How To Get Ezine Subscribers From Inperson Events

Writen by Alexandria K. Brown

While I run my business completely online, I really enjoy attending in-person events and seminars here in Los Angeles and around the country. I'm sure you find these events valuable too. The problem most of us have with networking, however, is following up with the people we meet.

An easy way to follow-up powerfully and automatically is to turn these folks into e-zine subscribers. This ensures that you'll have the chance to repeatedly teach them how great your products/services are while building their trust in you.

But how do you "capture" people in person? Remember, you can NEVER sign someone up unless they specifically ask you to be signed up — it's unethical.

So you need to encourage people you meet in person to join your list, and make it easy for them. And I have three successful strategies to share with you.

1. Advertise Your E-zine on Your Business Card (or Brochure)
   
   Nothing gets passed around at a networking event more than the good old business card. But what's on the BACK of your cards?
   
   Nothing?
   
   Well, from now on you're going to use that valuable real estate. Next time you print new cards, use the flip side! Create a brief message that promotes your e-zine and gives information on how to subscribe. When someone you meet looks at your business card again when she's back at the office, she'll be much more likely to subscribe when she sees the reminder on your card.
   
   As an example, here's what I have on the back of my new cards:
   
   "Promote your business with an e-zine! Sign up for FREE biweekly tips at www.EzineQueen.com."
   
   BONUS: This strategy also gets these people to visit your Web site, which they may not have done otherwise.
   
   If you aren't ready to print new cards for a while, use your computer to print your message onto labels, and affix them to the backs of your cards. Cheap and easy!



2. Follow Up With Each Person You Meet Via E-Mail
   
   After each event I go to, I aim to follow up with every person I met with via e-mail within three days. In that e-mail, I remind the person that she can sign up for my FREE tips at my Web site. Here's an example of a note I sent out recently:
   
   "Dear Margaret,
   
   It was a pleasure to chat with you at [EVENT NAME HERE] last Thursday. I'd like to learn more about your business and how we can help each other. Perhaps we can meet for coffee next week?
   
   In the meantime, you may enjoy my FREE weekly e-zine "Straight Shooter Marketing" that gives tips on how to market yourself online. I write it for small business owners just like you! You can learn more and sign up at www.EzineQueen.com
   
   Take care and let's stay in touch.
   
   Best, Alexandria K. Brown, 'The E-zine Queen'"
   
   Once again, this strategy also gets these people to visit your Web site, which they may not have done otherwise. (Very cool, yes?)



3. Are you the Speaker? Pass Around a Signup Sheet or Collect Cards
   
   Whenever I'm the featured speaker at an event, I make sure to give the audience members an easy way to sign up for my e-zine. I either pass around a signup sheet to collect their names and e-mail addresses, OR I collect business cards when I draw a winner for a free book.
   
   If you use the business card method, tell the audience to write an "E" for e-zine on their card — this lets you know they want to be signed up for your newsletter. Some speakers do the opposite, and tell the audience that if they do NOT want to be subscribed to their e-zine, to put a "NO" on their card, but I'm more comfortable with the former method.

Remember, Your List Is Your Goldmine!

People you meet in person will be very valuable subscribers, because they've already met you. And we're all more likely to buy from others whom we know, like, and trust.

Your in-person meeting will start that process, and your e-zine will follow-through for you, automatically!

(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/

How Much Is Too Little

Writen by Theresa Cahill

As a publisher and ezine co-op owner, I've been studying ezines and co-ops for some time now, and I've arrived at the following conclusion:

How much IS too little?

This morning a well-known internet marketer's ezine was brought to my attention. The ezine is a small one-page affair with an excellent marketing tip. Attractively arranged online, he has strategically placed top, middle, and bottom sponsor ads. His mailing goes out to 150,000+ subscribers who are emailed every other week.

Out of curiousity, I clicked through to his advertising rates, and here's what I found:

Top Sponsor ad:
Total Price: $675.00

Middle Sponsor ad:
Total Price: $675.00

Directly above the weekly feature article:
Total Price: $360.00

Bottom Sponsor ad:
Total Price: $360.00

There is no option for a solo ad.

Now you might be saying, "Wow! There's no way in the world I can afford that!" or "Yikes! How could I even dream of charging that much?!"

The answer is quality content and a heavy dose of personal name branding.

This marketer's ezine is looked for in inboxes. People wait to hear his next bit of advice, the next tip, trick, idea, resource, or product. He tells his readers what works, they try it for themselves and agree, and they look forward to his next publication, eager to stay ahead of the pack.

So imagine placing an ad in an ezine that well read, that sought after...

Who wouldn't want to advertise inside such a publication if they can afford to?

Okay, now let's bring this a bit closer to home for the majority of us with more limited funds.

First off, many growing ezines accept free ads and paid ads from outside sources. It's a good marketing practice in order to grow one's list to the size of this example or head quickly in that direction before it's no longer necessary.

We "handle" this additional advertising in various fashions, some by designated areas inside the ezine and others send out additional classified mailings.

So, what IS a fair market value for an average-sized ezine?

Using the only algebraic formula I walked away with from high school, and the prices in the above example, an ezine with a subscriber base of 5,000 subscribers could easily charge:

$22.50 for a top sponsor ad
$22.50 for a middle sponsor ad
$12.00 for an ad above their featured article
$12.00 for the bottom sponsor ad.

The key to being able to set these prices?
An ezine's originality, heart, and quality content!

A looked-for ezine is a valuable ezine - for it's readers and advertisers alike. The entrepreneur above knows that well enough! And so do his advertisers...

And the solo ad?

Though the gentleman above declines solos, this form of advertising is wide spread on the net. It has become a mainstay for many publishers, and much sought after by advertisers.

My personal advice?

An ezine's solo mailing needs to stand out from the rest to justify ANY cost.

I'm a firm believer that the solo ad should be pricey because I also believe most of us are tired of reading the $5 wonder solo ads.

I believe an ezine and an ezine co-op should price the solo ad high enough to make the average advertiser stop and think can they really afford it, and, if so, to ask themselves, "Is this program or product really worth the extra expense?"

I believe it is our responsibility to do this.

Veteran publishers, subscribers, and advertisers have been on the net long enough to have already gone through the "school of hard knocks," or with any luck at least be coming out the other side :)

We've spent money and time and resources on the fly by night programs that abound on the web. We already know what it's like to be taken to the cleaners...

I believe it is our responsibility to help those new to all these "sc^am in a box" offers avoid the errors we've already made whenever possible.

As publishers, we need to provide what we set out to provide - quality content, worthwhile information, and help.

As subscribers, we need to provide feedback to our ezines - also offering our wisdom and insight for the benefit of others.

As advertisers, we need to figure out what's worth advertising and what isn't - and turn a profit by being selective.

By working together, we can all ensure the intrinsic value of the ezine - now and for many years to come.

Let the FFAs have the rest...

© Theresa Cahill - All Rights Reserved. Feel free to distribute this article. Please keep it intact and with the resource box included below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Theresa Cahill, a two decade veteran of marketing, is the owner of http://www.mywizardads.com and invites you to take a look at the services of MWA and download fr.ee helpful information and more at http://www.mywizardads.com/sitemap.html

The Number One Tried And Tested Method For Exploding Your Ezine Subscriptions

Writen by Tracey Meagher

We all know how cagey and stubborn prospects can be and we know that only a tiny percentage will buy our products the first time they see them. We all know that the only way to convince savvy prospects to buy is by building trust with them and that the single most effective way of building trust is by getting our visitors to subscribe to our newsletters.

So, if signing up prospects to our newsletter is so vital to making sales why do most of us keep our subscription invitations tucked away in the margins of our websites where they can very easily be overlooked or ignored. And if signing up prospects is so vital to our sales why do we place our invitations to sign in those annoying pop-ups that prospects want to close before they've even read the fantastic deal we're trying to offer them!

If you're serious about exploding your newsletter subscriptions and I'm mean increasing them by up to 400%, read on. The method I'm about to tell you is so simple and easy to implement you'll be amazed that you hadn't thought of it yourself before.

To achieve the kind of subscriptions that Internet business people dream of, you'll need to take two simple steps. First, you need to increase the amount of real estate on your site dedicated to capturing visitors and no, I don't mean creating bigger, in-your-face subscription boxes. The second thing you need to do is entice visitors to sign up by harnessing the power of audio. I can already hear the gasps but with so many easy to use tools available right now, adding audio to your site is nothing to get uptight about!

I'll explain what I mean! Tucking your subscription box away in the corner of you sites forces your single most effective sales tools to compete for your visitor's attention with all the other information you have on your site, links, banners, ads and content! Unfortunately, the competition can prove stiff and you don't always succeed in grabbing the attention you require. Visitors get ready to click away from your site without having even noticed the invitation to subscribe. When this happens, you might implement your back-up plan, the exit pop-up. In a last bid effort you try to entice users to subscribe before they leave by throwing a pop-up at them. Did you know that 80% of Internet users find pop-up's annoying and that last thing you want is a visitor leaving your site experiencing a negative emotion!

What you need to do is dedicate your landing page to subscription signups. It may sound a little crazy but if you place a subscription invitation on your homepage and combine this with a compelling audio message describing to your visitors all the great stuff they will receive when they sign up to your newsletter, you'll find people warming to you quicker than you ever thought possible.

Recently, I came across an example of this technique done to perfection on Paul Colgan's website. Paul is the Affiliate Marketing Guy. When landing on the homepage of Paul's website, http://www.theaffiliateguy.com, you are greeted with a personal audio message from Pual explaining the two types of newsletters he offers and the benefits of signing up to each. His message is not at all pushy. It's informative and very compelling. Using an audio message on the homepage personalises Paul's site in a way that can't be with any other technique. Without the audio, Paul's invitation on the homepage to sign up to his newsletters would seem empty and many would click away before entering the site. With the audio Paul has transformed his landing page into a subscription magnet.

Go on ... give it a try for yourself!

Tracey Meagher is the founder of QuickandEasy Audio, a website that reviews all the latest resources and tools available for adding audio to your website. Visit http://www.quickandeasyaudio.com to receive free audio resources that will get audio on your website in less than 60 minutes!

Some Things I Have Learned About The Exciting World Of Ezines

Writen by DeAnna Spencer

1. Don't ever stop advertising for new subscribers.

I know this one seems kind of basic, but it is extremely important. Subscribers are the lifeblood of your ezine. If your ezine isn't getting new subscribers then that means it is dying. That's not a good thing.

When I was doing nanowrimo(National Novel Writing Month) last year, I didn't do any new advertising for subscribers and my subscriber base didn't grow as fast as I would have liked it to.

2. Forge partnerships

Partnerships are extremely important. There's no way you can survive in this competitive field without partnerships. If it weren't for my co-op partners, I don't know what I would do. My co-op partners help me in more ways than they know. If you're starting an ezine, you definitely want to hook up with some of the partners that you see listed in my ezine.

3. Always be willing to learn

The only thing constant in this world is change. In order to keep up with the changes, you have to be willing to learn. The moment you become complacent and think you know everything about everything is when you will start to decline. The best way to stay on top of things is to subscribe to other ezines and to read other blogs. Most of these publications have the most current information and this will help you stay competitive.

4. Be patient

This is really important because as many ezine publishers can tell you, there are a lot of things that can make you want to pull out your hair. You can have unruly subscribers accusing you of spam (not on my ezine list, that only happens to other people. LOL). You can be the victim of natural disaster. Your computer can decide to crash the day you have to publish your ezine. Whatever the case, you have to stay cool, calm, and collected. It doesn't take long for you to gain a bad reputation in the online world and it takes even longer to build it back up. Don't lose your head when things go awry.

5. Just remember to have fun.

Whatever happens, remember to have fun with what you are doing. You wouldn't have started your ezine if the topic wasn't something that you are passionate about. Remember your purpose for your ezine and enjoy what you are doing. The fact that you are enjoying your work will shine through in your ezine.

DeAnna Spencer is a virtual assistant that helps entrepreneurs run a successful business by providing affordable administrative help. She also publishes a blog for small business owners. Visit this small business resource today.

Boost Traffic And Profits With Article Distribution

Writen by James Little

We are very much aware as to how vital and valuable content is to almost all type of online business. In actual fact, keyword rich content article could even contribute much more than you would think of in building, expanding, and boosting the profits for an online business.

As known, there are ways in which content could help in building up the most needed website's traffic, its subscribers list, and its customer's base. Let's carefully examine them here:-

1. Boost Search Engine Ranking

By posting keyword rich content and articles on your website, it would help to boost the search engine ranking, which in turn would be channeling more traffic to your website.

Moreover, as with most websites, we also want to up-lift our website channeling in SE. The more channels or back links we are able to build, the more likely we are able in reaching the public.

Think of if a potential visitor type in his search term into his favorite Search Engine; there could possibly be hundred of thousands of returned result. How would you be able to fight your way out then? How would it be possible for your potential visitor to even able to find your website, and finally reach your site?

In order to stand out, you will need to be regarded as an "Authority" site among the rest of other website. Getting your site with keyword rich articles and contents, couple with other deciding factors, you are then one step closer to reach out your potential visitors.

2. On-going Targeted Visitors

For example if your online business involves selling products, or offering services related to cooking, by posting cooking related articles and content would definitely help to attract this highly targeted visitors to your site.

As time goes on, a single article about your website on that particular topic could continue to attract almost unlimited prospective visitors, and on regular basis! You would then simply watch your visitors count continues to increase as the article is being published on more websites that are related in the topic discussed in your articles.

Don't forget that these types of visitors are of high targeted group, and your conversion rate should be able to continue stays high.

3. Increase Newsletter Subscriber Base

By distributing your content rich articles, you could be cutting down tremendous time in working hard in trying to double or even triple your current newsletter subscriber's base.

You could also offer your content rich articles in the form of "Special" manual or report. Yes, people do love freebie, just give them what they wanted. Then sit back and watch your traffic soar.

As what the "Guru" always reminds us, "If you don't have a subscriber's base, you don't have an online business!" So, please remember it hard.

4. Build Up Reputation

By getting your content rich articles out to the public, and among highly targeted group of readers, you could then be able to build up your reputation as an "Expert".

With this newly achieved status, you are almost certain to receive a steady stream of targeted visitors for your website. These groups of visitors will tend to stay and explore your site much longer than other "just pop by" visitors. They would be your loyal visitors, and whenever you do recommend some item or product, I bet you the conversion rate will surprise even your self!

But beware, don't over do it or spam them into some lousy product! If they found out the truth, you are certain to be out of business! Do ensure that any product or service that you are going to promote or endorse is of high quality!

Of course, this result would take time to be achieved. But think about the long term benefits once your reputation is there, people will regard you as the "expert" in the chosen field. Whenever they need to find information on your field, guess who would they look for? Is YOU!

5. "Zero" cost Traffic!

An excellent way in generating "Zero" cost traffic is thru articles publication. By submitting your highly targeted articles to those publishers around the globe, you will then be able to further tap into their network of sites too!

You just need to attach along your own "Author Bio" or "Resources Box" into the articles, get them reach out to those "content hungry" website, articles publisher, newsletter publishers and a lot more.

Do allow these publishers to re-print and further distribute your articles. Make sure to specify that each of your article ought to be reprinted "As Is" with your "Author Bio" or "Resource box" being attached.

From there, you could imagine that your own article is being sent out to a combine network of newsletter, of which the subscriber's base might reach number of hundred thousands of reader. Many of them who read your article will also be seeing your included "Author Bio" or "Resource Box".

Don't be surprise that majority of these reader will be clicking onto your website link to reach your site. If you are able to provide good article to catch their true interest, these readers will come to your site to learn more of what you would be offering! From there, even one single article of yours could travel a LONG way towards in helping you to generate "Zero" cost traffic, along with targeted visitors for you.

After examining the above benefits, one would most likely start to ask: "Shall I also join in the wave and start distributing my own articles?"

Honestly, from my own experience, and chatting around with other seniors, it is very often the case where we tend to missed out one of the most effective way of all communication tools – Article Distribution service!

By submitting your own articles to all the network of sites, which could literally be hundreds at least, you are truly costing your own profits! If I could roll back time, I would not want to start my online business without engaging an Article Distribution service to handle all these tedious tasks.

Don't forget and overlook that the time you would have to spend by doing all the tedious works just in submitting process alone. After which, you will need to track the progress and analyze the stats as to which article bring you're the best return, isn't that right?

You would definitely want your online business to progress, and profit to soar right? And of course you will also be setting your own time frame as to how soon you would like to achieve your goals isn't it? So why waste your precious time in doing the tedious tasks? Remember, if you are to succeed in business, you have to think and acts like a businessman.

Every single minute of a successful businessman is gold piece to them. Would you like to slip 100dollar just to pick up 1dollar on the street? I bet you won't. So, how do you and I go about it? For a start, find out which Articles Distribution agent that would handle this type of tedious and time consuming tasks.

It's going to be a kind of "Business Partnership" process -- the service provider's task is to help you do all those little tedious works while you could concentrate more on building your online empire. So, do choose carefully and pick the one best suit you. The service provider must be able to provide you with all necessary tools and information.

Get Your Business listed in Biz Network Directory for business leads. Network sites consist Web Resources Search and Business Info Center are also business platforms.

The Plain Truth About Branding For Newsletter Publishers And Web Designers

Writen by Azriel Winnett

Branding, or brand marketing as some now call it, is one of the buzzwords of public relations and marketing.

I searched several dictionaries in vain for a precise definition of this high profile concept as it is applied in the business world. The closest I got was the one that explained the verb "to brand" as "to impress firmly."

On the other hand, perhaps I wasn't so unlucky after all. Not the whole story, maybe, but this is, after all, the very essence of what branding in business is.

When you brand something - be it a company, an individual, a product, a service, a concept or a process - you impress strongly on people's minds whatever is special and distinctive about it. You make some kind of lasting impact that leaves them in no doubt that your special something stands apart from everything else in the same category.

It sounds simple enough. The problem is that even some marketing professionals, if they know this at all, have not yet internalized it. They think of brands in terms of trademarks. They apparently believe that branding is just a matter of well designed logos and striking, unforgettable visual images.

Not that they're necessarily so far off the mark. We all know that the right visual symbols do help to create an impression of distinctiveness. The Coca-Cola people have exploited this principle to absolute perfection. Smash one of their familiar bottles, and you can still recognize that the fragments were once part of a Coca-Cola bottle.

Nor does it have to be confined to the sense of sight.

Occasionally, you just have to hear a few strains of some melody to immediately associate it with a certain company or product. And then there's the famous Singapore Airlines smell. A few years ago, the flight attendant of that airline began distributing, before and after takeoff, hot towels that gave off a very distinctive aroma. Once experienced, it's not easily forgotten.

The truth is, though, that characteristic symbols and images, whether visual, aural or olfactory, important though they are, simply not enough. Even mighty Coca-Cola could not have captured the lion's share of the soft drink market with the design of its bottles alone.

And if you're just a small guy, well, it's a different ball game altogether.

The easiest way to understand this concept is to think of it like this: if you run a website, what would happen if you removed your logo and your company name?

Would I still be able to recognize your brand? Or, let's say you're the owner of a brick-and-mortar outfit.

One day you move to a new location but you haven't had a chance to put up your signs yet. Were I to stumble into your store by chance, would I be able to tell it apart from those of your competitors?

Now, what if you publish and email newsletter, and you remove your masthead, your name and your subscribe instructions?

I pose this question because I often read different newsletters published by different members of the same profession or trade.

It's clear that all these people are keenly aware of the pivotal role their newsletters should be playing in marketing their talents, enhancing client relationships, or in furthering other personal or business objectives.

I'm saddened, however, whenever I see so little to distinguish one from the other - and I'm not only referring to visual appearance and actual content, which are important enough.

On the one hand, these publishers are trying very hard to market themselves as experts or purveyors of services in fields in which they have quite a lot of competition on the Internet.

But on the other, they're doing very little to show me what makes them stand out from the pack, or even why they're different from any of their competitors.

Even their publications are undistinguished, very run-of-the-mill; why should things be different when I use their professional services?

Practical tips

Here are just a few short tips to help you brand yourself and your newsletter.

• Study your competitors! Read and research as many other lists as you can and in particular those on the same topic or published by other businesses or practitioners in your field. Look for gaps - see what YOU can offer that they can't, or just don't!
  
  
• Your personality is unique (which means there's nobody else in the world quite like you!) Don't be afraid to use that truism to your advantage. The best newsletters on the Net revolve around their publishers' personalities.
  
  
• See how you can "personalize" the physical appearance of your newsletter, so that your readers will recognize it as soon as they open it even before they read the words - from the layout, masthead design, and other visual clues. This, to be sure, will be easier with HTML newsletters, but even with plain text there are many possibilities.

Branding yourself may be hard work, but once you achieve your goal, you'll have a valuable intangible asset that no-one can easily steal or plagiarize. Good luck!

Azriel Winnett is creator of Hodu.com - Your Communication Skills Portal. This popular website helps you improve your communication and relationship skills in your business or professional life, in the family unit and on the social scene. New articles added almost daily.

Work Less Earn More As An Infoproduct Publisher

Writen by Jeff Smith

There's no doubt, publishing information products to sell online is a thriving, exciting and very rewarding business.

For many though, the product development and marketing curve simply seems too steep.

How do you find the time to publish products given the time crunch in most of our lives?

There Is Another Way

Many of us were brought up to value hard work.

Our parents, grandparents and school system hard coded our brains to believe that if we just work a little harder than the next guy - we'll get ahead.

I'm not about to tell you that hard work doesn't pay off, but it certainly won't pay off on its own.

Another saying - work smarter, not harder is more to the point.

You have to have a plan that works - I call this mastering the fundamentals.

Once you mastered the fundamentals, you need to suspend your disbelief for a period and target your plan ahead of your competition - ahead of what is already going on in the world around you.

If you are ready to learn both the fundamentals and master the steps outlined below turning your dreams of being a home-based information publishing entrepreneur into reality - then pick up a copy of:

http://www.infoproductcreator.com

How does all of this relate to those of us who make our living publishing and marketing information?

Here's how.

You need to master 2 very important things to "work smarter" at information product publishing.

First, you need to be smarter about niche demand - or what your market really wants (in terms of an end result) and WHY they want it (the emotional drivers for achieving the desired end result).

Take golfers - what are some of the really strong desires golfers have for learning?

- How to cure their hook or slice

- How to add 50-yards to their average driving length

- How to take 10 points off their game

Now - what are the motivations behind these desires?

Could it be:

- To impress and build more friendships

- To increase their financial outlook by impressing clients

- To feel younger (allowing middle age golfers to stay competitive)

Your job as an information publishers and marketer is to uncover the hidden secrets of your market - what they want and why they want it.

Second, you package your own system for getting what they want.

For the life of me, I don't understand why information product publishers spend months researching their market and then developing their product - only to deliver some bland, uninteresting, uncommitted and undifferentiated coverage of the topic.

Your information product is your chance to SHINE!

Deliver a slam dunk by putting together the ULTIMATE system for...

Master these two skills - and you'll be well on your way to reaching your online business goals.

You Really Can Become A High Earning, Financially Free Information Product Publisher And Marketer. Get Full Information And Roadmap At The Ultimate Resource Site For Information Product Entrepreneurs: http://www.highertrustmarketing.com

7 Ways To Monetize Your Newsletter

Writen by James Woolley

If you have your own in-house list of subscribers who subscribe to your newsletter, then this newsletter should fulfill two main objectives. Firstly, it should provide valuable content to your subscribers, so that they actually look forward to receiving your newsletter (and stay subscribed), and secondly, unless you're writing for fun, it should produce an income for you as the writer of the newsletter.

This is the area I want to focus on in this article and listed below are seven methods that you can use to successfully monetize your newsletter or ezine.

1. Promote Products

This is the most obvious way - promoting your own products, and providing endorsements and recommendations of other products that you can earn affiliate commissions from. Try to promote a few products where you can earn either recurring commissions, for example monthly membership sites, web hosting etc, or products or programs that can earn you commissions on two or more levels through subaffiliates or downline members, to create long-term residual income streams. The one thing I will say about this though is that you should not overwhelm your subscribers with product endorsements and sales pitches, you should offer them good quality content as well, otherwise you will lose a lot of subscribers.

You can also promote products discreetly, even when providing content only, by including an affiliate link or two at the bottom of each newsletter, below your name.

2. Direct Your Subscribers To Monetized Content Pages Of Your Website

This is a great way of providing valuable content and earning money at the same time. I do this a lot with the articles I write. When I write articles and add them to my site, I simply let my subscribers know that I have written a new article and direct them to the website address. By running a few ads around these articles, such as those from Google or Yahoo, you should see a lot of people reading the article and inevitably clicking on a few ads. This is a great way of earning money even when you're not promoting anything.

3. Offer Rebrandable Reports To Your Subscribers

This is another indirect money earner where you can generate revenues from good quality free content. By seeking out quality reports or ebooks that can be rebranded to include your own affiliate links, you can then simply offer this report to your subscribers, providing valuable content, whilst at the same time earning money from your affiliate links within this report.

4. Promote Free Membership Sites That Have Backend Sales Or One-Time Offers

These are extremely common in the internet marketing field at the moment, although I think it's only a matter of time before internet marketers start to use them in other niches. Examples of these include free giveaway sites, where in exchange for leaving your name and email address, you receive numerous free products. A lot of these sites have one-time offers where you can receive an upgraded package, for example. Therefore you can earn money as an affiliate every time you send someone to this site who purchases this offer. The one drawback is that although you may be earning the occasional affiliate commission, you are sending your own subscribers to other sites and having them join up to other people's lists, increasing your competition.

5. Offer Paid Advertising In Your Newsletter

I would say you need at least a few thousand subscribers to go down this route otherwise you may struggle to attract any advertisers or attract any significant advertising revenue. It's not something I do myself (at the time of writing this article), as I believe I can make more money myself from my own ads than selling the ad space to other people, but it's still another option to consider.

6. Train Your Subscribers To Be Successful Affiliates And Promote Your Product(s)

This only really applies if you have your own product, but if you do it can be an extremely powerful way of generating a lot of additional sales. By constantly providing useful tips in your newsletter offering advice on how to generate significant affiliate commissions, both you and your subscribers will benefit enormously.

7. Offer One-On-One Coaching To Your Subscribers

This depends on the subject of your newsletter, and your authority as the newsletter publisher, but if you are considered an expert in your field then it's something worth considering. You could also offer this service free to people who purchase high-ticket items from you to boost your affiliate commissions.

James Woolley is a successful marketer who has several money-making sites in various niches. His latest site demonstrates how you can successfully make money online, and also includes a newsletter filled with free tips and bonuses. For more information click here:

http://www.jimsmarketing.com

Confessions Of An Article Marketer Part 1

Writen by Kim Roach

I have a slight confession to make...

I am highly addicted to article marketing. You can try and entice me with a number of other internet marketing strategies, but article marketing will always be my favorite.

You probably know about the many benefits of article marketing. Syndicating your articles will increase your targeted traffic, turn you into an expert in the field of your choice, brand your name, and help you build your opt-in list. However, article marketing boasts a number of other benefits left mostly undiscovered and I want to share with you some additional ways that you can benefit.

Get Your Article and Your Photo Into Google News

Want to get your article and even your picture into Google News? Well, your entrance stands only a few clicks away. The key is getting published on a website that is syndicated on Google News. American Chronicle is one of those web sites.

First, click over to www.americanchronicle.com, scroll down to the very bottom of the page and click on the link that says "submit work". From there you can sign up to be a contributor.

If accepted as a contributor, you will then be able to submit articles along with your picture. Most of their articles are syndicated on Google News and will be available to the millions of searchers who go to Google News each and every day.

I have been published in Google News multiple times and am still amazed at how easy it is.

Using Blogs and RSS to Auto-Syndicate Your Articles

Blogs are a very powerful tool for marketing your online business. When they first appeared on the scene, blogs were thought of as nothing more than just a tool for people to express their rants, feelings, and personal interests. However, blogs quickly blossomed into a tool that can be used for marketing, branding, selling, and promotion.

Good blog software automatically produces an rss feed. With an rss feed, you can instantly allow people to tune in and subscribe to your content. In addition, a webmaster could simply take that link and use it on their own website to publish your latest article headlines. Each article headline would contain a link back to your blog to allow people to read the entire article.

Simply by allowing publishers to feed your content to their website visitors, you can reach a new audience that otherwise would never find you.

If you really want to kick this technique into overdrive, you could even exchange your rss feeds with other webmasters. You both receive quality content that you can share with your visitors as well as 5 or so incoming links to your site.

Exclusive Reports and Articles

By writing exclusive reports and articles, you can get incoming links to your site from VERY high traffic private membership sites or even on free content sites that seek original content rather than rehashed information. The trick here is that you are offering the webmaster an exclusive article that will only be published on THEIR site. You will not be able to publish your article anywhere else or even on your own site. However, I think you will find it well worth your while. This method holds the power to get you in front of some very large, captive audiences.

Using this technique puts a unique twist on your marketing approach. To make this work you must find highly targeted, high-traffic sites to write for. If you begin to offer them exclusive, quality content, they may very well want you to become a regular contributor to their publication. This would mean lots of targeted traffic for you. So, don't take this advanced tactic for granted.

Kim Roach is the hip marketing gal at http://www.unleashthetraffic.com/traffic2.html, where you can learn exactly how she increases her targeted web site traffic using techniques she acquired straight from the trenches.

Ezine Publishing Donts

Writen by Maria Marsala

When I teach ezine classes, I ask the students what they've disliked about the newsletters they've subscribed to. What makes them push that "delete button" or unsubscribe? Below are some of their answers.

"Too many clicks." Give them an easy way to subscribe or unsubscribe. Don't make them have to click, and click, and click to find your subscription box.

"Tell us what's there." Include some sort of table of contents in your ezine. While this may cause someone to delete a particular edition, it will cause others to read it.

"Too many ads." While most business owner subscribers understand that there is no free ride, too many ads, including ads between articles, annoy them. The key is ads targeted to your ideal clients. Keep that in mind and ads will be read and clicked on.

"Tell us when something ends." Space does not indicate when an area of an ezine ends and another starts - a border does. But please don't use all CAPITAL LETTERS to highlight the topic in your e-zine, even for titles. (OK for offline newsletters; online, using CAPITAL LETTERS denotes screaming.)

"Just the facts." Do not force new subscribers to complete long subscription forms containing lots of personal information. While some will complete the entire form, most will "move on."

"Permission marketing." It's about receiving permission to add someone to your elist or having them add themselves. Know that when you purchase an item from someone's web site, you'll be on their mailing list, too.

"Let us read the article." Don't distribute ads in between your article or tips. Provide ads, yes-you ARE running a business - but let them read the article.

"Watch the emotions." Do not over use exclamation marks, question marks, etc. Newsletters are NOT priority mail, so don't flag them as such.

"Tell us." Tell us what we're going to get and how often. Most subscribers don't mind receiving mail daily or weekly - if they know that's what they've subscribed to.

"Give it to us." If you promised a free report, make sure that the links to them appear after someone subscribes to your ezine.

©2005 Maria Marsala. From Ezine Power: Attract Clients, Grow Profits, and Quickly Become Known As An Expert In Your Field, an program that help small business owners increase your profits on the Internet. http://www.CreateEzine.com One of the many dynamic programs, informative articles, and exceptional business and marketing training tools created by Elevating Your Business to support your business success. Visit our site to learn more and receive 2 reports http://www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com right now.

To Quotadvertisequot Your Ideas Publish Articles

Writen by Ken Lizotte

Looking for a novel way to market your professional expertise without spending huge amounts on advertising or PR services? Try writing about your key concepts and specialized knowledge in an article for publication in a business magazine. Publishing your ideas offers a special kind of business promotional opportunity that contributes specific value to your targeted market as a whole. In effect, you are hawking and teaching at the same time, the best of all possible worlds.

Publishing articles allows you to display your service or product offering as a unique and proven commodity. You become an "expert" who has thought a particular issue through. Your resulting wisdom suggests you've more to offer than simply another knee-jerk solution to a business problem. Instead, you've carefully dissected the problem so that your advice can be customized and your prescriptions long-lasting.

There's another reason to publish too, one less obvious but nonetheless powerful in terms of what it could do for your client relationships and project outcomes. The very process of writing will force you to organize and clarify your assumptions and recommendations, challenging you to refine your ideas and arguments. This means that when you must "sell" your services, or speak before a group on a related topic, you will find yourself articulating your concepts more clearly, confidently, persuasively. Writing about something can make you feel more like an expert than you ever thought you were!

Questions That Matter

What questions matter before you start? What should you determine in order to carve out a sensible and ultimately successful publishing campaign? There are two principle questions:

1. Does my article directly advance my business objectives? What aspect or value of your business do you want people to know about? What's the most profitable product you sell or the service or product you most enjoy? What segment of your business would you like most to grow? From your answers to these questions, design article ideas that display what you most want to promote.

2. What publications do the people who actually hire me read? Who typically hires you: CEOs? HR Directors? Training Directors? VPs of Sales? If CEOs, locate publications read by chief executives. If HR Directors, HR publications are those you want to approach. Locate your target publications by cruising the web or browsing publication directories in your library. When you've found 15-20, you've got the beginnings of an effective "target publications list." Don't skip this step: Be sure your writing projects will be encountered by the category of professional who hires you.

Securing Article Assignments

After answering the questions that matter, you're next faced with how to do it. Here's a tip first on how NOT to do it: Work long and hard on an article, mail it out to an editor you've never spoken with, do nothing more, wait forever. This strategy is doomed to fail with so many reasons out there why an editor might not accept your article this way. Most have nothing at all to do with either you, your article idea or your writing. Here are just a few:

• The publication to whom you submitted does not take articles written by outsiders EVER as it is entirely staff-written.

• An article similar to yours was just published the month before.

• An editorial assistant at the publication, just out of college, had been assigned to screen all "unsolicited" manuscripts and has little or no understanding of your field. She wrongly assumes your piece would be too hard for the publication's readers to understand (as it is for her!) and forwards it to a circular file. Her more experienced boss, the editor-in-chief, never gets the chance to review it at all.

Instead, then, of shooting in the dark, try this four-step process for getting your article accepted:

1. Study publications carefully on your target publications list so that you understand the kinds of articles they're looking for and where in the magazine they typically place them.

2. Call each publication directly and ask for the editor in charge of the section you wish to submit to. Example: if a technology-related article, ask for the technology editor. Check the publication's masthead for the current editor's name. Note: If an editor's email address is publicly available, you can use that first but if you don't get a response in a week or so, do a follow-up call.

3. Be respectful of an editor's time. Do not "push" your idea, just pitch it quickly so as to make it available. Treat an editor call as you would a prospecting call—plan it for 30 seconds or less—then say your piece and keep mum and let the editor respond. She will immediately let you know if it's right for her or not.

4. Be ready then and there with more ideas. It's not the end of the world if the editor doesn't snap at your first idea. It may however be the end of a potentially beautiful relationship if you haven't got a back-up idea waiting in the wings. Editors, after all, are eager for good ideas and often don't know where to find them. Speaking with someone with your front-line experience is a principle way they manage to do so.

A Few Follow-up Tips

If you do not reach an editor directly, always leave a voice message outlining (briefly again) your idea, and ending with a courteous, "Thanks for your time." When you do get a "go-ahead," ask for such particulars as editor's preferred article focus, word length, and deadline. Scrupulously adhere to all these parameters and try not to bug your editor as you work on your piece with a lot of annoying questions. Instead, endeavor to make your editor's life as trouble-free as you possible (at least in relation to you!).

Finally, if you do NOT get a go-ahead on any of your ideas, thank the editor and say you'll try him/her again at another time. Then keep studying the publication and do pitch a new set of ideas when you feel you've better figured out what its readers are looking for. The editor in all likelihood is indeed interested in hearing form you again.

By following my guidelines, you can break down the mystique and barriers that have up to now prevented your ideas from seeing print. Once you do, you will enjoy a remarkable, little-used visibility channel capable of setting you apart from the pack. You will begin encountering prospects who light up when they meet you, exclaiming, "Yes, I've heard of you! I've been enjoying your articles and really like what you have to say. Please tell me more about your services." When this happens, you will have arrived at the Promised Land!

Ken Lizotte CMC is Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO) of Emerson Consulting Group Inc. (Concord, Massachusetts), a firm that transforms consultants, entrepreneurs, executives, managers and other business leaders into "thoughtleaders." Phone: 978-371-0442. Email: ken@thoughtleading.com

http://www.thoughtleading.com

Free Marketing Tip 2 Publish An Ezine Or Enewsletter

Writen by Debbie LaChusa

As a small business owner and marketing coach, I'm always looking for ways to market my business and my clients' businesses that don't cost a lot of money. Why? Because we simply don't have a lot of money to spend on marketing.

There are many ways to start getting the word out about your products and services - that's all marketing is after all - getting the word out to the people you think would be interested. The people you would love to have as clients.

And yes, there are many ways to get the word out for free, or very little cost.

One of my favorites is Ezine Publishing.

What's an Ezine? It's an electronic newsletter you write and distribute via email.

Here are 10 steps to help you use Ezine Publishing to market your small business:

(1) Ask yourself, "What am I am expert in?" or "What do I know a lot about?"

(2) Research other businesses in your same area of expertise to see if they are publishing an ezine. Subscribe to all the ezines you find in your same area of expertise.

(3) Find a unique spin or approach that no one else is using and that you feel your ideal clients would be interested in. For example, will you publish a quick weekly tip, recaps on industry news and happenings or how-to articles?

(4) Decide if you want to publish a text ezine (looks like a normal email) or an html ezine (includes graphics and color).

(5) Find an email marketing/list management program to help you publish your ezine and automatically manage your list of subscribers. There are free and paid services you can use. You'll find a few options at the 10stepmarketing Helpful Links Page

(6) Put an opt-in box for your free ezine on every page of your website. Include a reason why someone would want to subscribe to your ezine - give it a little promotion.

(7) Offer a free gift to anyone who chooses to subscribe. This could be a Special Report, a small e-book or any other no-cost item you create, and gives them more reason to subscribe.

(8) Decide how often you're going to publish. Weekly? Biweekly? Monthly?

(9) Schedule a regular time to write and publish your ezine each week, or month.

(10) Get your ezine listed in ezine directories on the web to help you generate subscribers. Search for "ezine directories" on Google to find places to submit your ezine.

An ezine gives you the opportunity to build a list of people who are interested in your expertise and what you have to offer. It also gives you a captive, targeted audience to market your products and services to. And it can be done for free, or for very little cost.

(C) Copyright 2006 Debbie LaChusa, 10stepmarketing

Debbie LaChusa created The 10stepmarketing System to make marketing your own business as simple as answering 10 questions. Learn more about this unique, step-by-step system and get a free 10-week Marketing E-Course when you subscribe to the free, weekly 10stepmarketing Ezine at http://www.10stepmarketing.com

Publishing Your Own Newsletter Is It Worth Your Time

Writen by John Kovacs

Is publishing your own newsletter worth your time and effort? Most publishers will tell you the rewards are well worth the investment. By publishing your own newsletter you can build recognition and be looked at as an expert in your field of expertise.

This is also a great way to build your opt-in mail list and increase traffic to your website, not to mention that most publishers generate additional revenue by selling ad space in their publications. The bottom line here is that publishing your own newsletter is well worth the time you put into it.

Even though there are thousands of publications on the net today, not all webmasters publish a newsletter. Some people procrastinate on writing their own newsletter simply because they are not sure what to write about. Today you will find newsletters that cover most any topic, from marketing tips, business news, advice columns, health issues, resources, finances and even jokes.

With such a wide array of topics that one can use, you have to ask yourself how hard can it be to write your own publications? The truth of the matter is anyone can start to publish his or her own newsletters with a little dedication, commitment and knowledge.

You need to be dedicated to contribute enough time to be a successful publisher and commitment to follow through with your publication.

The knowledge that will be required is coming up with useful content to use in your publications and formatting your newsletter correctly. To start with, you can write about the inside knowledge you have from building your own business, or topics that you are well educated on.

You can do research in books, newspapers, magazines, Internet, etc. on certain topics, and use that knowledge in your newsletter (this would be what you have learned in your own words, not copy someone else's work). There are also many publishers that will let you use their articles in your publications providing the article and links are left intact. You can find many articles online by going to any search engine to search for articles or publishers.

When formatting, the best approach is to gather all the information you will be using and lay it out on a piece of paper first. Once you have all the information, use "word pad" or "note pad" as your editor to create your newsletter. You can also use "word" as your editor, but you want to make sure the finished product is formatted correctly.

Always use plenty of spacing throughout your newsletter, keeping your paragraphs to 5 to 6 lines with each line not to exceed 64 characters. Depending on how much material you will be using, try to keep the size of your publication under 70 KB, or no more than 6 to 7 pages in length (some mail programs will have problems sending out newsletters that are to large in length).

One-way to check the size of your newsletter is to use "word" as your editor and click on "file" than "properties", than on the "General" tab. This will show you the exact size of your newsletter in KB. If you are using a different editor, just copy and paste into word to check its size.

When publishing your newsletter, it is strongly advised not to just focus on pushing sales or having to many ads. What you should do is concentrate on building relationships with your subscribers. A person has to feel they can trust in you as a professional before they feel confident in buying anything you have to offer.

Keep in mind people will be looking for someone who can provide them with informative reading material, not a salesman. If you publish newsworthy newsletters and use compelling topics of interest, you will develop followers over the course of time.

Newsletters are usually sent monthly, weekly, daily or anywhere in-between. If this is your first time publishing, you may want to offer a monthly newsletter to start. The reason is, once you commit to a scheduled publication, it's important that they are sent on time and you meet the demand or you can loose subscribers. You can always increase your publications once you are more experienced and know how much time you can invest.

Guidelines:

By publishing informative newsletters with solid content can bring you a loyal following of subscribers as well as many referrals.

Give your visitors the option to subscribe to your newsletter from your website.

List your newsletter in as many ezine directories as you can.

Personalize your newsletter by adding the recipient's first name in the subject box and in the heading.

Do not just focus on pushing sales or have too many ads in your newsletters.

Omit any hype or misleading information.

Make sure you use your signature file in all your newsletters. Having a link to your website as well as contact information.

Out of courtesy always include an unsubscribe option in your newsletters for your readers.

Never rent, sell or give your subscribers addresses to any other party. With all the effort you put into developing a mail list, this is a sure way of loosing subscribers and destroying the trust they had with you.

John Kovacs is the CEO and founder of "A Home Business Opportunity". His website mainly focuses on supplying free marketing tips, resources and support for home startup businesses and Internet marketing. To get a step-by-step guide in building an online business, visit http://www.ahomebusinessopportunity.net

Advertising In Newsletters

Writen by Christopher Ruane

In this article we will discuss advertising in other companies' newsletters and how it can be as equally beneficial.

By advertising in other newsletters, you can reach an audience which is highly targeted and cost effective. Moreover, you can never be accused of spamming as all the recipients have subscribed to the newsletter.

There are so many newsletters out there covering so many different topics that it's easy to find highly targeted ones to advertise in. So if you've matched the newsletter to the product you're selling, you've reached your target audience.

Almost all newsletters are archived, thousands of people read these archives, and your ad will be seen by these people at no extra cost. This can bring in exposure and extra sales on a long term basis.

Newsletter publishers may have already developed a trust between themselves and their readers. Just by placing your ad in the newsletter, it's more likely to be read because it appears in a publication they like and trust.

Newsletter advertising is not only effective, it's cheap as well. A 5 line ad in a newsletter that goes to 3000 people will cost you between $5 and $25 per issue. With so little risk involved, this is definitely worth it.

Just as you can sell advertising, you can also buy advertising in newsletters. You can use those ads to promote your business or to invite people who read newsletters to read your own.

Again, you have to pick your partners carefully. There's no point just picking a newsletter with the cheapest rates; you want to make sure you choose an outlet that appeals to the same buyers as you. You also need to think about where your ad is going to be placed.

In general, the higher the position the better. And the more the merrier too. Don't expect a huge response from a single ad. It's always best to think of advertising in terms of a campaign.

You'll get a better deal—and better results—if you reserve an advertising position for four or five issues than if you buy them one at a time.I hope this brief introduction will get you thinking about the possibilities!

Chris Ruane

New to the world of ecommerce and don't know where to turn? Visit the beginners' guide to earning online at: http://www.digitalmoneymakers.com

Section Ideas To Include In Your Newsletter Design

Writen by Ladan Lashkari

A good newsletter template is not only consisted of a good design, but also good sections to make your newsletter interesting.

I spend a lot of time studying successful newsletters and collected a list of section ideas for my own newsletter. Then I thought the list would be helpful to other people who want to start their own newsletter too. So I decided to share it with you. Here they are...

#1. Table of Contents: If your newsletter is consisted of more than 3 sections, a table of contents is a must. It gives your newsletter a professional look and feel.

#2. Editor's Notes: This is the best place to let your personality shine. Share your personal opinions, views, memories, and feelings here to establish a strong relationship with your readers.

#3. Feature Article: This is the main part of your newsletter so focus of the quality of content you provide here.

#4. Guest Article: This is an optional section. You may post another informative article by another expert here.

#5. Google AdSense: If you publish an HTML newsletter, you can easily make money from your newsletter by placing AdSense ads in each issue. The best place for the ads would be in your article because it will be the most read section of your newsletter so you'll get the highest click-through rate here.

#6. Ask the Editor: Offer your subscribers an email address or an online form to submit their questions. You can choose the most common questions, answer them in an article, and publish it in your future issues. You'll get awesome article ideas this way. It will also make your newsletter interactive which creates loyal readers.

#7. Review a Helpful Product: People love an "honest" review about a helpful product that will save them time, money, or energy.

#8. Quote of the Day: According to Wordtracker, over 17500 people search for the word "quotes" every day. People love quotes and words of wisdom. Quotes inspire and motivate people to enjoy their life and reach their dreams. So adding a quote to your every issue will add a little spice to it.

#9. Joke of the Day: People are usually tired from daily chores and hard work, so they will embrace any fun break you give to their mind and soul. Did you know that over 48500 people search for the word "jokes" every day?

#10. Recommended Resources: You might know some helpful resources that your subscribers will benefit from. Share a couple of useful resources in every issue. Your readers will appreciate your kindness with their trust and loyalty.

#11. Reader's Feedback: If you provide quality content in your newsletter, you will always receive great feedbacks from your happy readers. You can publish one of them in every issue. Your subscribers' unconscious mind will think, "If everyone likes it, it must be good. So I like it too."

#12. Survey of the Week/Month: Looking for ideas to improve your newsletter? Why don't you ask your own readers? They are the ones who know it the best. And they will be happy to share their opinions and suggestions with you. So simply ask!

#13. Contact the Editor: To win your subscribers' trust, you should show them you're a real person. Someone just them whom they can reach by email and phone. Providing your email address, phone number, and even your snail mail address is a very effective way to gain their trust.

#14. Unsubscribe Information: This is one of the most essential parts of your newsletter. Your subscribers have the right to unsubscribe from your newsletter whenever they want. And what's more, if they are not interested in reading your ezine anymore, what's the use of sending it to them? They won't read it in any case.

#15. How to Subscribe: Not all of the people who read your newsletter are your current subscribers. Many of them may have received it from their friends. They may like it and want to subscribe. So you'll gain many new subscribers without doing any additional work. So why not provide a link or autoresponder address to subscribe easily in every issue?

About The Author: Ladan Lashkari is a respected Internet marketing expert, and the owner of http://www.FreeNewsletterIdeas.com/ where you'll find free newsletter templates, creative newsletter ideas, honest reviews, and helpful resources to start your own highly profitable email marketing campaign.

Using Newsletters As A Marketing Tool

Writen by Sanjay Johari

Newsletters are excellent means of marketing on the internet. The publisher of the newsletters gets a foothold in the market for standing and growing. The publisher could be an individual or an organization. But it is important for the publisher to form an identity and to establish himself in the market. The long term players in the market simply cannot do without forming an identity, a brand name. By brand name I only mean an identification to distinguish the publisher.

Newsletters can be used very well for branding the publishers.

But in the first place why do you need to brand yourself?

You are an internet based marketer. You are trying to market products and ideas. You are looking for like-minded people who would be interested in what you have to offer.

If you answer these two simple questions you will know why you need to brand yourself. These questions are:

1. Why will anyone listen to you?

2. Why will anyone be interested in your offer?

You have to first locate people who may have interest in your offer. Next, you have to build credibility so that interested people start trusting you. It is in this second process where you brand yourself. You establish yourself as an expert in the field who is there to stay and who can be trusted. You create a distinct brand for yourself which is unique.

The brand YOU.

In fact you market your name before you can expect to market your products in a big way.

You can use newsletters to meet both the objectives – to locate your customers and to establish yourself. Starting your newsletters is a long term strategy. Your newsletters should focus on a particular area which is related to the product you wish to market. The frequency of publication should be fixed and strictly followed. In every issue there should be fresh content to keep the readers interested. It will take time and persistence to establish the newsletter as well as the publisher, to increase the subscriber base and to grow the circulation. After initial hurdles are successfully negotiated you are poised for substantial growth.

The readers of the newsletter gradually get used to the style, presentation, periodicity of publication, the content and other features of the newsletter. They look forward to the next issue and expect to find the familiar pattern. The publisher of the newsletter should ensure that the newsletter maintains its unique features. There should be consistency in the content. The objective should be providing information which will benefit the subscribers. You can add stories and your personal experience to make the newsletters more interesting.

What should be the frequency of the newsletter? Once or twice a week can be a good frequency to maintain. It does not become a burden either on the publisher or the subscribers. If frequency is less than a month the readers may forget about the newsletter. If frequency is more the readers may lose interest.

There should not be any drastic changes from one issue to the other. The readers should get what they expect to find. If any changes are to be made in any of the features, the changes should be gradual. It often helps to inform the readers before the changes are made.

Newsletters are powerful tools for cultivating relationship. And relationship is the foundation of a successful business. The subscribers of the newsletters come to know the publisher. The owner of the newsletter gets an effective medium to share ideas and information. By inviting comments from the subscribers the newsletters can be made more interactive and popular.

The publisher should always shave in mind the best interests of the subscribers. This attitude somehow gets transmitted and readers can often see through the intentions of the publisher.

Your customers do not buy your products – they buy your recommendations. Once they have faith in you they will buy from you repeatedly with the confidence that they will get value for their money. That is the power of branding yourself, and maintaining your brand name.

It is ok to send offers to the subscribers occasionally. However such offers should not be too frequent. What is even more important is that the publisher should not send offers for un-tested and un-tried products. He should send offers only for those products which he would himself purchase. With the offer he should provide his own views, ratings and experience with the product.

I have tried to discuss how newsletters can be used for marketing your other products. Publishing newsletters can itself be a business. That is additional advantage of publishing newsletters.

Sanjay Johari contributes regularly to various ezines. Success is a habit which can be cultivated. Visit his website for success in network marketing.

Ezine Publishing Be Careful Of Filler Content

Writen by Lance Winslow

One of the reasons that Ezines and all online newsletters do so well is because people are upset at the trade journals, which seem to have so many filler pages of worthless content that many of the subscribers are no longer interested. You have probably seen in many industry trade journals where the articles are somewhat irrelevant to the industry yet in the first paragraph and the last paragraph it appears that the articles have been modified in order to get the classification of that particular industry sector.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist or someone in an industry to recognize that these articles are basically BS and merely public relations pieces in order to sell them something and therefore they flip through theses trade journals very quickly without reading them. Further this hurts the advertisers because the subscriber is also flipping past the advertising.

If a trade journal has too few articles in it and the magazine is not very thick people do not value it, but too much filler and people no longer have any value added. This same problem applies to Ezine Publishing and we see all too often that there are articles, which are completely worthless to the subject matter of the Ezine or are so basic that they are irrelevant to the reader. Therefore, Ezine Publishers need to be very careful of such Filler Content. Please consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Ezine Definition Too Absolute

Writen by Lance Winslow

The current definition of an Ezine as you know is an electronic newsletter or electronic magazine, which is sent out via email. But is that definition too confining and absolute considering the rapid changes in the Information Age? In fact if we consider Einstein had warned us that the only constant is change. Many believe that is hard to address the subject of Ezines without a true definition and thus it must be clearly and narrowly defined. Yet others argue that this leaves many out in the rain who are Publishing Ezines.

Debaters of this subject including the top most prolific online article writer say that definitions are too confining. For instance who is to say in the future you might not send your Ezine to a Home Entertainment Center in the home on a big flat panel high-definition TV combination Internet system. Who is to say the method used to do this will be called email? Most likely it will be something other than email, but the format and feel of the Ezine will most likely be the same, well at least in the early stages anyway?

What about the new SMS on the cell phones, who is to say that they will not be able to recieve such information to them or a holographic wrist watch. All this is coming and so if an Ezine is email only based then will we all miss the boat due to pure definitions. After all the Ezine Publishers will be the first to provide content in that new medium as they look for additional outlets and distributions of their already published regularly ezine. Needless to say in the future the Ezine model will evolve and maybe left behind unable to grow if it cannot capture and encapsulate new technologies. Consider all this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

How To Use Viral Marketing To Grow Your Opt In Email List

Writen by Stephen Warren

If you have read my article called "What is Viral Marketing" you should already have a fairly good idea of it's potential.

In this article I'm going to discuss how it can be used to grow your all essential, opt in mailing list.

As you already know, Viral Marketing is a great way to get the word out about your product or service, so you can see a huge surge in sales.

But what about subscriptions to your newsletter? Can they too be effected by this type of Marketing?

YES they can.

But how? This depends on how difficult and successful you want to make it. Not that these two factors necessarily go hand in hand.

The most basic form of using viral marketing automatically, is probably a tell-a-friend script. I'm sure you've seen them, you've probably used them as well.

All you have to do is type in someone's email address into a form, and the website will usually have text pre inserted into the form telling the person how great you think the website is, but you could always add your own instead.

Your friend receives an email which to them looks like you are telling them about this fantastic new website and hopefully he will sign up to the newsletter to find out more.

This can be manipulated in other ways. For example what if you did a questionnaire, then, to get the results of the questionnaire, not only does the person have to sign up to your newsletter, but they have to fill out a tell-a-friend script for three friends, telling them about this questionnaire. Then, those three friends sign up, take the questionnaire, and oh look, they have to sign up to the newsletter to find out the results, oh well, lets tell three more friends each.

This has a huge snowball effect, and should see you exponentially growing your opt-in mailing list.

This isn't too hard to create either. Just go down to elance.com and ask a programmer how much he would charge for such a thing.

However, you must remember that you must start your marketing efforts with some fuel, and that fuel is people. You have to start with at least a few people filling out this questionnaire for this to even begin. 0 people telling 3 friends each still equals 0.

Another way to grow your mailing list, is to pay people for every subscriber they send your way. This isn't exactly the type of marketing I've been discussing throughout this article, but it will grow your opt-in list quite well if you pay enough and enough people start doing it. I think that 10 cents per subscriber is fair.

If people start sending you more subscribers than you can afford to pay, then you can always stop it for a while. But remember this, is you treat your subscribers well, then you have a life time value of them, which is worth far more than 10 cents.

Hotmail.com used this form of marketing in a small way that produced big results. At the bottom of each of the emails sent, they included a small line that said something like "Get your free email account with hotmail.com". This meant that every time an email was sent from hotmail the recipient would read this and perhaps think, "Hmm free email account huh? Better check this out. This resulted in hotmail's huge growth in a relatively short period of time. Eventually Microsoft brought hotmail.com for an obscene amount of money.

Stephen Warren is the creator of http://www.makeagreatsite.com Learn how to make a great site and turn it into a money making machine in no time. This article is free to republish as long as it is republished in full and the link back to MakeAGreatSite.com is clickable

Creating Subscriptionfree Newsletters

Writen by William R. Nabaza

All good and bad newsletters or ezines require subscriptions. Newsletters will ask you for your name and email address before you can receive valuable information from them. You might ask yourself, "Am I too important that someone wants to know my name and email address? Yes, you're that important as a lead or contact for the newsletter owner, that's why they're giving you free for something in return and that's a little bit of your privacy. Some newsletters will go to the extent of asking a survey-type question or majority will concentrate on your personal information. You know what, majority of people that I "meet" on the internet are like that. They are pleased to let them know you using their username or an alias. I was like that before hiding under username: weblord but now I know better.

So now, you may ask how can I reach these majority who does not want to share their email address or name? The answer is: create subscription-free newsletters. Actually, we're all doing this since the start of internet and that is our personal homepages or an entire websites. Everyday, users with no faces flood my websites looking for something that I can't help them with or something that I already have but don't know how I can send it to them. Provide a page where you can say everything there is to know about your products/services, say it in straightforward sentences.

Another is via article writing, pose a problem and give the solution, usually it's your services or product that can remedy it.

Use .rss (really simple syndication) or .xml (extended markup language) in disseminating your products/services, that way it will end up in thousands of rss or news aggregator already in the computers of your prospects.

Creating an ebook and set in iframe or frame the url or web address you want to share to your recipient, have him/her download the ebook from your site.

Screensavers can also contain your newsletter. Wallpapers can also contain your newsletter messages. Sms go straight to their cellphonesl, or much better create a wap site in .wml (wireless markup language)

Subscription-free newsletters are a way to increase your newsletter viewership without the need to know the email address of a person where you intend it to be. I, myself, am using desktop alerts - those small programs or applications that can be downloaded on your computer simply fetching syndicated .rss or atom enabled site.

About The Author
William Nabaza of http://www.Nabaza.com specializes in domains, webhosting, webmaster's tools, netpreneur's articles and resources. Stands out as a freebie provider, business opportunity provider and the like. Visit his site at http://www.nabaza.com or contact him directly at More free articles here: http://www.nabaza.com/resources.htm

Become An Ebook Author Make Money From Your Knowledge

Writen by Edward Toupin

"E-Book" is short for Electronic Book---an organized set of content delivered in an electronic format. There are many different types of e-books including packaged executables, PDF, and formats for the handheld computer.

As with so many of the original e-books, your e-book doesn't have to be about Making Money or Internet Marketing---people are interested in many other things. What makes an e-book valuable to a wide audience is that it provides information that people cannot easily find elsewhere.

Over the years, I've had the pleasure of writing numerous printed books and working on several electronic publications. From what I've seen, the e-book medium supports the greatest creative flexibility. Images can come alive, you can provide interactive forms and content, the user can access remote databases, and you can support dynamic updates whenever the content changes. There are, however, several steps involved in the process to properly develop and promote an e-book to your audience.

The Process

When developing an e-book, you have to perform several important steps to create quality content. Each step allows you to fine-tune your idea and the end-product so that readers will learn from and enjoy the content you provide.

- Brainstorm an Idea
Ideas are cheap, but good ideas take time to develop. To develop a good idea, you have to jot down as many ideas as possible, then go through the list to make sure that:

* you're interested in the idea;
* you're knowledgeable on the topic;
* you're hitting the greatest, potential market;
* people will purchase the information; and
* you can market to those interested.

Once you reduce the list to a few solid choices, go back through and examine the remaining topics to determine which topics you can write, by:

* determining what you know about the topic;
* performing market research to ensure that you have a market and an angle for that market; and
* performing competitive research to find your competition's products, successes, failures, and target markets.

While fine-tuning your product, remember that people will buy the product if it:

* solves a problem;
* improves an existing product;
* hits on a hot trend;
* creates a new niche; or
* fills a current need.

- Develop an Outline

Once you come up with the idea, you'll have to create an outline or table of contents to develop the idea. The best way I've found to do this is to break the idea down into blocks of contiguous information---similar to assembling a pyramid. At the top is the IDEA with each successive level providing a more detailed sequence of points that ultimately explain the top-level IDEA.

The outline itself should be at least four levels deep so that you can understand what you'll say for each section or chapter. Research each section and collect pertinent information so that you can develop a coherent outline and understand the depths of what it is you are writing.

- Develop the First Draft

The first draft is merely a "brain dump." Follow your outline and write as much as possible about each section. Don't worry about format, spelling, or grammar at this point, as you'll focus on resolving those issues later.

- Substantive Edit

A substantive edit is a review of the manuscript where you fine-tune the content. You have to make sure that the content is complete, contains pertinent information for the topic, and provides enough relevant information to explain the topic. At this point, you can perform additional research to verify the content or enhance the information for the reader.

- Content/Technical Review

Find some experts in your manuscript's topic area and have them review it for accuracy and readability. This type of review ensures that the information is correct and that the target audience will be able to understand the content. Many times, experts will take credit in the acknowledgements as opposed to a fee, but this is something you'll have to work out with them.

- Second Draft

The second draft takes into account the information from your reviewers as well as changes you need to make based on your own review of the content. Once this draft is complete, take a day or two off to give your brain a break. This way, when you return to the manuscript, you'll be fresh and able to catch any mistakes that you would've otherwise missed.

- Copy Edit

The copy edit allows you to check the grammar, spelling, and readability of the content. Make sure that everything is formatted appropriately and that your manuscript provides a professional presentation.

- Proof

In a publishing house, proofreaders will go through the product and check for any final production issues, wording, and problems with content. Do a pre-package of the product and send it out to a few people to have them read through the product. Ask them to check for any mistakes or errors that might have been missed.

- Packaging

Once you've completed the manuscript, you can package it in several different formats. The format choice depends on your target audience as well as your desired presentation. Of course, you can always have an e-publisher generate the package, but they too will use one of the formats discussed in this section.

Developed by Adobe (http://www.adobe.com), PDF is a document packaging format that is compatible across several platforms (i.e., Microsoft Windows, UNIX, Macintosh, etc.) A PDF document is viewed on the free Adobe Acrobat viewer, which is itself platform-dependant. When developing PDF documents, stay with standard writing practices involved in creating manuscripts. Adobe Distiller, which usually comes with FrameMaker, works with just about any word-processing environment (e.g., Microsoft Word, TeX, etc.) and generates a PDF of your manuscript directly from the application.

E-Book compilers take HTML files and package them into a single executable application. This format is, however, limited in its distribution as it will only run on its target platforms. For instance, one of the better compilers, Activ E-Book (http://www.ebookcompiler.com), is targeted to run on Microsoft Windows platforms. You will need a compiler that supports all of the major facets of HTML as well as password protection, configurability, and branding. Branding allows you to create e-books branded with your affiliates' or distributors' names. Note that the vendors for some of the more expensive compilers will not only charge for the compiler, but also charge royalties for distribution rights.

Handheld e-book reader formats are very wide because of the multitude of e-book readers available on the market today. In most cases, all you have to do is generate a solid manuscript and submit it to one of the e-publishers in Microsoft Word format. They will usually package the manuscript into one or more of the different formats acceptable for the more popular e-book readers.

Copyrighting Your Work

Once you've created your e-book, the last thing you want is for someone to illegally copy your work, or worse yet, claim it as their own. It's true that there are technical means (i.e., password protection) that can make this kind of theft more difficult, but none offer total security. No matter what you do, there's a chance that you could be a victim of this kind of theft---it could even go on for a while before you discover that it happened.

Even worse than discovering that you're a victim, is discovering that you're a victim with either no, or very limited, recourse. But there's a way to make sure that it doesn't happen to you---take steps to protect your work ahead of time. Visit the following sites for information on protecting your work as well as registering your work online:

* MediaRegister (http://www.mediaregister.com)
* Click and Copyright (http://www.clickandcopyright.com/)
* International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

If you're serious about publishing an e-book, you'll need to have your own ISBN number. The ISBN is a number that identifies book products published internationally. To distribute your work in books stores, online and otherwise, you have to obtain an ISBN number.

An ISBN consists of 10 digits preceded by the "ISBN" prefix. The number is divided into four parts, with each part separated by a hyphen. The number establishes and identifies one title or edition from a specific publisher and is unique to that edition. This supports a more efficient marketing scheme for products by booksellers, libraries, universities, wholesalers, and distributors.

Currently, you must order a minimum of 10 numbers for a charge of $225. You can order online and it only takes a few days for delivery. For more information and to apply, visit:

* RR Bowker (http://www.bowker.com/bowkerweb/)
* ISBN Home Page (http://www.isbn.org/)

Sell or Free

As you package your e-book, decide if it will be distributed free of charge or for a fee. Usually, free e-books contain bits and pieces of information that induce the sale of other products and services and increase traffic to the host Web site.

- Free E-Books

A free e-book should be a leader to something better that must be purchased. If you create an e-book that you want to sell, it's always a good idea to either block certain pages with a password or distribute a subset of the main e-book free. When determining how to provide a free version of your e-book, think about the following questions:

* Which chapters will everyone be able to read?
* Do I create a free version and a for-pay version?
* How will I get people to pay for the e-book once they review the free one?
* How will I promote and distribute the product?

- For-Pay E-Books

As for the for-pay version of the e-book, you can use PayPal (http://www.paypal.com) or ProPay (http://www.propay.com) to accept payment because they are much easier to setup on a simple site. The only problem is that they are not very flexible when dealing with automating order processing. If you have the time and the funds later, you can always upgrade to a merchant account, order-processing environment.

You also have to develop a set of procedures for handling purchases. These procedures identify the steps for collecting funds, handling returns, and sending the password or key to unlock the e-book. An example of these procedures is as follows:

* User submits a purchase request.
* You accept the request and receive payment.
* You send the password, key, a URL to the complete product, or the complete product itself via e-mail.
* If the user wants to return the product, determine their reasoning and refund the money.

Selecting the Right Price

Selecting a price for the e-book is always a tough decision, but a very important one. Remember that the main advantage to e-books is in the inexpensive methods of production. You can usually write an entire e-book and have it published in a very short time. On top of that, when you generate the finished package, you can simply distribute that same copy instead of having to continually re-run the process to generate a new product---as in the print market.

To price your e-book correctly, research your competition's prices and determine if you have any added value above and beyond your competition. If so, either price it at their price or add 10%. With a good write-up and press release, you will draw readers because you are newer, have a larger footprint (i.e., more pages), and have more information.

Once it has been out there for a while, speak with your past customers or drop the price a little until sales begin to pick up. There are many tactics for setting the right price, but with proper market research, you should be able to come up with a solid price the first time around.

Promotion

Promotion is the key to getting your e-book noticed. You must be professional and diligent when handling the promotion of your work as one misplaced e-mail or posting could destroy credibility for you and your work.

- Web Site

If you don't already have one, you should consider assembling a Web site to present and sell your e-books. You'll need to obtain your own domain name and quality hosting to gain credibility with your customers and your competitors. You only need to assemble one page per e-book and provide a short blurb outlining what the e-book presents. Also, provide a way for the user to download, or purchase, the e-book as well as a way to contact you.

You've seen the small graphics scattered around the Web that depicts a book or box with the title of the e-book---this is called a "virtual book cover" or a "3D virtual box." Whether you're good with graphics or not, this is a great and simple way to advertise your work. You can view samples at eBook Cover-Art (http://www.ebook-cover-art.com) and Free E-Book Covers (http://freeebookcovers.homestead.com/covers.html).

- Free E-Book Sites

As we discussed earlier, it's always a good idea to have a free version of your e-book to help promote the for-pay version. One of the best reasons is that many e-book sites that allow free promotion will only promote free e-books. This way, you can promote the free version of your e-book on more sites and have it drive potential customers to your Web site. Some of the more popular free e-book promotion sites are as follows:

* E-Books Rock (http://www.ebooksrock.net)
* Free E-Books (http://www.free-ebooks.net)
* E-Book Directory (http://www.e-bookdirectory.com)
* E-Book 2000 (http://www.ebook2000.com)
* Abika (http://www.abika.com/books/submitbook.asp)
* E-Book News (http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/EBook_News)
* E-Book Talk (http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/EBook_Talk)

- Review Sites

You can get the greatest amount of publicity by submitting your complete e-book to a review site. The reviewers will read your e-book and generate a public review for posting to their site. In this way, others can read the review and visit your site for a download of your e-book. Some of the more popular review sites are:

* EBooks 'n Bytes (http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/reviews)
* Midnight Scribe (http://geocities.com/midnightscribe)
* Reviewers' Int'l Org (http://www.geocities.com/bookreviewers)

- Press Releases

A press release is another great way to bring notice to your new e-book. One of the more prominent e-book press release distribution systems is eBroadcaster (http://www.ebookbroadcast.com/). The site features press releases related to new ebooks, epublisher announcements, and handheld news. Another site is called PressBlast (http://www.pressblast.com/). If you're not up on writing a press release, it's time to get a handle on it because you'll need it!

- Free Content

Many writers abhor free content as they feel they are "writing for free." Actually, if you target your writing to define and present your knowledge as well as bring in clients, the small amount of time you spend putting together the free content is not wasted. Realize that people want information, and if you give them good information, they'll come back for more. Realize also that you already have a great source of free content right under your nose---your e-book. All you have to do is take excerpts from the various chapters and send them to a few posting sites listed below:

* Article Depot (http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/The-Article-Depot)
* Article Announce (http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/aageneral)
* Free Content (http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/Free-Content)
* Publish In Yours (http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/PublishInYours)
* Idea Marketers (http://www.ideamarketers.com)
* Author Connection (http://www.huginc.com)

Distribution

Once you've packaged the product and you feel that it's ready to go out to the world, there are several things you can do to expedite distribution. First, you can always approach a royalty publisher and let them handle the packaging and distribution for you. This is usually a good path to take, but it can be time consuming as they are back-logged with other e-books.

The other path is to distribute it yourself. There are hundreds of sites available on which you can post your packaged e-book. Users will come to the site and download your e-book then either purchase it or visit your site to see what other products you have available.

- For-Pay E-Book Distribution

One method for distributing an e-book you intend to sell is through one or more of the following Web sites. Some of these sites require that you sign an exclusivity contract which prevents you from selling your e-book elsewhere, so pay attention to what you sign. The vendors will usually provide a merchant mechanism so that they can collect a fee for you and, out of that fee, they take their cut. Also, note that many of these distributors will either take your manuscript as a Word file and convert it themselves or they accept only PDF.

* E-Books 'n Bytes (http://www.ebooksnbytes.com)
* 1st Books (http://www.1stbooks.com)
* BookLocker (http://www.booklocker.com)
* MightyWords (http://www.mightywords.com/)
* iBookTime (http://www.ebookshoppe.com)
* EBooks on the Net (http://www.ebooksonthe.net)
* MyPublish (http://www.mypublish.com)
* Amazon (http://www.amazon.com)
* Borders (http://www.borders.com)

- Free E-Book Distribution

The free distribution sites for free e-books provide the mechanism for distributing your free version of your e-book. They take just about any format that can be read on a computer.

* Free EBooks (http://www.free-ebooks.net)
* E-Books 'n Bytes (http://www.ebooksnbytes.com)
* ZDNet (http://www.zdnet.com)
* Download (http://www.download.com)
* Upload (http://www.upload.com)
* Softseek (http://www.softseek.com/submit/index.html)
* EBook News (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ebook_News)
* EBook Talk (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ebook_Talk)
* EBooks Rock (http://ebooksrock.net/)
* EBook 2000 (http://www.ebook2000.com/)

What's next?

When you write and package an e-book, you must have some sort of plan. Don't just write an e-book and "throw" it out there. What is your objective with the e-book? A good plan involves a targeted marketing approach to creating and distributing the e-book.

Make sure that the product attracts people and that the information is useful. Some publishers tend to sell information that is already free on the Web. Make sure that if you use information from the Web that you're not duplicating---always add value to maintain a professional presentation and a respectable reputation.

Once you finish your masterpiece and implement your marketing plan, you'll be well on your way to being known as an "e-book author."

Edward B. Toupin, Ph.D., is a published author, life-strategy coach, counselor, Reiki Master, and technical writer living in Las Vegas, NV. Edward works with people to help them strive for a richer life. He also authors books, articles, and screenplays on topics ranging from career success through life organization and fulfillment. Check out some of his recent print and electronic books as well as his articles covering various life-changing topics! Contact Edward at etoupin@toupin.com or visit his site at http://www.make-life-great.com.