Are You Wasting Your Time With Free Ezine Ads

Writen by Michael Hopkins

There are lots of ezines (newsletters) out there that offer free classified ads to new subscribers (and many even offer free ads on an ongoing basis).

This can be a nice little source of free traffic and exposure for your website/ebook/ezine but, if not handled properly it can have its downside.

The biggest problem is that, by joining a whole plethora of ezines your mail box risks becoming very crowded very quickly, and it's easy to become overwhelmed with it all.

This is especially true if some of those ezines send out messages every single day -- as many do.

To get around this, and to keep your free ezine advertising campaign under control, follow these steps:

STEP 1. Create a separate e-mail address for your ezine subscriptions (e.g. my_ezines@.....).

STEP 2. In your email software (e.g. Outlook Express) create a folder (directory) called 'free_ezine_ads'.

STEP 3. Using your e-mail software set up a rule that sends all mails that arrive to your e-mail address 'my_ezines@....' to the folder called 'free_ezine_ads'.

STEP 4. Prepare the free ad you want to place in the ezines and keep a copy of it handy in a text file.

Different ezines have different rules about the size of ad they will accept. Study each one carefully and be sure to comply with all their submission guidelines.

You may also want to consider the mood and tone of each ezine, and create different versions of your ad for each one.

STEP 5. Submit your ad to each ezine editor. Be sure to double-check that you've complied fully with their submission guidelines.

STEP 6. For those ezines which give you a one-off ad, it's time to re-assess their value to you. If you don't find the content useful or interesting, you should unsubscribe rather than let it clog up your 'free_ezine_ads' folder.

Remember, though, if the ad in that ezine drew a good response from its readers, you can always check out their advertising rates and see if it's worth paying a few dollars to place your ad again (or, if you're sneaky, you could try re-subscribing at a later date and doing it again, making some changes to disguise your wicked deception:-)

STEP 7. For those ezines that allow free ads on a regular basis, make a list of all the submission deadlines and make it part of your regular marketing routine to check that list and see if you're due to place an ad.

Finally, as you continue placing regular ads with those ezines, be sure to continue measuring their effectiveness. In many cases you'll appear in the middle of 20 other ads, so it may not bring in much of a response rate.

Likewise, the response rate from each ezine is likely to drop off over time -- especially if you don't vary your ads.

Decide for yourself whether it's worth your while continuing and be sure to try out different ads to see which ones work best with that readership.

And there you have it, a pretty straightforward approach to keeping on top of things when it comes to free ezine advertising.

About The Author

Michael Hopkins is owner of BizzyDays eBook Publications.

Download Brand New Original eBooks for FREE at:

http://www.bizzydays.com

Download The eBook Publishing Success Package at:

http://selfpublishing-ebooks.htm

contact@bizzydays.com

My First Anniversary On Ezinearticles

Writen by Aderemi Ojikutu

I was yearning for expression. I knew that I carried a treasure. I have been in some sort of way, a local, obscured, unsung and unknown fellow in the world of the pen, or should we call it now the world of the keyboard? After all, the buttons have replaced the pen in modern history of writers in the last 12 or so years internet growth worldwide.

Whenever you carry a treasure of inestimable value, you would naturally radiate an aroma of attraction, but that is to the noses that desire mutual accomplishment with your talent. To swines however, that fragnance became the invitation to attack and aggression. It is popularly known that we should not cast our pearls before swines, because they would trample it under-feet and turn around to tear you to pieces.

One month activity and eleven articles posted on ezinearticles.com was enough to launch me from obscurity to celebrity. The google-search results for my name shot up from only one to over 800 today just because of that encounter with destiny.

That search result has fetched me subscription and membership of the biggest and fastest health beverage company in the U.S. The Tahitian Noni International Inc. In 3 months my team made over 20,000 USD in turnover and we were all happy for the resulting bonuses, commissions and royalties.

My greatest gain however was the enrollment into the UNIVERSITY OF DESTINY- that is what ezinearticles.com truly is to me. (We were just a little over 9kilo authors then). Today, we have increased by an additional 17,000 "students". This is a good reflection and indicator for every web entrepreneur of the unending boom of our industry, particularly in the last 12 months. I have been schooled into exploits with all the varied lectures which I have received in the last 12 months. They have provided a "vehicle" that has begun to and would certainly take me to my divine destination.

I am eternally grateful to the "Vice Chancellor" of this "University"- Chris Knight and to my very many resourceful and dedicated lecturers, "Professor" Lance, and others too numerous to mention in this dissertation. A great and warm embrace to mentors and new friends that I have made in this one year. I have learnt and listen more than I have written on this platform of destiny. I pray that as I near my graduating year, I would become a contributor to this system and "university" that has made me. I pray I would be able to give more back, to this system as an expression of my deepest gratitude to the great resource that you have invested in me.

Mega Thanks to you all. Only God, the Almighty would reward you for your investment and faith in me.

Internet Marketing Idea Publish An Ezine

Writen by Jack Elmy

Chances are if you surf the net much you have noticed that almost every website offers a free newsletter or ezine in some form or other. Wonder why someone would go to so much trouble to publish a newsletter and offer it for free? The answer is because it is a brilliant Internet marketing idea. True, it does take some work to publish a quality ezine, however the benefits you can reap in sales for your main product or service is worth the time and effort.

What makes writing and publishing an ezine such a good Internet marketing idea is that it allows you to have direct contact with your customers and readers on a continuing basis. Even if they forget to visit your site again (and let's face it; with all of the work and family demands placed on all of us, no matter how good your site is, this is a possibility) if they are subscribed to your ezine you have a golden opportunity to remind them why your site is fantastic. Secondly, when done tastefully, it gives you a chance to earn a little extra through advertising. Finally, there are relatively few other ways you can build a relationship with your site's visitors. And as all good salespeople know, building a good rapport with your customer is key to making the sale.

There are a few golden rules you should understand before hurrying to write your first edition, however. While you may be able to convince a visitor to sign up for an ezine when they visit your site, your job as a publisher doesn't stop there. To get them to actually open it every time it lands their inbox and not hit the delete key, you need to develop a plan. At a minimum, keep these tips in mind in order for an ezine Internet marketing idea to be successful:

Take the time to include informative, interesting and entertaining content for your ezine. Give the reader a reason to want to read your newsletter and better yet, recommend it to others!

Reassure your readers. Always, always include a privacy statement and give them an opportunity to unsubscribe. Hopefully, if you provide relevant, original information you'll never have to worry about this; but doing so shows you care about your reader and that you produce quality material.

Once you decide to publish an ezine, be consistent about it. If you tell your readers it's a weekly publication, make sure it comes out weekly no matter what. Failing to abide by this rule tells your reader you're unreliable and untrustworthy.

Finally, remember that although writing and publishing an ezine is a fantastic Internet marketing idea, it is also a chance for you to have some fun and really expand your skills. Be creative and have fun!

Jack Elmy's web site provides information on the basics of creating business plans that get results and will help you succeed in your business, visit: http://www.900-business-plans.com

You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your e-book or on your web site, free of charge, so long as you leave all links in place, do not modify the content and include our resource box as listed above.

6 Important Tips For Choosing Ezine To Advertise In

Writen by Erny Setyawati

Did you ever wonder why some business owners seem to be able to pull in all the business they want, while others – perhaps you –can't seem to get any momentum? More often than not, it is because the successful ones have learned from marketing experts what works and what doesn't work in their marketing and promotional materials. Some marketing secrets seem to be secrets simply because they're widely known or understood. Only from trial and error and ad tracking – combined with research on natural psychologycal predispositions – do marketing experts know what really triggers a sale.

To encourage readers to use the resources to learn more about triggers and improve sales and marketing techniques is very important to use. Wasting money online is easy to do and very frustrating!!! If you have experienced that frustating, you are going to love how hassle free it is to use and profit from ezine.

You and I suffer from the same problem ...... not buyers to our website... so they can buy your products and sign up for your information or offer. How to solve the problem. There are many ways folks do. One the best choise is ezine advertising. Yes !!!, ezine advertising is the way to go. It truly is. Here we'll show you what to look for in an ezine and how to know the ezines that are a waste of advertising money before you buy. There are few tips to follow to advirtise ad in ezine.

1. Decide what your advertising budget will be for this campaign.
Generally, an ad will run a week or two after you place your ad order, so you might as well buy enough advertising to run a month while you're in the process of finding the ezines and buying the ads.

2. Your ezine ad campaign will get better as you buy ads, test them and start optimizing your results.

3. I recommend being unique to use the ads, because many affliate or MLM company have provided using special ads then be aware that lots of other folks are using them too.

4. Compare the number of subscriber Vs. The Start date of the Ezine.
Look at the number of subscribers vs the start date of the ezine. There are many ezine had have many subcribers for few months. As an example let's you find ezine with 5000 subscriber and today's date is 3/1/00, you then notice the ezine first began on 11/15/99. You now know that the ezine has been publication for a little over three months and already 5000 subscribers. This type of ezine may not the best for advertise in because likely the subscriber aren't all targeted. It also runs a higher risk of SPAM complaints.

5. Notice how many total ads are allowed in each issue.

If the publisher says " unlimited " or " as many as you pay for " then it may be a good idea for you to look at an on line version. Once you get your issue, you can see how many advertiser placed ads in the ezine . You may consider that there are too many ads to compete with.

6. Compare the price the Ad vs. The size of the Ezine.
Pay attention to the price of the ads vs. The size of the ezine. There is no set standard so you just need to compare. You may find an ezine with 500 subscriber charges $5 per ad, which is .01 per subscriber. Or you may find some that charge more. You 'll need look and compare before you can get a feel for it.

Erny Setyawati is an Editor and the author of Bali Global Market Ezine. Her Ezine give special information about Home Business Strategy and a little story about Bali Island which is very popular with BAli Bombing Tragedy. More detail visit us at http://www.baliglobalmarket.

Newsletters In Plain Text Or Html Which Work Better

Writen by Yaro Starak

A common question asked when you first set out to write an email newsletter is whether it should be a plain text email or HTML (web page style). This is an important consideration since your choice impacts on how many people read your newsletter and how they respond to it. Let's look at the obvious pros and cons of each format.

HTML Emails

THE GOOD

• Interactive - active elements can be inserted into emails limited only by what email clients can handle. May include movies, games, surveys or any active content.
• Metrics - Code can be placed into emails to provide detailed statistics on whether your email newsletters are read, for how long and which links are clicked and followed.
• Formatting can be controlled to the finest details including fonts, spacing, and design.

THE BAD

• Creating HTML emails take a lot of time and technical proficiency.
• Not everyone has an HTML capable email client in which case you will be excluding some people.
• Your basic message may be lost by the excessive content and "eye candy".
• The range of options available in HTML are extensive and can lead to what I call "TMOS" - Too Many Options Syndrome, which is the antithesis of the concept "KISS" - Keep It Simple Stupid. TMOS can stop you from functioning efficiently because you are bogged down with how many things you could do, you end up doing nothing.

Plain Text Emails

THE GOOD

• Easier to create - just type words.
• Less chance of formatting problems making the email display incorrectly.
• Less chance of a SPAM filter blocking the mail.
• Message will be easily digested by the reader provided you write it well.
• No distractions from graphics or over stimulation from too much content competing for attention.
• You sell with words, the most powerful sales tool available on the web if used correctly.

THE BAD

• Harder to capture statistics.
• Hyperlinks may not be active (most text based email clients convert HTTP links to clickable but some still don't).
• Limited to text to convey your message.
• No multimedia can be included.

Why Do You Have a Newsletter?

Let's cut to the chase here. Why do you have a newsletter? If you are running an Internet business your newsletter functions as a customer retention tool, sending out periodic reminders to pull your prospects/customers back to your site. Newsletters themselves also function as a direct sales tool. It doesn't matter if you are selling affiliate products, your own products, a service or information, your newsletter is meant to do one thing - illicit a response from its audience.

In order for your newsletter readers to feel compelled enough to take action your newsletter must clearly state it's message AND create enough of a pull, usually via emotional tugging, to get the reader to do something. The same rules that apply to websites and copywriting apply to newsletters except you have even less time to convince your reader to do something.

Newsletters fall into the domain of email, the most popular web activity. Email is mainstream, it has penetration and people of all ages and backgrounds know how to use it. Consequently the learning curve is a little higher and your readership knows how to at least complete the basic functions with email. This means that they are quite capable of giving each email about 1 seconds worth of attention before clicking that delete button. That's not a lot of time to convince them that your email is worth reading.

Should I use Plain Text or HTML Newsletters?

In my opinion, plain text should be your choice for email newsletter format. Why? Because of the numbers. Email newsletters are a form of direct response marketing and in direct response marketing the numbers matter.

From the point of view of a small business owner with limited time and resources you want to maximise the results you get from your newsletters. You want a lot of responses to whatever your newsletter is trying to do. You should be able to easily test different copy and see which works best so you can maximise the numbers. It's all about the numbers...

Your newsletter must hit the reader quickly and compel them to read on. Any delays or presentation errors are going kill your chance of capturing the attention of the reader. While plain text emails are not immune to display errors (more on this later) they are a lot more likely to be digested by the reader even if things don't format exactly how you want them to.

A plain text email is more likely to reach a larger amount of people than a HTML email simply because plain text is more compliant to standards. Plain text emails are less likely to be blocked by SPAM filters. Plain text emails will display immediately, there are no download times waiting for graphics to finish loading. Plain text emails are more likely to display properly regardless of what email client your subscribers use. All this adds up to plain text emails being read more often...better numbers...see a pattern here?

Words Sell

Bells and whistles are nice. Interactive toys and flashy lights and sounds are great. But ultimately it's words that sell. If you write compelling newsletter copy aimed at your target audience that have been carefully selected by the methods used to acquire newsletter sign-ups, you have the perfect vehicle to illicit a response using words that sell. Why dilute your message by wrapping it within colours and images or overstimulating your readers by providing too much information when a few paragraphs can create your desired results more effectively.

Why Not Use Both Plain Text and HTML?

Good idea! If you have the resources and skills to produce a quality HTML and plain text newsletter then by all means offer both to your audience and let them nominate which they prefer, or better still have the email automatically display the appropriate format by detecting what type of email client they have. If you offer both be sure to test to make sure it's worthwhile. Are more people responding to plain text emails? Well in that case send everyone plain text.

In my case I'm a small business owner and I'm going to be writing the newsletters myself. I do not have time nor the skills to create a new HTML webpage for every newsletter I produce. I could perhaps have a nice standard template designed which I use for newsletters but as I wrote above, I believe that is a waste of time. Words sell, so I'll focus on creating emotionally compelling words for my newsletters rather than waste time trying to get a box to align right correctly.

Tips for Better Plain Text Newsletters

TELL A FRIEND

Remember how I talked about the numbers? Your efforts should be focused on ensuring the maximum number of people are exposed to your email so your emotionally compelling and convincing newsletter can work it's magic. This doesn't have to be limited to just your newsletter subscribers -- your subscribers can be turned into evangelists for your newsletter. Make it easy for your subscribers to forward your newsletter on to friends and associates - suggest it to them at the end of the newsletter. Of course for this work you better be creating a damn interesting newsletter.

WORD WRAPPING

Plain text can format incorrectly and one of the most common problems is line breaks. Either lines breaking too early causing your sentences to look disjointed and clumsy, or no line breaks at all, causing one of those nasty horizontal scrollbars to appear and your reader to read off the page to finish a sentence. The screen resolution of your subscribers computers can also impact how your text wraps causing these problems.

You can't control the monitor resolution of your readers or what email client they use, all you can do is try and account for as many variables as possible. To compensate for this problem you have to set a characters-per-line limitation. I've researched into newsletter formatting and different people give different suggestions, from 68 characters per line to 63. I've decided to recommend to you the round number of 60 characters per line. This will give you nice compact paragraphs made up of nice compact sentences that are likely to avoid most word wrapping (or lack thereof) problems your readers might experience. On extremely high resolutions there will be a lot of white space and your email might look like one big long tower of text but that's still a lot better than broken sentences or horizontal scrollbars and won't be too common a problem.

How To Set Characters Per Line Limitations

You didn't think I would tell you what to do without giving you practical advice on how to do it would I?! Of course not.

Format Text provided by Web-Source.net will handle email newsletter formatting to any character width you specify. Better still it can even undo the current character spacing on any text you have so it's definitely a tool worth book marking.

Newsletters Are An Important Tool For Your Online Business

Many of the most successful Internet entrepreneurs are wealthy because they have massive (10,000+) lists of highly targeted subscribers that they have been building for years. One well written affiliate product email to a good list can create thousands of dollars of sales and you don't even supply the product.

Better still once you have a solid list you can contact similar focused online marketers and carefully select the right cross promotional activities that can double your exposure with one email to their list. Of course you have to have your own list to make available for cross promotions before you can expect to work with other people - the smart/persistent/rich help each other to get richer.

Even if you are using your newsletter as a step in the conversion process to generate sales of your own products or services it's a wise to stay up to date on good newsletter management techniques. By focusing on the numbers you can maximise direct responses that will lead to more sales as visitors become prospects and prospects become clients.

By Yaro Starak
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

Do you want to profit from your own successful home based Internet business?

Learn from Yaro Starak, a young entrepreneur from Australia. He works part time from home on several web based business that generate between $2,000 and $8,000 per month. Get your free articles and audio now - visit his Internet Business Blog.

Successful Ezine Advertising Techniques

Writen by Christos Varsamis

Ezines are highly effective advertising tool if done correctly. One of the most important advantage ezines have is the target group of people they refer to. Of course there are rules to be followed in order to succeed in ezine advertising.

1. Write Benefits Not Features.

It may sound cynical but most people are selfish. They don't care about your company or background but they DO care about the benefits they gain. So, instead of saying that the "A" software title contains these features, try to specify that it will save money and time in the exact amount. Be as accurate as you can on that.

2. Choose very careful the ezines you advertise.

An ezine of 150.000 subscribers may seem tempting but you should ask yourself, how the publisher got those subscribers? He bought the list, used FFA, or used similar methods? Does the publisher use contests for his subscribers in order to visit your website? If a subscriber visits your site because there is the expectation of gaining something how valuable this subscriber is for your business? Zero if you ask me.

3. Double opt-in much better than single opt-in.

Yes, if you find an ezine that builds the subscriber base with double opt-in method, it's highly possible that you have a goldmine here. A double opt-in ezine of 2500 subscribers has more value than a single opt-in ezine of 10.000 subscriber base. With double opt-in you can be reassured that you will have no spam complains and the value of the prospects is much higher.

4. Run you ads more than once.

This is important because prospects have to see more than one time to absorb your message. One thing you can do is to run your ad 2-3 times and if the first is not successful you can modify your copy.

5. The Headline is all the money.

People have their mailbox filled with emails and spam these days. Obviously they don't have the time to read every single email they get. So the screening process starts with the headlines. It's a simple as that, if your headline sucks your all effort goes in vain. They will just ignore the whole message.

6. Call to action – Create urgency sense.

This is a copywriting rule you must follow. You must use the time pressure technique to the readers in order to act now. You can use limited time discount offers. In that way you tempt the reader to visit your website which is your first aim.

7. Track your ads.

Do Not underestimate that factor. If you start to have sales, how would you know which ezines produce the results? You can't afford to miss that. With so many tracking software and services out there is no excuse to risk your advertising budget on guessing.

8. Focus on Top-Sponsor and Solo ads.

They are the most effective. Top sponsor ads are on the top of the publication and it is the first message the reader views. Solo ads are highly effective because the reader views your message alone with nothing else tracking his or her attention. Forget the classified ads, although they are cheaper. When you read a newsletter you focus on the content or the 15-20 displayed ads?

Finally, as a recommendation, you can start searching for effective ezines on the http://www.directoryofezines.com - it's the ultimate resource for tracking and advertising on targeted ezines.

Christos Varsamis is an Internet Marketer & Affiliate Marketing Specialist. You can check the latest resources and Product reviews on http://www.fastprofitbiz.com

Shape Up The Content For Your Ezine

Writen by Ken Mathie

We are down to the home stretch. You've got your Ezine laid out, you have gotten some good content for it and now you want to put the whole thing together in a nice neat little package with a pretty bow so that your readers will have an experience that they can honestly say was worth the zero cents they paid to subscribe. So just what does shaping up the content for your Ezine involve and how do you go about doing it?

Most of what you are going to have to do involves fitting pieces together and modifying things so that they look just right. You will be spending a lot of time doing this with the various articles that you get, either from the freelance writers you hired or the sites you downloaded the content from. Why?

Ever hear the phrase "Beggars can't be choosers?" Well, when you're downloading free content off of websites, you're not going to have a lot of control over the format of this content. It may be in simple Ariel 10 pt. font or heaven knows what. If you have an Ezine where you are going for a certain look, this can be a bit of a problem. For example, let's say you're putting together an Ezine on "Chinese Food" and you want to have an oriental look to the Ezine itself. It is doubtful the articles you download are going to be in fonts that support this look. You're going to have to reformat them with your own fonts. You may even have to download fonts from the Internet if you're going for a certain look that isn't part of the default font set in your word processing program.

Another part of the formatting, aside from the font itself, is how the article is laid out. When you download it or have it sent to you, it may not be 90 characters per line, or whatever line spacing you are looking for. For that matter, it may not be formatted at all. You may need to get a hold of a text formatter, which you can get for free just about anywhere on the Internet. This will reformat your text to however many characters per line you want. This is critical for sending out emails as some email programs will just display your paragraphs as one long string, making it very hard for your subscribers to read. If they can't read your Ezine easily they will most likely unsubscribe. You certainly won't make the sales you're counting on.

Another thing you're going to have to do, especially if you're putting together an Ezine with photos or graphics, is format the graphics around the word content so that it flows. You don't want your layout to be willy-nilly. If you need ideas for how an Ezine with photos should look, go take a peak at a few. Again, there is nothing wrong with getting inspiration from others. If you have doubts in your own ability, get a graphic artist to do it for you or at least look at your work.

If you're putting together a fancy Ezine with multiple sections, like a real magazine, make sure you have a table of contents inside the front cover. After a while, when you have developed a real following, you are going to have subscribers who will consistently look for certain features. By having a table of contents, you make it easy for them to find what they are looking for. They'll love you for it.

Finally, you want to be consistent. Once you have got a format, stick to it. Develop a routine for putting your Ezine together. Make a checklist of all the things you have to do each time you send out your Ezine, whether it be weekly, monthly or whatever.

After a while, when you have done this enough times, it will become second nature to you and the time you spend each day will become less and less and you'll have more time for actually running your business.

Learn more…

PMCezine" Internet Marketing Bulletins... Weekly up-to-date powerful marketing tips, strategies, and secrets to grow your online business. You don't want to miss this ezine... Receive 6 FREE gifts when you subscribe at our site! Yes! "Please Send My Gifts"

Copyright 2006 – Ken Mathie. Editor PMCezine... You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made, the author's name is retained and the link to our site URL remains active.

21 Questions To Ask Any List Service Before You Sign On With Them

Writen by Alexandria K. Brown

If you publish an e-mail newsletter, or "e-zine," you'll need to sign on with a list service (or "listserve") to manage your subscriber list. There are many types of listserves out there, so here are some guidelines to help you choose one that's right for you.

1. Do they use MULTI-PART MIME technology?
   
   You'll need this if you want to publish an HTML newsletter. Otherwise you'll have to send out multiple versions for users who can read HTML, users who can't read HTML, and users on AOL.



2. Do they offer some type of ORIENTATION OR TUTORIAL?
   
   If you're new to the game and/or technologically challenged then you'll appreciate any type of help they offer for new clients.



3. What's their CUSTOMER SERVICE like?
   
   Are they prompt to get back to you via e-mail? Can you call them if you have a problem? Are they available more than standard business hours? What about weekends? Contact them and see how long they take to get back to you —- if it's longer than 24 hours, definitely keep looking.



4. Do they NOTIFY list owners if there's a PROBLEM with their service?
   
   If so, how, and how quickly?



5. Do they have CUSTOMER TESTIMONIALS to share with you?
   
   Or even better, client references? Contact some of these folks to see how their experiences have been.



6. Do other BUSINESSES LIKE YOURS use their service?
   
   If most of their clients are large corporations, small businesses like yours may not get the attention they deserve.



7. Is their interface EASY TO USE?
   
   Meaning is it easy for you to setup and launch each issue of your e-zine. They should offer a demo or let you access the 'mission control' area that you'll be using to test it out.



8. Can you MANUALLY ADD AND REMOVE people to and from your list if you want to?
   
   Sometimes you'll need to do this, so you'll want the answer to be "yes" —- especially if you're moving over a list you've already collected.



9. Can you access SUBSCRIBER REPORTS?
   
   How and how often? You'll want to know on a regular basis how many subscribes and unsubscribes you've had since the last issue.



10. What appears in the "FROM" field when subscribers get your e-zine?
    
    You want it to be YOUR name if possible. Some spam filters screen out e-mail that does not appear to come from an individual person.



11. What appears in the "TO" field when a subscriber gets your e-zine?
    
    You want it to be the person's name if possible. Along the same lines, some spam filters screen out e-mail that does not appear to be addressed to the individual person.



12. Who has ACCESS to their servers and your list?
    
    Anytime you hand over your customer list, you're taking a risk. You don't want your service or anyone else using your list for spamming purposes.



13. What happens if some addresses are UNDELIVERABLE?
    
    These are also called "bounces" or "bounce-backs." You don't want them to automatically remove names for "soft bounces," which are due to temporary conditions like full mailboxes.



14. How do users SUBSCRIBE AND UNSUBSCRIBE?
    
    Do they have to visit a Web page or can they do it via e-mail (best if both options are available). Is the process single or double opt-in? (Double is better for more security — the user has to respond to a confirmation e-mail before she's added to your list.) Is the process kept simple?



15. Can you customize your LIST SERVER DOCUMENTS?
    
    This means messages like your subscriber welcome and goodbye messages. (You'll definitely want to be able to do this, since the prewritten messages many list services use are horribly cold and confusing.)



16. Can your e-zine give PERSONALIZED GREETINGS AND MESSAGES?
    
    Not necessary, but a very nice feature. For example, if your e-zine came to me, it would start off with something like, "Hello Alexandria!"



17. How often do they BACK UP their servers?
    
    It should be at least once every day. Also ask if you can download your lists to back them up on your own, as a backup to their backup!



18. Can you send a TEST MESSAGE out to yourself or another person before you send out each issue for real?
    
    You'll definitely want this because it's the best way to see how your e-zine looks on the recipient's end, do a proofread, and check all your hyperlinks.



19. Can you see stats on your CLICK-THROUGH rates?
    
    If you publish in HTML, you should be able to see how many people — and even exactly who — opens your messages.



20. Can they AUTOMATICALLY ARCHIVE your issues if you'd like them to?
    
    Some services will archive your e-zines at their site, others can configure it so they're archived at your own site (which is better).



21. Are they currently BLOCKED anywhere on the Web?
    
    If so, it may mean they've been reported for allowing spammers to use their network. You don't want to work with any list service that's been blocked anywhere, because it means that your e-zine won't reach all of your readers.

(c) 2002 Alexandria K. Brown

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexandria K. Brown, "The E-zine Queen," is author of the award-winning manual, "Boost Business With Your Own E-zine." To learn more about her book and sign up for more FREE tips like these, visit her site at http://EzineQueenTutorial.com/

Talking Pictures Are The Go

Writen by Michelle Tremolada

A Tokyo day care company has begun marketing a "talking picture," which can play messages for up to 12 minutes by holding up a pen-shaped scanner on the photograph. The scanner uses invisible barcodes to activate the sound.

"The pictures would be useful for those who hope to hear the voice of someone living when they are far away; maybe they have passed on, or maybe they live on the opposite side of the globe. Either way, it brings loved ones closer together more often by "seeing them" and "hearing them".

There is no point in having a talking picture if you can't see the picture clearly. Make sure you have saved the picture in the correct resolution. Ensure that the color model used is the right one for what you want to do with your picture. All these things make a difference.

Assuming the audio attached to the photo is of good quality, one drawback of this new technology is that the photo may not be of the best quality or has some imperfections. One could very easily remedy this by learning how to edit a photo to your satisfaction; make it look right! Go to http://www.abcphotoediting.com to learn the simple easy to follow steps to make your photos look great!

Learn The Five Facts Why Ezine Is The Ultimate Promotion Tool

Writen by John Navata

What you are about to read will change your way of promoting your products or services. Now that I got your attention, I will share to you six facts why ezine is the ultimate promotion tool.

Most of the people that promote a product or service doesn't make money online. Even if you promote to millions of people that opt-in on safelists, ffas, or email blasts. Majority of the times, they will just delete your message and consider it as junk mail. I have tried them all. There is only one technique that is very effective "Ezines or Weekly Newsletter Marketing."

1. An ezine is the perfect way to stay in touch with your clients and prospects on a regular basis.

Unless you continually follow up with clients and prospects, they'll soon forget about it. But imagine calling or writing each and everyone of your clients and prospects every week! That would be nearly impossible to pull off.

Well, an ezine achieves the same goal. Keeping you on their radar screens, but in an unobtrusive way. This constant contact makes these folks more likely to think of YOU, not someone they heard about yesterday, when they need to hire a coach.

2. An ezine allows you to effortlessly spread the word about you and your business.

If you write a decent ezine, your readers will be very likely to pass it on to friends and colleagues. Have a "tell a friend message" on top of your ezines or a pop up saying, "if you think that this newsletter benefited you, please tell a friend and send to visit...(your website)." This is called viral marketing.

Most publishers begin with only a few dozen subscribers who are their clients and associates. But after several months, you can have thousands of readers on your list.

3. Publishing an ezine positions you as an expert in your field.

By showing your knowledge and skills, you're likely to attract more and better clients. And by sharing what you know well. Sharing information to your clients about your products or service will give them more reasons why they should order from you and willing to buy from you in the future.

4. An ezine is the ideal way to capture the email addresses of your web visitors.

If I visit your site today but aren't ready to buy from you today, you've likely lost me forever when I click away. But if you invite me to sign up for your free newsletter that features helpful information on the topic at hand, I'll be happy to sign up. There are so many newsletters that I can sign up to that offer the same service. But if you have a good reason, like "If you sign up to our FREE weekly newsletter, you will receive tips, techniques, and easy ways to help your business make money from internet marketers. And if you sign up today, you will receive a free ebook on ......."

Now you've got me to market to, over and over, as long as you continue to give me the practical content you promised. This is especially powerful because statistics show that consumers don't usually purchase a product or service until after they've seen multiple messages about it.

5. An ezine is cheap and easy to publish - especially compared with a print newsletter.

If you were to produce and mail a snazzy looking printed newsletter, you could easyily spend thousands of dollars each year. But an ezine is essentially FREE to put together and publish. It just takes a bit of your time.

You can make it as long or short as you'd like. Some of the best ezines, I get feature with only one tip per issue. Make sure it's simple.

If you want to learn ways to promote your business the best way, it's publishing an email newsletter or also called ezine. I recommend this ebook called "Mining Gold on the Internet" by Shawn Casey. He will show you ways on how to promote your business with zero to little investment. Subscribe to his FREE newsletter mini-course at http://tinyurl.com/8f7nv

How To Write Search Relevant Ezine Articles That Get Published

Writen by David Petrich

A good ezine writer can become a star in their field when widely published. Those who provide great content and (who make it easy to publish), can escalate their writing careers. Organizations who publish quality content in trade for publicity can achieve maximum exposure if they follow some simple guidelines.

As an ezine editor, my job is to filter and present interesting and compelling content to our visitors. I frequently visit the free article web sites and find a wide variety of article ideas. Often, I am disappointed. - Many articles have sound merits, but are either poorly written or formatted in a manner that is not compatible with our page layout." The latter is the most frustrating reason to reject articles. - "It may have been a great piece of writing, but the author chose to clutter it up with excessive self-serving ad copy and URLs."

A good article is one that takes an objective view of a subject. This approach will better engage the reader, as it possesses a higher degree of believability. Just like in verbal conversation, the listener (reader) backs away in a defensive posture when someone is being pushy. The reader is less likely to believe all that is said because they detect an ulterior motive of the author. For example, biased, one-sided reporting has less value to the reader than detailing a rational argument addressing both sides of an issue. -Even if the author is clearly biased, they can still address the subject from the reader's point of view.

The reason why most profit-based ezines will publish your article is to build traffic. Just like print magazines, readership drives the business model. - The more readers, the more advertisement exposure. Most ezines are in business to provide a service to advertisers. This is widely true with most print magazines and newspapers as well.

Ezines generally hope that your article will have a ready made answer for someone conducting a specific internet search on Google, Yahoo, MSN or other search engines. The text of your article will be indexed into these search engines so that the public can find your article. With Google, their page order ranking system is forever changing. The Google system for instance, (today fielding the majority of Internet searches) is based on "degree of relevance". Google measures relevance not only by the specific content in your article, but also by the related subject matter on the host ezine web site, as well as the number of links pointing to the page and host site. That's why your article may rank higher on one site over another based on the specific search criteria. Just remember that the search engines are getting smarter every year. They are getting better at detecting quality over quantity.

Here Are Some Dos and Don'ts From an Ezine Content Editor's Perspective:

Write a Good Lead-in:

Make sure the first two lines of your first paragraph are very appropriate to your subject. Write catchy descriptive titles: no more than 65 characters. - (You will notice that there are about 65 characters that show up on the title line of a Google search result page). Try to write like a news writer. - Most important information up front, with the supportive data towards the end. Your whole article should be generally written with this rule in mind as well.

Be Original.

Have a unique perspective on your topic. Too often I see very general subjects that will never stand out from the sea of content on the Internet. - And thus never come up when searched. If you are going to spend the time to write something, try to narrow the focus and answer a specific topic for a specific reader. This approach will allow you to "work and turn" or tweak the article with a different angle and different audience with little effort. - Resulting in more exposure with less work.

Don't Write a Blatant "Advertorial".

Don't write overtly self-serving advertorials unless you just want your articles to only appear on the come-get-your-free-content web sites. Remember, your articles will have the best chance of being seen if it is associated with other similar content.

We all know the reason why most people are writing and distributing free content, but don't make it so obvious that you loose credibility with the reader. Intelligent readers will know when they are being "sold to" and will stop reading before they get to the end of your article. Most quality ezines (ones that readers respect and come back to), don't want to publish a pushy sales pitch. -It will just make their readers not want to come back. There are a lot of ways a good writer can cleverly disguise their motives. The easiest way is to be complete, truthful and objective so that you gain the trust of the reader. Put your sales pitch on the your page link in your byline. This way, readers will be more ready to accept your sales pitch since they specifically requested information about your product or service.

Don't Write About Something You Don't Know.

Put some meat into your article. The reader should walk away with something useful. I see a lot of articles that are simply a regurgitation of widely known information. As a publisher, I will remember your name and avoid your work if it is sub-standard, inaccurate, or immature. Expect excellence in yourself. If you are writing about something you don't know, do the research and become an expert. Your goal should be to give the reader something they probably did not previously know about.

Don't Overstate Your Keywords.

Redundancy can be boring to read. I often review articles that make such an obvious attempt to repeat specific keywords or key phrases that the writing is almost useless in conveying the subject matter. Search engines will detect and reject this belligerent abuse of the Internet and so will most readers. It is best not to make a conscious effort to boost keyword count in your article. Your subject is what it is. It will be recognized as relevant when your keywords and phrases are found in a natural, common and organic manner.

Don't Write Over the Top of Your Readers.

Write in plain English (or French, German, Japanese, etc.) so that your target audience will quickly understand what you are saying. If you are presenting a highly technical subject, work from the lowest common denominator. If your lowest common denominator is a lawyer from Harvard, then your writing can be a bit more complex than if your audience includes high-school dropouts. However, technical people enjoy easy reading too.

Please Check Your Spelling.

If I see blatant spelling errors, I will also assume that the author is not credible and reject the article. If I get to know your name as a writer who does not check spelling and grammar, I will avoid looking at your articles. Most editors don't want to waste time and spell check your work. More importantly, some of the free article distribution sites specifically state that the articles cannot be altered. Don't let bad spelling and grammar keep you from getting your work published.

Keep you Bio Brief and to the Point.

You want your bio to be short and to the point. Your URL link should be aimed at a specific page that supports the purpose of your article. I reject a lot of articles because the bio reads like an in-your-face advertisement. This is fine if you do not want to see you work on high quality sites. It is best to keep the URL's to a minimum (no more than three). You can always make a special destination page for your article and place all the copy and URL's you want. Eliminate redundant copy such as "come visit our web site" or "click here for more information" And don't make clever formatting like "F-R-E-E N-E-W-S-L-E-T-T-E-R" or "LOWEST PRICES!!!" unless you only want your article to appear in low end ezines and spam sites.

I once had an e-mail complaint from an irate writer who wanted their article formatted with a lot of "all caps" statements and to stand out from other writers. I quickly e-mailed her back with a short note: "No problem. It's fixed!". She emailed later complaining that she could no longer find any of her articles on our web site. My point is that there are a lot of cooperative writers out there and it should be looked as a cooperative effort between the writer, publisher (and yes, sponsors) to deliver compelling and worthwhile content to the reader.

I review countless great articles with incompatible bylines; as a publisher, I want to respect the wishes of each writer by including all information they provide. Too often, I reject articles because the writer feels it necessary to include excessive information about their services or products. The worst thing is pushy sales pitches and cute call-to-action statements that were all the rage in those 1970's marketing seminars. As a reader, I find this barrage of ad spam to be confusing clutter that is a distraction and worse, a way to discredit the article information I had just read.

In the long run, you will find your efforts to have the most value if they are published on web sites offering cohesive and quality subject matter to a specific audience. When your article is published along with other articles within the same subject grouping, it stands a much better chance of being found and read. It is important for you to get good quality links from your ezine articles so that it builds relevance for your target web site and cause. Make it easy on us editors by making your great writing easy to publish!

David Petrich is senior editor for http://www.JustChange.net -an ezine dedicated to helping people accomplish positive changes in their lives. He is also a copywriter for http://www.JDEZ.com - a manufacturer of chic yoga apparel for men and women. David has more than 25 years experience in helping businesses with market communication strategies.

(c) 2005 D. Petrich. (This article may be freely published on your web site provided it is left unchanged including the authors bio with clickable URLs. This article may not be used in conjunction with SPAM email.)

A Brief History Of Ezines

Writen by Lance Winslow

There are a many Ezines specializing in nearly every sub-sector of our economy and almost every interest of human activity today. But how did it all begin and what is an Ezine anyway? Well many who specialize as Ezine Publishers believe it is an electronic magazine or newsletter sent out by email to a subscription list.

Others say that an Ezine is an electronic newsletter or magazine, regardless of the method of electronic distribution. They say that an Ezine could reside on a website, intranet system or be sent throughout any network, including the largest network of or a network of networks; the Internet. Indeed we could disagree on the definition for a moment.

If my history is correct ARPA contracted Bell Labs and Xerox park to come up with system of communication and they were the first people to call something E-Mail or electronic mail. But even before that, they were sending out correspondence- online network newsletters, announcements and notifications of discoveries in the same exact general format of many of the online newsletters or Ezines, which is what we would call them today.

So, even though back then it was not called an Ezine, because the term had not been coined, it was an Ezine, but email did not exist quite yet. Even the Internet did not exist, yet it was an electronic newsletter. As things progressed, it would not be important which came first. And with regards to that, there will be further evolution of both the chicken and the egg as the fine feathered friends of distribution still have to cross the road to get to the other side and will figure out how the road ahead (and it might be a runway) might be re-surfaced in the future. Consider all this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Comment Option For Online Article Submission Sites Discussed

Writen by Lance Winslow

Should online article submission and Ezine content websites have sections for comments from readers of articles like Amazon.com does? Well, it just so happens that many of the top online article submission Internet content website providers do indeed have sections to rate and or comment on the articles that the reader reads. Many online article writers like this and some authors do not and often there are mean spirited folks who post negative comments for really no reason at all or maybe they are a commercial competitor of the author and the article itself is indeed industry related to the writer's work.

Personally I do not like the comments and yes I am an online article writer; although most of my comments are fairly nice ones. I do not wish to hear from anyone on the subjects I have written. You see I either have a strong opinion or I am so knowledgeable in a subject, I do not want to hear from those who speak before they understand. I also do not like the "star" system, as often someone will rate an article due to their political beliefs, religious beliefs or grading me for grammar. You see, this is just silly human petty crap. I want the whole thing turned off really on my articles.

Online article submission sites should be careful not to alienate their writers and should be weary that competitors might post negative or derogatory comments and thus comments on online article content sites will need to be monitored to keep the peace. Consider all this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

How To Build And Manage Your Ezine Strategies To Develop Your Customer Base

Writen by Ken Mathie

Well, you have got your Ezine all set to go. The content is great, the look is great, and you're all pumped up to get everyone on the Internet to see it. That's when it hits you.

How do I do that?

Unfortunately, the old saying "Build it and they will come" does not apply to the Internet. The sad truth is, just building an Ezine, web site, or anything for that matter does not guarantee that anybody is going to see it. In order for that to happen, you need to go out and get the people to come. That leads us to the big question.

How do I do that?

Ah yes, we already asked that question, didn't we. Well, fortunately, there are a number of ways to develop your customer base to your Ezine. We will touch on just a few of them here so you can get an idea. There are many more than these.

One way to get the word out about your Ezine to a mass of people at once is to register with a safelist submitter service. This is a service that will allow you to submit an ad to hundreds, even thousands of safelists all at once. This has the potential to reach hundreds of thousands of people in one shot. The services are relatively inexpensive and many come with other benefits besides. Do some shopping around to see the best deals that you can get.

Another way to make your Ezine known to the Internet is through message boards and forums. This takes a little bit more manual work but is more of a personal approach. By going to these forums and letting people know that your Ezine exists, maybe even offering some incentives for them to sign up, you'll probably get a faster sign up rate than with most other methods. You can easily find a number of forums to visit through search engines.

Of course you can always go the route of submitting your Ezine to an Ezine submission service. This is a service that specializes in making the Internet know that your Ezine exists. Make sure you follow their rules when doing this because they don't allow any ad submissions. This is purely a news release to let them know your Ezine exists. The problem with these services is that there are so many Ezines submitted each day, it is easy for yours to get lost in the soup.

Whatever strategy you use for letting people know about your Ezine, make sure that you offer them some kind of freebie for, say, the first 100 sign ups. Maybe give away some software or an ebook you have written. Sometimes you have to give a little to get a lot. If people believe that they are getting something of value, they will be more likely to want to sign up with your Ezine. From there, as long as you keep providing them with good content, they will continue as subscribers and potential customers.

Learn more…

HBNezine.. Home Biz News & Tips. Weekly up-to-date powerful strategies to outsmart, out market and outsell even your toughest competition. Receive your free report "Fail Faster For Success" when you subscribe. Yes!' Please send my report!

Copyright 2006 – Ken Mathie. Editor HBNezine... You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made, the author's name is retained and the link to our site URL remains active.

How To Format Your Email Newsletter

Writen by Robert Abbott

When subscribers' email readers (programs) receive your text newsletter, they will display it in all kinds of ways. Not only are there different programs, but each one has several customization options.

One of the problems arising out of this diversity is line length. In extreme cases, recipients will get one extremely long line for each paragraph, because their email programs have not wrapped the lines (ended each line after a specified number of characters and moved the text onto a new line). In other cases, the lines may be too long for comfortable reading.

How do you deal with this? Opinions vary, again. Some publishers recommend you hit the RETURN key at the end of each line (hard returns), to make sure the text wraps. Others advocate setting a line length (65 characters or less) in the Preferences section of your email program.

If you do use hard returns, use a fixed-space font like Courier or Monaco. That way you can simply set your margins to an appropriate line length and hit the return key at the end of each line. If you forget and use a variable-space font (like Arial or Times), your readers will get all kinds of variations, since many of them will use different fonts. You can also change your fonts back to something you like again after putting in the hard returns.

Apostrophes and quotation marks: Many of us use these symbols liberally when we write, and quite frankly they improve the reading process. But, be sure you use the appropriate versions of these marks, which means using the straight foot and inch symbols, rather than curled apostrophes and quotation marks.

If you don't do this, some of your readers will get a message in which all apostrophes and quotation marks have disappeared. It will look like you don't know how to spell, or worse. Overcome this problem by using the Find & Replace function in your word processing program to make the changes quickly and easily.

And, it may seem obvious, but if you send out a text email newsletter, separate the paragraphs with double returns. Don't try to use tabs or spaces to set off a new paragraph - in many cases the formatting will go astray and your readers won't know you're starting a new paragraph.

If your original document doesn't use double returns, you can change it over quickly and easily, using our old friend, the Find & Replace function in your word processing program. Put one return symbol in the Find field, two in the Replace field, and hit Change All (or whatever your program uses for these terms).

One thing you can generally ignore is the font or typeface (unless, as noted you're setting line lengths). Many readers will set their email programs to display all text messages in a font of their choosing, and likely won't see the font you use anyway.

After drafting your newsletter, email a copy to yourself before sending it to your list. Even better, send it from one program and receive it with another. If you're like me, you'll be surprised at the problems that pop out when you do this. Not only content, but also formatting and links may look different, and you'll likely find errors that were not at all obvious in the original version.

While we're on this subject, don't forget to test the links you place. Click on each one to make sure it takes you where you want it to send your readers.

Summing up, be conscious of your formatting techniques when you create a text newsletter. A little bit of extra attention will keep the text itself from getting in the way of your message.

Robert F. Abbott, the author of A Manager's Guide to Newsletters: Communicating for Results, writes and publishes Abbott's Communication Letter. Read more articles about Internet communication, as well as email and printed newsletters at: http:// http://www.communication-newsletter.com/ic.html

5 Ways To Make More Money With Your Ezine

Writen by Alexandria K. Brown

Have you been publishing an e-mail newsletter for at least six months but still aren't seeing real results (read: revenue) from it? Don't fret — you may just need a tune up. Here are five ways to kick your e-zine income into gear this year:

1. TOOT YOUR OWN HORN MORE
   
   The adage goes, "If you don't blow your own horn, someone else will use it as a spittoon." If your focus is providing your readers with useful information that enriches their lives and businesses, bravo! That SHOULD be your focus. But now I want you to look out for yourself as well: Take at least 25 percent of your e-zine space and make it all about YOU.
   
   Give promos for your services, products, books, workshops, etc. List raving testimonials from clients and customers who LOVE you. Weave your business success stories into your articles and tips. Share something funny about your weekend that makes me feel closer to knowing you personally. (For more self-promotion tips, see my article at http://www.ezinequeen.com/7ways.htm)



2. MAKE ME AN OFFER I CAN'T REFUSE
   
   Let's suppose I'm one of your subscribers. Even if I realize you offer wonderful products and services, I may need a kick in the pants to make a move. To entice me, offer me a special, l1mited-time deal. Examples: three months' of consultation for the price of two, a 20% discount on your latest book or newest service, or one of your usual offers with a few exciting bonuses thrown in. Make the offer obsolete within a few days or by next week. By putting a time limit on it, I'll be more apt to act now instead of later.
   
   Don't overlook how powerful this tactic can be. Some of my most profitable weeks have resulted from running a limited time, special pr0motion of this type in my e-zine.



3. PACKAGE IT AT A LOWER PRICE POINT
   
   This is a super strategy for service professionals such as consultants and coaches. As your subscriber, I know the way to get the BEST service from you would be to hire you one-on-one, but perhaps I can't afford that right now. BUT consider that I may likely be interested in lower-priced options such as group coaching, teleclasses, online seminars, or a manual/e-book.
   
   This is exactly how I became an e-book author. When I started my first e-zine, my main business was writing for corporate communications. After I gained a few thousand subscribers, I realized that my readers were mostly small business owners and entrepreneurs. So I began creating products and services geared toward them. And now I profit more from those each month than from my corporate work.



4. PROMOTE A PRODUCT/SERVICE THAT COMPLEMENTS YOURS
   
   Do your readers and clients often ask you about a certain topic that's related to — but not exactly — what you offer? Then resell a resource that you heartily recommend and would put your reputation behind.
   
   For example, while my specialty is e-zines, I get many questions about creating and selling information products online. So I continually research credible resources on this topic to share with my readers. Many of the creators of these products offer a handsome commission on any sales I refer to them. (I do this myself by paying out up to 25% commission on any referred sale. http://www.ezinequeen.com/affiliate.htm)
   
   NEVER recommend any service or product to your readers that you haven't personally tried and wouldn't back 100 percent. Otherwise you'll blow the trust that you've worked so hard to build up in your readership.



5. SELL AD SPACE AS IT SUITS YOU
   
   E-zine ads won't make you wealthy, but they can make for some handy extra c^sh. (I call it my "margarita money.") Most e-zines offer one sponsor ad at the top and several "classified" ads at the bottom. Sponsor ads typically cost three to five times more than the classified ad, but you'll see the ranges vary greatly.
   
   Start by offering ad specials to your own readers. Then also list your e-zine in the many e-zine advertising directories on the Web. These services help match advertisers with appropriate publishers just like you. (Need help? My manual gives step-by-step instructions on how to accept and profit from ads in your e-zine.)
   
   Remember that you have every right to be selective about the type of ads you accept. While your readers know these ads don't represent YOUR business, their quality will indirectly influence their perception of you.

REMEMBER THE *SILENT* BENEFITS OF YOUR E-ZINE

Keep in mind that even if you aren't getting direct business from your e-zine at this time, it's still delivering many benefits that may be less obvious. Your e-zine is helping to establish you as an expert in your field. It's giving you massive online exposure. You're gaining further credibility with your current clients and customers. And it's forcing you to package your knowledge into concise articles on a regular basis, which you can recycle for many other marketing uses.

(c) 2000-2003 Alexandria K. Brown. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexandria K. Brown, "The E-zine Queen," is author of the award-winning manual, "Boost Business With Your Own E-zine." To learn more about her book and sign up for more FREE tips like these, visit her site at http://EzineQueenTutorial.com/

Create An Immortal Ezine Evergreen Newsletters

Writen by Debbie Jenkins

This article is particularly for those people who want to communicate regularly with their readers and through this communication build up a strong relationship. If you've never considered using a newsletter or ezine to contact your prospects and suspects, then now is the time.

However, with almost every small business on the planet boasting that they have a newsletter, wouldn't it be great if there were some cheats and easy ways to use your newsletter to better effect?

If you've written newsletters for a while in the traditional "news" style, you'll know how frustrating it can be continually having to remind people what you do as you get new subscribers. In your first issue, full of enthusiasm, you might have told your readers that they can get a discount or sign up to another of your great services. However, by issue 10, you'd like to be strengthening that relationship.

The term "evergreen" when applied to articles means an article that can be read on any day in any year and still have strong meaning to the reader.

We want to make sure that everyone who signs up to our newsletter receives ALL the issues in the order that makes most sense to them and to us. So each issue is written in an "evergreen" fashion (ie nothing dates) and is set to be sent at intervals of 14 days.

A lot of articles that you read in magazines are topics that can be run again and again. These "evergreen" topics never go out of style - they never date. Here are some examples, bridal magazines use stories on planning your wedding, choosing a wedding dress, hairstyles and that all important honeymoon. Fitness magazines run articles on losing weight and exercising.

So, writing an "evergreen" newsletter means that you write all your content ahead of time and none of it can be time-sensitive.

Evergreen e-zines are brilliant and easy to do.

GOALS

1. To build a relationship with your readers, to inform them and provide them with useful content that they can use straight away.

2. To sell your products / services to them

3. To build a subscriber base (encourage evangelists)

4. To make the job easy for yourself ;-) (my favourite goal - remember we're Lean Marketers(tm))

Here's how to do it: Suppose you want to publish an article every two weeks - like Champions. That means you'd have to write 26 articles in a year. You write the articles and then add them to your autoresponder with day gaps of 14 - like day 1, day 14, day 28 etc. Each reader would get a message every two weeks and new readers would start at message 1.

RULES

1. Don't include time sensitive information. Unless you have a system that can manage multiple time sensitive offers (we might look at this in a later article) then ensure any information you include will last for ever.

2. The information must still be valuable - don't think you can get away with sending rubbish out.

3. You must include a proper opt in and out link in every message. Use an automated system for this, don't waste your own time trying to manage something so tiresome!

4. Check it's being read by asking for a response. Do you remember the pipeline we talked about in issue 3 (if you want to see a picture of a pipeline send a blank email to leanpipeline@aweber.com with "Send Me The Pipeline - I need to understand Evergreen Newsletters" in the subject line. We used this to check you were reading ;-)

5. Periodically check the system is working. Put your own email address in the automated system and read your own messages. This has a number of benefits - you get to see what your readers will see; you can make sure that the information isn't time sensitive (it can be a challenge at first!) and you get reminded of your own tips ;-)

6. Build the relationship. Take advantage of the opportunity to build a relationship, as you would in any other real world relationship, divulge a little more of yourself each time.

7. As people become more used to you and the relationship grows, expect them to start paying for your services / products. It might be a challenge to ask your prospects to part with their cash the first time your ezine pops into their email box, but over a period of time, say maybe 6 or 7 issues (by the way - this is your 7th newsletter from us) the relationship will have blossomed. This is when you can start to ask for the sale and expect results.

CLUES

1. Make an outline of the articles you're going to use for the next 6 months and ensure you have a progression of relationship building.

2. Don't leave writing the newsletter to the last minute! (like I sometimes do)

3. Use software that automates the process - remember Lean Marketers(tm) use technology where appropriate. We use aweber.com

4. Can't think what to write? Then you may use some of our articles - let me know if you want to use them and I'll send you my by-line.

Speak Soon,

'Dangerous' Debbie Jenkins
debs@debbiejenkins.com

(c) Copyright 2005 www.BookShaker.com

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Pull Technology Takes Your Ezine Off Of The Spam Wars Battlefield

Writen by Bill Platt

THE SPAM WARS

I have been writing about the Spam Wars for more than two years now. Once, I had even predicted that the Spam Wars could lead to the death of email marketing. I hate being so negative, but the trends have shown many members of that anti-spam community to be blind to justice.

With the widespread implementations of blacklisting and filtering, the chances of an ezine of reaching its intended recipients is greatly dimished.

The person who has subscribed to an ezine very likely requested the subscription themselves, and in most cases, they verified their intent to receive the publication (double opt-in).

It is a fact that a person could verify his intent to subscribe to a publication two dozen times, and still the ezine they had subscribed to could be blocked from ever reaching their mailbox. That is the nature of blacklisting and spam filtering --- neither one cares if a person has requested to receive an email or if a current relationship exists between the sender and recipient. Both the blacklister and the spam filter will arbitrarily block a message from reaching its intended recipient based on a certain criteria defined by some system administrator sitting behind a keyboard somwhere else on the planet.

SPAM NASTY ENVIRONMENT

In this spam nasty environment, there are the spammers on one side of the isle, and the anti-spammers on the other side of the isle. Stuck in the middle are the ezine publishers who abide by all rules and guidelines for proper email publishing.

Some anti-spammers deliberately target ezines because the ezine publishers represent commercial interests.

Some people even use the anti-spam hysteria to settle personal beefs with others and also to attack those with whom they disagree.

IMPORTANT DISTINCTIONS

Please note the adjective in use here, "some." This is an important distinction as others in the anti-spam community are folks like you and I, who are simply frustated with the level of email aimed to our mailboxes for the purpose of selling us access to p*rn or body enhancement products.

There is no doubt as to the existence of a problem each time I open my email software. Yet, it has always been my argument that some of the spam solutions are worse than the spam situation they seek to solve.

A solution is not a good solution if it "throws the baby out with the bath water." Some in the anti-spam community believe that it is okay to sacrifice tens of thousand babies in order to empty a couple tubs of water.

My answer, "two wrong's don't make a right."

THE BATTLE FOR THE MIGHTY DOLLAR

Other commercial enterprises have arisen that purport to be possible solutions to the spam problem.

Whitelisting is a fairly recent entrant into the anti-spam enterprises. And yet, other anti-spammers think that even the whitelisting companies are an evil to be squashed. Of course, their reasons for despising the whitelisting companies are different from mine.

The anti-spammers who hate whitelisting generally hate it because corporations and others with deep pockets are being permitted to buy a pass to send unsolicited commercial email.

I am a person who is publishes an ezine and I offers support services to other ezine publishers. The people with whom I work are those who are publishing their ezines the right way, by making sure that all of their subscribers are double opt-in subscribers.

I find paid whitelisting offensive because the publishers who are using double and triple opt-in are being told that the only way they can assure delivery of their ezine is to pay some third-party company an extortion fee to get their ezines to the people who have subscribed to their publication. This applies not only to people who offer free ezines --- it also applies to publishers who offer paid subscription ezines.

You would think that if a subscriber has paid to receive the ezine, then that should indicate a serious intent by the subscriber to receive the publication in question.

Some are making a ton of money in the attempt to limit spam email. Yet many of their systems are so flawed that requested ezines cannot reach their intended recipients, paid subscribers cannot get the email they have paid to receive, and worse, people who have an existing business relationship don't always get their communications through to their business contacts --- sometimes ending up angry customers and in lost business.

Some of the blind to justice anti-spammers will read this and snicker, "Darn shame." What does that say about them?

TWISTED PERCEPTIONS

Although "some" anti-spammers have tried to twist the perception of my Spam Wars commentaries into a pro-spam ideology, they have never been right in doing so. I do not support spam, and I find the hundreds of p*rn advertisements to be something I do not want in my email box. I also do not want to learn how I can grow my phallic unit or my breasts to unnatural sizes.

Instead, my argument has always been that there absolutely has to be a better way to stop spam. I think highly upon the skills of the programmers who have brought us this wonderful world of the Internet. I just wish someone could come up with a better solution to combat spam --- a solution that does not penalize those who run their commercial online enterprises with the highest integrity.

FINALLY, SOMETHING TO BE EXCITED ABOUT

After all of these years, someone has granted to me my wish. Would you be at all surprised if I told you that for the first time in years, I am very excited about ezine publishing again?

Someone has brought a number of existing technologies into an umbrella operation which uses "pull technology" rather than "push technology."

PUSH AND PULL TECHNOLOGY

Email is a "push technology".

Quikonnex is a "pull technology."

Through the Quikonnex system, you can subscribe to certain "channels", kind of like channels on your television. "Channeling" (pull technology) allows the subscriber to receive materials in straight text, full html, voice, video, or interactive media.

Subscribers are notified directly --- desktop to desktop --- when new materials are ready. Notification comes through the Awasu software, which is an RSS reader, and utilizes a technology very similar to the Yahoo! or AOL IM.

Within the Quikonnex system, subscribers do not pay to use the software or to receive information. Publishers do pay to use the service, but compared to other distribution systems, the cost to operate up to 100 channels is dirt cheap at $19.95 per month, and it is all spam-free.

Copyright Bill Platt - All Rights Reserved. Reprints allowed with article and resource box unedited. If you post this article on a website, you must set the links up as hyperlinks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bill Platt is the owner of http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com

• When you are tired of the struggle of the link building process, it might be time to consider our "Links And Traffic" services.

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An Embarrassment Of Riches Part Ii

Writen by Sam Vaknin

The DOI Foundation has unveiled the DOI-EB (EB stands for e-books) Initiative in the Book Expo America Show 2001, to, in their words:

"Determine requirements with respect to the application of unique identifiers to eBooks

Develop proofs-of-concept for the use of DOIs with eBooks

Develop technical demonstrations, possibly including a prototype eBook Registration Agency."

It is backed by a few major publishers, such as McGraw-Hill, Random House, Pearson, and Wiley.

http://www.doi.org/

This ostensibly modest agenda conceals a revolutionary and ambitious attempt to unambiguously identify the origin of digital content (in this case, e-books) and link a universe of information to each and every ID number. Aware of competing efforts underway, the DOI Foundation is actively courting the likes of "indecs" (Interoperability of Data in E-Commerce System) and OeBF (Open e-Book). Companies ,like Enpia Systems of South Korea (a DOI Registration Agency), have already implemented a DOI-cum-indecs system. On November 2000, the APA's (American Publishers' Association) Open E-book Publishing Standards Initiative has recommended to use DOI as the primary identification system for e-books' metadata. The MPEG (Motion Pictures Experts Group) is said to be considering DOI seriously in its efforts to come up with numbering and metadata standards for digital videos.

A DOI can be expressed as a URN (Universal Resource Name - IETF's syntax for generic resources) and is compatible with OpenURL (a syntax for embedding parameters such as identifiers and metadata in links). Shortly, a "Namespace Dictionary" is to be published. It will encompass 800 metadata elements and will tackle e-books, journals, audio, and video. A working group was started to develop a "services definition" interface (i.e., to allow web-enabled systems, especially e-commerce and m-commerce systems, to deploy DOI).

The DOI, in other words, is designed to be all-inclusive and all-pervasive. Each DOI number is made of a prefix, specific to a publisher, and a suffix, which could end up painlessly assimilating the ISBN and ISSN (or any other numbering and database) system.

Thus, a DOI can be assigned to every e-book based on its ISBN and to every part (chapter, section, or page) of every e-book. This flexibility could support Pay Per View models (such as Questia's or Fathom's), POD (Print On Demand), and academic "course packs", which comprise material from many textbooks, whether on digital media or downloadable. The DOI, in other words, can underlie D-CMS (Digital Content Management Systems) and Electronic Catalogue ID Management Systems.

Moreover, the DOI is a paradigm shift (though, conceptually, it was preceded by the likes of the UPC code and the ISO's HyTime multimedia standard). It blurs the borders between types of digital content. Imagine an e-novel with the video version of the novel, the sound track, still photographs, a tourist guide, an audio book, and other digital content embedded in it. Each content type and each segment of each content type can be identified and tagged separately and, thus, sold separately - yet all under the umbrella of the same DOI! The nightmare of DRM (digital rights management) may be finally over.

But the DOI is much more than a sophisticated tagging technology. It comes with multiple resolution (see "Embarrassment of Riches - Part I"). In other words, as opposed to the URL (Universal Resource Locator) - it is generated dynamically, "on the fly", by the user, and is not "hard coded" into the web page. This is because the DOI identifies content - not its location. And while the URL resolves to a single web page - the DOI resolves to a lot more in the form of publisher-controlled (ONIX-XML) "metadata" in a pop-up (Javascript or other) screen. The metadata include everything from the author's name through the book's title, edition, blurbs, sample chapters, other promotional material, links to related products, a rights and permissions profile, e-mail contacts, and active links to retailers' web pages. Thus, every book-related web page becomes a full fledged book retailing gateway. The "anchor document" (in which the DOI is embedded) remains uncluttered. ONIX 2.0 may contain standard metadata fields and extensions specific to e-publishing and e-books.

This latter feature - the ability to link to the systems of retailers, distributors, and other types of vendors - is the "barcode" function of the DOI. Like barcode technology, it helps to automate the supply chain, and update the inventory, ordering, billing and invoicing, accounting, and re-ordering databases and functions. Besides tracking content use and distribution, the DOI allows to seamlessly integrate hitherto disparate e-commerce technologies and facilitate interoperability among DRM systems.

The resolution itself can take place in the client's browser (using a software plug-in), in a proxy server, or in a central, dynamic server. Resolving from the client's PC, e-book reader, or PDA has the advantage of being able to respond to the user's specific condition (location, time of day, etc.). No plug-in is required when a proxy server HTTP is used - but then the DOI becomes just another URL, embedded in the page when it is created and not resolved when the user clicks on it. The most user-friendly solution is, probably, for a central server to look up values in response to a user's prompt and serve her with cascading menus or links. Admittedly, in this option, the resolution tables (what DOI links to what URL's and to what content) is not really dynamic. It changes only with every server update and is static between updates. But this is a minor inconvenience. As it is, users are likely to respond with some trepidation to the need to install plug-ins and to the avalanche of information their single, innocuous, mouse click generates.

The DOI Foundation has compiled this impressive list of benefits - and beneficiaries:

"Publishers to enable cross referencing to related information, control over metadata, viral distribution and sales, easy access to content, sale of granular content

Consumers to increase value for time and money, and purchase options

Distributors to facilitate sale and distribution of materials as well as user needs

Retailers to build related materials on their sites, heighten consumer usability and copyright protection

Conversion Houses/Wholesaler Repositories to increase access to and use of metadata

DRM Vendors/Rights Clearing Houses to enable interoperability and use of standards

Data Aggregators to enable compilation of primary and secondary content and print on demand

Trade Associations facilitate dialog on social level and attend to legal and technical perspectives pertaining to multiple versions of electronic content

eBbook software Developers to enable management of personal collections of eBooks including purchase receipt information as reference for quick return to retailer

Content Management System Vendors to enable internal synching with external usage

Syndicators to drive sales to retailers, add value to retail online store/sales, and increase sales for publishers"

The DOI is assigned to publishers by Registration Agencies (of which there are currently three - CrossRef and Content Directions in the States and the aforementioned Enpia Systems in Asia). It is already widely used to cross reference almost 5,000 periodicals with a database of 3,000,000 citations. The price is steep - it costs a publisher $200 to get a prefix and submit DOI's to the registry. But as Registration Agencies proliferate, competition is bound to slash these prices precipitously.

About The Author

Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

His web site: http://samvak.tripod.com

Three Ezine Alternatives You May Not Have Considered

Writen by Alexandria K. Brown

During the free e-zine publishing teleclasses I offer every month, I always get a few people who say to me, "You know, publishing an e-zine sounds great, but I just don't think I have the time to do it on an ongoing basis." Or, "I'm not sure if I'll have enough content to publish an e-zine."

If this is your case, you may want to consider one of these e-zine alternatives. These can still help you achieve your goal of establishing credibility, staying in touch with your prospects, and capturing your Web site visitors.

For the first two alternatives, you'll need an e-mail autoresponder. This is like a fax-on-demand system that sends out e-mails automatically when others request them.

The great thing about autoresponders is that you can preset the timing of a series ahead of time. For example, you can schedule message 1 to go out immediately once a person signs up for the list. Message 2 could follow two weeks later. Message 3 would follow two weeks after that. Get the idea?

ALTERNATIVE 1: THE "EVERGREEN" NEWSLETTER

If you don't foresee yourself writing fresh new content every week or month that you publish, why not make your newsletter "evergreen?"

This means that you write all your content ahead of time, and none of it can be time-sensitive. That is, it should be just as relevant today as it would be a year from now.

Evergreen e-zines are brilliant and easy to do. Here's how it works: Suppose you want to publish a short tip every two weeks. That means you'd have to write 26 issues for a year. Once you had this content written, you'd just set up the messages on your autoresponder and tell it when you want them sent out. (For this example, it would be day 1, day 14, day 28, etc. — each reader would get a message every two weeks.)

Internet marketing expert James Maduk does this. He offers an evergreen e-zine called "52 Secrets My Mom Never Told Me About Internet Marketing." When you sign up, you get one secret a week, which adds up to a whole year. Very effective! (You can see what I mean and sign up at www.JamesMaduk.com. I signed up about 10 weeks ago, so I'm on secret 10. But if you sign up today, you'll start on secret 1. (See how easy this is?)

ALTERNATIVE 2: THE MINI E-MAIL COURSE OR REPORT

These are very popular right now. You simply create several e-mails' worth of content to spread out over a certain amount of days, and set them up on your autoresponder.

Many sites offer 7-day courses or reports, and quite frankly, many of them are awful. So here's a chance for YOU to stand out. Make sure yours offers really useful or interesting content that's more helpful than salesy.

For example, say you're a small business coach. You could offer a course called "5 Ways Hiring a Coach Will Make This Your Most PROFITABLE Year Ever!" Just sit down and list the 5 ways, then write a few paragraphs of copy under each.

Then write one final sales message that you'll add on to the end of the series as the 6th message. This should be a friendly invitation encouraging the reader to call you for a consultation, buy your book, sign up for your workshop, etc.

Paste all the messages into an autoresponder series, set the timing to what you want (e.g. every day or every few days), and voila -- you've got an e-mail course!

ALTERNATIVE 3: PROMOTIONS ONLY

If you offer products on your site that don't lend themselves well to creating related content, just offer what you've got!

Give your visitors the chance to receive special offers that will save them money at your site. The trick to high sign-up rates is to make them feel as if they'll be part of an exclusive group. Use words like "special, exclusive, limited, VIP, first looks, discounts, savings, club, and members-only."

For example, one site that I frequent sells discounted designer clothes. During my last visit, they invited me to sign up for "discounts, exclusive offers, and first looks." I jumped at the opportunity!

Don't underestimate your visitors' interest — many of them WILL sign up for e-mail offers if you politely extend the invitation and make them feel special.

Just make sure not to overdo your messages to this crowd. Keep your blasts to a maximum of once a week. Otherwise your readers will get irritated and may unsubscribe.

(c) 2003 Alexandria K. Brown

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexandria K. Brown, "The E-zine Queen," is author of the award-winning manual, "Boost Business With Your Own E-zine." To learn more about her book and sign up for more FREE tips like these, visit her site at http://EzineQueenTutorial.com/

Are You Making The Most Of Your Email List

Writen by Mike Wyman

It sounds easy. Build a website, sell products, and watch the sales roll in. Better be sure your web hosting is prepared for the massive influx of traffic as you start your way down the road to riches. But, it's not that easy is it? How can you build a viable business through your website? There's not an easy and quick way to do so but it can be done as long as you consistently treat your customers with the best possible service you can. Oh yeah, and never give up.

With the millions of people surfing the web every day, it's easy to think that all you need is a small slice of that traffic to make your website a massive success. Your website is a virtual store that is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so why wouldn't you be instantly successful? The reality is that it's quite difficult to get people to come to your site. Sure, you may have a nice influx as soon as you launch based on a press release or some form of publicity. But, not only is it difficult to get people to your site in the first place, it's often even harder to bring people back. Combine this with the fact that a purchase is made sometimes only after repeated exposure to any marketing and product and you will find your prodcuts aren't exactly flying off the shelf.

Considering an email newsletter is one way you can add value to your customers and an incentive for them to come back to your site. Most of us have heard about these newsletters and while it looks pretty simple, most of us haven't considered the best way to manage and develop your mailing list. Try some of these ideas to help build your traffic, build trust with your customers, and hopefully make your site more profitable.

Tip #1: Offer and incentive to encourage signups for your newsletter.
People love free things. If you can offer a free product, service, or information as an incentive to gaining new signups, your chances are much more likely you will grow your list quickly and effectively. Not only that, you now have the opportunity to up-sell your customer either now, or down the road. If you place your free giveaway on another landing page that is only revealed when your customer signs up, you ensure that your customer will visit this page for sure. Whether you offer additional products that can be purchased, or simply place some Google Adsense ads there, you increase your chances of making some money.

Tip #2: Send your newsletter on a regular basis.
Ideally you should send your newsletter every week and on the same day each week. You want to create value for your customer but you also want to keep your website 'top-of-mind' with everyone on your list. By doing so, you increase the chances that your customers will come to your site the day your newsletter goes out. Don't be concerned about sending out too many newsletters by doing it weekly. If you provide consistent and good information about the types of products you sell, you have nothing to worry about. Surely you will have members request to have their name taken off your list but don't be discouraged.

Tip #3: Provide high quality content in your newsletter.
This is probably the hardest part because week after week it can be frustrating trying to find original and useful content for your members. You don't want your newsletter to be a hard sell because that will just lead to unsubscribing. This is not to say that you can't mention some products here and there, just don't go overboard. The point of your newsletter should be to build trust in you as living person and to bring people to your site each week. Once your members come to your site, that is the time for selling.

Building your list will take time but if you use these three tips, it will pay off in the long run. Don't be surprised to have your customers emailing you for more information once you build up your trust by treating people with your best service and providing good information. While it's not likely you will be wildly successful overnight, it will happen as long as you keep at it and don't give up while giving your customers what they want.

Mike Wyman is co-owner of the singles dating site http://www.DateAGolfer.com, the perfect place for golf singles to find their golfmate. He also runs http://www.PuttingForPar.com, a site specializing in the sale of personalized golf ball markers which make a great golf gift.