Webmaster:

I disagree about a newsletter being essential. It couldn’t hurt but people are being inundated with ezines and newsletters, and most people AUTOMATICALLY delete newsletters without even opening them.

BizTalk:

I agree that most newsletters are deleted without being read. But perhaps, that has something to do with those newsletters themselves. Maybe they are too boring or too long or too frequent. How many times have you read each and every article of a magazine you bought? Ezines are the same and only worse because they are free.

Webmaster:

So, why publish them? Isn’t it simply a waste of time?

BizTalk:

Hardly. It’s up to ezine publishers to make their ezines inviting to the reader. Ezines, which are being read by their subscribers, are highly popular, and their publishers enjoy a lot of benefits.

As a webmaster, your biggest concern should be to encourage repeat visits from your website visitors. Most people don’t buy the first time they visit a website. The only way you can do this is by capturing their email addresses, and sending them occasional reminders.

Webmaster:

But I have no idea how to go about publishing an ezine. Besides I get little spare time from running my web business.

BizTalk:

Publishing an ezine is not such a difficult task. Moreover, if you feel that you are too busy, you can have an update/announcements list, instead of a full-fledged ezine. Once you get the hang of it you can graduate in to full-fledged ezine publishing.

Simple update list is easier to maintain and, you would only be sending messages to people, when you have to announce something about your business like new products, website updates, contests, special offers etc. This sort of mailing list would increase the chance of repeat sales with current customers and remind your prospects of your existence.

Ezines contain more general information, which might be related but not specific to your business, like articles that are of interest to your target market. This ezine would be published at regular intervals, and would take more time and effort to maintain.

Putting out an interesting and informative ezine is hard work and requires commitment, and not everyone can do it, or would want to do it. But everyone can definitely have an updates/ announcement list on his or her website. It is essential because you need to capture email addresses through it.

Webmaster:

Ok, so I can have an announcements list to capture email addresses and remind people of my business. Why would I want to graduate to a full-fledged ezine later on

BizTalk:

There are many advantages of having a full-fledged ezine:

If you have an ezine which has information of general interest (ie not limited to info about your products) you have a chance of promoting it extensively, and would gain general subscribers, which can later turn into prospects for your business.

Webmaster:

Ok, people might read the information in my ezine. But would they really read the ads that I have included? I mean, does ezine advertising work?

BizTalk:

It definitely works compared to all the other forms of Internet advertising. And it is also cheaper than most methods of offline advertising. The response rate is quoted as 2-3%, which is one of the highest, when it comes to online advertising response rates.

Just to give you an idea of the real picture, here are two ezine publishing webmasters, sharing their experiences:

We asked Nancy Cowan of The Ship’s Store about whether an ezine has benefited her business.

Nancy Cowan:

I doubted the worthiness of newsletters for ages. Then, I decided to one for fun. I love contests so I made sure I had lots of contests and freebies as well as very few ads. I don’t normally read them so why include them?

I have to say our newsletter is now a huge success. We currently have over 8500 subs and our sales this year are already just about what our entire gross sales for 2001 were.

So, do newsletters work? YES but only if you can keep your readers interested. Give them what they are looking for. Don’t glog up with ads. I have yet to get a referral or sale due to an ad in a newsletter. In my opinion, get them to your site and if they like what they see they will come back.

I get most of my sales from: customers that entered our contests, site referrals, and returns to check out the new arrivals. Did my customers order the first time they entered our contest? NO. It took time. Quite often people will wait to see if you are still there in a year. With all the fraud these days, I’m leery of placing an order with someone that is “new” because I don’t know if they are going to be there to send my order. Once I get to “know” a person, such as on a list, that’s different. ”

We asked Shannon Jarvies of A Mom’s Joy about whether ezine advertising works.

Shannon Jarvies:

I’d have to say yes! I’ve been publishing for two years and have just in the last month started being serious about accepting paid advertisers. Now that I have done this, it has been the most successful thing I have done online.

I offer contests in my newsletters, fresh articles I’ve written and links back to my site to more articles and recipes. The contests are popular. And the recent advertisers I’ve had say they are getting a good response.

My goal is to “lock in” my ad prices even though my subscribership is growing. I feel I will be successful in this because I’m offering something valuable at a reasonable cost. I hope to help other moms in their home based businesses by doing this.

Hence, if you are a Webmaster without a website mailing list or ezine, maybe its time to start one. Once you do, you won’t regret it.

In this article we will explore free and easy methods of building a subscriber base. So if you were afraid to start an ezine because you didn’t know how to promote it, don’t worry any more. Just try the resources that this article suggests:

1) Free Ads for Subscribers

If you are willing to offer one ad to every subscriber who joins your ezine, you can grow your subscriber base manifolds in a short time. If you have a start-up ezine, chances are that you will have a lot of advertising space available in your ezine. This can be used effectively to gain more subscribers.

All you have to do is join a few ezine co-op programs. These programs offer ezine advertising for a very low rate to clients. In exchange, the advertisers must join all the ezines that run their ads.

When someone orders an ad through an ezine co-op, you will be forwarded their email address and ad. You can directly add the email address to your ezine and run the ad.

This method will definitely deliver subscribers to you. Depending on the number and popularity of the co-ops you join, you can add up to 50 or more subscribers to your ezine in a month!!

You may worry that these subscribers will leave after you run their ad in your ezine. The truth is that it is entirely up to you to get these people hooked up to your ezine. If you continue to provide useful information and good offers, the chances are high that they will stay.

Visit the following link for a full list of ezine co-ops: List of Co-ops.
Most of the co-ops approve the ezines manually, so make sure that you join as many as possible.

2) Pop Ups

Another method, which is becoming very popular, is popup subscription windows. These pop ups contain a list of ezines with a four or five word description of each ezine and ask your site visitor to subscribe.

When you join the program you are given a code of the popup window. You place the code of the popup on the page on which you want it to be seen. Every time a visitor exits this page, the window is displayed on it and you earn four exposures in the system. This means that the sites of all the participating members will be advertising your ezine. This will definitely help you get more subscribers.

Most pop up programs charge a high fee for membership. The following popup subscription groups are free to join:

3) Ezine Directories

Another method is submitting to ezine directories. There are people out there who are looking for information on specific topics. If the topic of your ezine interests them, they will subscribe to it. To make it easy for them to find you, you need to be listed in various ezine directories. Moreover, getting your website listed in these directories will increase your link popularity. This will lead to higher search engine rankings which is an invaluable benefit.

4) Ad Swaps

This method is not so new, but is easy and free to use. You exchange ads with other ezine publishers to promote your ezine. Make sure to carefully write your ad so that it gets a good response. Also, be prepared to run the ad of ezines with a higher subscriber base several times.

You can join the following lists to find ezines who will swap ads with you:

Submitting to ezine directories is hard work and requires a lot of time and effort. It is advisable to have all the required information ready before you begin the submission process. Following is the information usually required by most Ezine Directories during the submission process.

Category:

To submit to ezine directories you need to know the exact category in which your ezine fits. Submissions are evaluated and listed according to categories in most directories.

Description:

Most ezine directories would require a description of your ezine. It is advisable to keep this description short as most directories would not accept a description that is too long. Try to keep the description to a maximum of 100 characters.

While writing the description, try to avoid over-hyped words like “the best in the world” and “the most amazing”. The reviewers of the directories usually regard such descriptions with disapproval. Instead, try to focus on the type of information your ezine offers and how the information would benefit the readers.

Write and rewrite the description so that it sounds crisp and well written. It would also be better to write it as if a third party is reviewing it. This would enhance the credibility of the description, and it would sound more authentic.

Key words:

It would be a good idea to come up with 10 to 15 key words related to your ezine to assist potential subscribers in searching for your ezine.

Ad rates:

Your ad rates would depend entirely on the amount of subscribers you have. It is not uncommon for ezines with 1000 subscribers to offer advertising at $2 an ad.

Typically there are four types of ezine ads: Top ad, Middle ad, Bottom Ad, Solo Ad

Ad guidelines:

A lot of ezine directories, which target at potential advertisers, would ask for detailed information about your advertising requirements. You might be required to give guidelines about the kind of ads you would accept for your ezine. For example you may have a policy of not accepting ads that depict offensive or pornographic material. You may also have a maximum word limit for ads.

Article submissions:

A lot of article writers also search ezine directories for ezines that accept articles. If you want free content emailed to you, you may want to state clearly that you accept article submissions. You would also need to give the email at which articles should be sent to you.

Tip: You may want to create a form on your web site for the purpose of accepting article submissions. This would increase the traffic of your web site and also enable you to check that the submissions is according to your requirements (by inserting validation codes in the form).

Article Submission Guide Lines:

You may ask for a specific format (text or word file) of articles and you may also specify a maximum or minimum word limit.

Tip: To increase your subscriber base you may state that you would only publish articles of your subscribers. In this way people who want o have their articles published in your ezine would first subscribe and then submit their articles.

Circulation:

This is the number of subscribers your ezine goes out to. The higher your subscriber base the more the advertisers would be willing to pay to advertise in your ezine. Some ezine directories do not list ezines, which have a subscriber base of less than 1000.

Archived issues:

A few reputable ezine directories strictly require that the archives of your ezine are present to accept your ezine listing. Hence it would be a good idea to start submitting to ezine directories when one or two issues of your ezine have already been published.

Publishing frequency:

How often is your ezine published? Possible publishing frequencies are daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly etc.

URL:

The URL of your web site should be written in the following format: http://www.yoursite.com .If you archive your ezine on your web site, it would be better to give that URL here.

Subscribe address or URL:

Give the complete subscribe address or URL with your submission.

Contact email:

Give your contact name and email. Make sure that the email address is active and regularly accessed by you. Some ezine directories reject ezines submitted with invaild email addresses.

This summarises the information required by most ezine directories. If you prepare this information before directory submissions, your task would become comparatively easier and you would save time and effort.

Following is a list of ezine directories you can submit to:
- List of Ezine Directories