intended audience of ezines in the larger directories.

    • Offer to exchange ads with other ezines - you run their ad and they run yours.   The more subscribers you get, the easier it will be to arrange these ad swaps.

    • Track your advertising!   There are several ways to do this.   Dump the losers; stick with the winners.   Simple enough...right?   Remember: The same ad may pull differently in different ezines and different ads may pull differently in the same ezine.   Test every change until you get consistently good responses!

    • It's also extremely important to give people a GOOD REASON to subscribe !   Make it very easy for them to subscribe(and unsubscribe).   Here's an example of what I mean:

      New Subscriber bonus:  Get 6 E-Books free !
      Plus,  get free software tools to build your business !

      Just Click the Button Now!

  • Make Money with the ezine

    • Once you have an audience of some size (for example, 200 or more) who have begun to trust and respect you, you can start recommending products and services that would meet their needs. Reviews, articles and especially your own experience with the product/service will influence your subscribers to purchase these from you.

    • Selling ad space is an option you may want to consider.   A lot of ezines offer one or more free ads to new subscribers.   This can help you get new subscribers, but be careful not to accept too many ads!   If you run too many ads in each issue, you risk losing subscribers.   Generally, it's best to accept one free ad from each new subscriber, but use your own best judgment here.  

    • Several popular ad types used in ezines include regular Classified Ads, Sponsor Ads and Solo Ads.   Advertising rates vary widely, but here are a few guidelines:

      • Solo Ads are worth the most, since they produce the best results.

      • Next are the Sponsor Ads, followed by the Classified Ads.

      • Rates are expressed in CPM (cost per thousand "impressions") for each type of ad.

      • Advertisers expect to pay more for ads in ezines with large subscriber bases.   The more targeted you subscriber base, the higher the CPM you can charge.   Why?   Because a larger percentage of people who read the ad will visit the Web site, request the reports, order the product, etc.

    • Classified ads should be small - no more than 5-7 lines.   More than 4-5 of these per issue can dilute the responses to each ad, making them less attractive to your advertisers.

    • Sponsor ads are best place at the very top of an ezine so they will be read before people dive into the rest of your content, and should be limited to one per issue.

    • Solo Ads are sent to your entire list, separately from the ezine.   Some publishers mail these to all subscribers, while others keep a separate list of people who are willing to receive the Solo Ads.   Whatever you decide to do, don't send out more than a few each week.   Otherwise, you'll lose subscribers.

First Topic    Previous Topic   Next Topic   Home