Posts tagged "Ezine Publishing"

Most Common Ezine Publishing Mistakes

10 Most Common Ezine Publishing Mistakes That You Can Avoid

Introduction

Publishing an Ezine is a lucrative business. More and more people are jumping on the Ezine publishing band wagon. Anyone can get an auto responder and compile their own newsletters and e-courses to their subscribers at the cost of pennies. It is no surprise that Ezines are the choice of medium for list building and selling ad spaces.

However, there are a lot of mistakes made by newbies. Mistakes such as unsolicited emailing and not focusing on their core business are common mistakes committed daily. These must be addressed so that the profits are not wasted.

Therefore, I’ve written this guide on how to overcome these common mistakes.

Sending Ezines from your Yahoo or Gmail

Part of the temptation for newbies is to collect a group of emails and start mailing out from their own personal emails.

At first this may seem quite harmless when you have about 10-20 people in your list, but once your subscriber count exceeds 50 people, you are going to have a very big problem on your hand.

Firstly, you will have to handle people who newly sign up on your list manually. People who wish to unsubscribe needs to be manually removed as well – causing you massive administration problems.

The worst thing is most Internet service providers refuse to let you send bulk emails to many people at once. Of course, they set their own limits so that spammers won’t prey on the unsuspecting through their networks.

If you are not careful, you might even lose your subscriber list as well because your entire list sits within your computer’s hard drive. If you do not backup your computer

You might wind up losing hundreds or thousands of subscribers that you spent all those time and sleepless nights building them.

Don’t be a fool – make sure you get a good and reliable auto responder to handle all the work for you.

Signing up people without getting them to opt-in

One of the biggest newbie mistakes when it comes to Ezines is signing up on other mailing lists without their permission. You think just because they are on one of my list, it automatically gives me permission to sign them up on some other list.

Trust me – Unsolicited signups is a big no-no on the Net, and will get you in deep trouble! In the worst cast scenarios, you will be accused of spamming and you will get your IP blacklisted on the ISPs.

You must do things the proper way. When you want to build your list or invite people to subscribe, make sure you mail them a proper invitation form (or landing page) and when they manually opt in again, then you will have their permission. Bear in mind that you must once again ‘convince’ them why they should opt-in to your new list and never ever take any shortcuts.

Not giving good or useful content

Some publishers are so obsessed with getting traffic and selling things that all they ever do in their Ezines is sell products and talk all about themselves. Use their Ezines to boast about how great they are and how good their JV partners are doing to the point that they bore their subscribers to death.

Another common problem is that the E-zine publishers load their Ezines with so many ads that it disrupts the reading pleasure of their readers.

How would you like it if you were to buy the latest computer gadget magazine (if you are a guy) or the latest beauty magazine (for women) and dig through a haystack just to find the CONTENT page? I am sure you will either have a very hard time looking for the page number or you would cancel your subscription.

Content is king. Never diverge from that. But even more important than that – relevant content for your subscribers should be the main deal.

What you must do for your subscribers is to provide useful content roughly 80% of your Ezine and leave the rest for paid ads. It is a healthy balance.

Not focusing on their business.

On the other side of the coin, there are many publishers who talk about everything under the sun by serving up powerful and useful content for their readers but they forget about the most important thing – making MONEY.

Ultimately, publishing an Ezine is about making money. You can’t do it without promoting yourself or your business. In any business, remember that branding is the most important and you have to create that awareness in your Ezine while providing good content at the same time.

Learn to use strategically placed affiliate links so that your prospects don’t feel as though they are being ‘sold to’. Talk about them first, then talk about a solution for them and then finally talk about YOUR solution for them. End everything with a call to action. That way, you will not be wasting traffic from your subscribers.

Publishing whenever they feel like it

Do you know that you should keep in touch with your subscribers as regularly as possible?

There are millions of people on the Internet. If you don’t keep in touch with them, they will most likely forget all about you and your Ezine. Don’t ever let this happen to your business! It is easier to keep an existing customer or subscriber compared to getting a brand new one!

Publishing regularly suggests to your readers that you are an organized and you are able to meet deadlines and commitments.

You must learn to set aside some time for your publishing schedule. A way to accomplish this is to construct something like an E-course in advance. Then publish them everyday or every three days. Use this time to work on another product or come up with content for your Ezine.

Even if you don’t have any special content for your subscribers, try and stay in touch with them as regularly as possible. Even a simple “Hi” followed by a link to another person’s site (preferably an affiliate program) will also do the job just fine!

Neglecting the older archived issues

Part and parcel of the process of E-zine publishing is that you move from one issue to another. As you progress on, you will find that you have many back issues in your hard drive and sometimes, people tend to neglect the past issues as something outdated or useless.

Unless your information is completely obsolete, there are many things you can do with a back issue. You can offer your archived issue as a sample issue to prospective subscribers on your website or your blog.

People do read older issues and follow your journey. You’ll be able to get more of your visitors that are on the “fence” to join your Ezine, giving you a bigger list to market your products to.

Not only that, you will also attract a lot of new people looking to buy advertising space because they can check out your archived issues and check out how your ads worked out until now.

Forgetting about publish your Ezine in RSS

RSS is one of the many ways people use to access your content without having them come directly to your website or your blog. Most of the time, Ezine publishers want their subscribers to subscribe directly through their e-mails or auto responders because they can keep track of the size of their list.

However, neglecting RSS is very bad. Although you can’t cater to every single subscriber’s needs, enabling RSS is a way to get your readership across many different platforms. There are people out there who are lazy and rather read everything through their feeds. Try your best to meet their needs.

Another advantage of publishing on RSS is that you’ll increase your readership and sales by bypassing all the email filters. If your e-mail for your Ezine is titled ‘make money online’ you can be sure the money word would be captured and thrown into the SPAM or BULK folder as fast as you can say the word ‘spam magnet’!

Therefore, you’ll also be able to make your Ezine’s copy more effective because you’ll be able to use all those ‘taboo’ words such as without worrying about your Ezine getting blocked.

Neglecting the ‘subscriber only’ privilege

There is a tendency for people to treat a subscriber just like any other guy on your mailing list or blog readers.

If you asked me, I believe that E-zine subscribers are one of the most important people on your list. They are people who are genuinely interested in your work and spend time reading it. You should pamper them and treat them with care because that is probably where the money is!

Since they usually follow you from the beginning to the end, you should give them a reward. For example, if you are a selling a product (for example WordPress blog themes) and you usually sell them for $17, maybe you can consider giving your loyal subscribers a $7 discount. They will appreciate it and will gladly refer others to subscribe to your list or even – start promoting as your affiliate because they have been given the special treatment.

Neglecting the personal touch

One of the problems of bulk mailing to many people at once is that we forget to be human. Very often, if I’m on the list of my friend who is an active Internet marketer and we happen to correspond on e-mail a lot, I will receive emails from him and e-mails from his auto responder.

One glance of the e-mail and I can tell whether it is personally from him and whether he is sending out to a large group.

If you don’t know how to add the personal touch to your email headlines, you are missing out on a lot of readers (sometimes, those who are your subscribers as well – they could be busy with other things on their mind).

Always talk in a personal tone rather than selling your subscribers products all the time otherwise they will think you are just trying to grab their money.

Never offering any bonuses

Sometimes people forget to offer bonuses to their subscribers. They forget that once in a while, they should offer free gifts to entice them to stay on. You can also use bonuses to entice people to join as a new subscriber as well.

Try writing a free report – about the latest developments and offer them as a bonus. Tell them how much the report is worth by increasing the value your visitors place on your bonus by telling them how much it would be worth if you were to charge for it.

For example:

“I would normally charge $27 for this special report, but I am giving it away free to my loyal subscribers…”

You would increase the perceived value of your bonus and make your subscribers feel pampered at the same time.

Never neglect this powerful method!

Conclusion

There are many mistakes committed by newbies, but the worst mistake that can ever happen is to repeat your mistakes over and over again. Don’t take this for granted. If you keep on committing mistakes, you will lose credibility in the eyes of your subscribers and joint venture partners (even if you are a seasoned Ezine publisher.

Always be vigilant and keep an eye out for blind spots that you may have missed out. Keep on refining your work and you can be sure that online riches will be heading your way.

Good luck!

10 Most Common Ezine Publishing Mistakes That You Can Avoid

Internet Marketing Methods

Ezine publishing – A Top Lucrative Internet Marketing Method

There are billions of dollars transacted online yearly. As a matter of fact, the Internet population is expanding at such an alarming rate, more and more businesses are considering a migration towards the online world (and abandoning their offline counterparts at the same time).

But the main question is how much of that share do you want out of it? How big (or small) of the pie do you want to claim as your very own?

Part of the struggles of the 21st century is to find a business model that is not only scalable (that means you don’t have to work harder for the same amount of profits) but at the same time easy to setup and low-risk. Brick and mortar businesses have very high overheads and not to mention physical restrictions as well – it is no wonder why people are turning towards the Internet.

Part of the joys of starting an Internet business is the fact that you can operate it at home. You don’t have to get stuck in rush-hour traffic, squeeze your way through a congested train or run after a bus. You can do everything from the comfort of your home, in your pajamas, with toast, eggs and coffee next to your computer at 11am in the morning.

It is true that making money online is one of the most lucrative markets people are getting into.

The best thing is, you don’t have to worry about customers paying you late (cash and credit card business), collection problems (the 3rd party merchant accounts will bank the money into your bank account), and piling up on stock and inventory (all the products are in digital format). This is truly an online utopia at our fingertips.

But, even among Internet businesses, there are many challenges as well. So, why E-zines?

A Super Hot Marketing Method

Why E-zines and not other methods? There are tons of methods of making money online like AdSense publishing, playing the AdWords game, affiliate marketing and many others, but E-zine publishing is one of the most lucrative methods online.

Take for example E-zine advertising:

Advertising on email Ezines, is becoming one of the most popular forms of online marketing. Many experts are making lots of money selling ad space on their Ezines while at the same time buying ad space on other Ezine ads as well.

The cost of buying ad space on Ezines is also much cheaper compared to Google AdWords (result may vary depending on the targeted keyword and the market).

Did you know that ads are never removed because people tend to send out archived Ezine issues every now and then with your ads stuck to them? Ezine ads have a very long life span compared to email marketing which is one time only.

You can also transfer an Ezine easily. Many of the Ezine publishers encourage their subscribers to pass around the Ezine to their friends, business associates, subscribers and mailing list for viral marketing effect. One guy even told this Ezine publisher for network marketing tips whether he can pass his Ezine to ALL his downlines (can you imagine the joy on the face of the Ezine publisher?)

Ezines are also HIGHLY targeted. The subscribers there are generally more responsive to your product.

Plus the fact that you can place ads on Ezines for free sometimes because many Ezine publishers are willing to offer free ad space because they want to beef up their Ezines with pages!

Basically, Ezine publishing offers many angles of marketing and income and many other Internet marketing models don’t have.

Low-Cost, High-Profit

Can you imagine the infrastructure needed for setting up your own publishing house the conventional way? It is common knowledge that a brick and mortar business is full of risks and costs a lot of time and money to setup. You need to have lots of paid-staff like editors, news reporters and even the cleaning ladies!

As an Ezine publisher, you gain the benefits of a conventional newsletter publisher enjoys without worrying about paper at all! You can easily and conveniently spread your marketing influence and expertise to all your subscribers even if you are just an ordinary individual. Basically, you’re the boss!

You do not have to invest in expensive printing equipment, brick and mortar business, and hiring staff just to run your own newsletter publication, resulting in a lot of time, money and effort saved. So what could be better?

The goal of every business is low-cost, high profit!

Having big buildings and many staff at your disposal may make you feel powerful, but in reality, all this cost lots of money. Every staff and building is just additional overheads. You may earn a lot of money but you are spending a lot at the same time! Operating your Ezine at the comfort of your on home is much more cost effective. Remember that every penny saved is a penny earned!

Do you know that an auto responder will also double as your salesperson, customer relations manager and support clerk? An auto responder works round the clock and doesn’t go for lunch breaks (and they cost about $15 a month to operate!)

The business of Ezine publishing is also highly scalable because the more subscribers you have will not burden you as much compared to servicing your customers in the real world as a sales person. When you have your online business setup, it can even run on autopilot – a set-and-forget model!

Multiple Profit Funnels

Experts have claimed that it is suicidal for anyone to have only ONE source of income. If you have only one source of income, you are in a risky position. Even in an online business, if you are focusing on selling one product to many different markets, your income potential is very limited and you are not maximizing your resources.

The beauty of an online business is this – you can create a business model or a website and build traffic, build relationships with your customers and sell them products. Once your website has developed enough traction, you can start focusing on the profits.

Maybe you might not make so much money if you are just starting out, but if one website can bring in $500 to $1,000 every single month on autopilot, I am very sure you won’t mind creating multiple profit funnels.

The same applies to an E-zine. You can build your Ezine business just like any niche marketing websites. You drive traffic, get them to subscribe to your newsletter or Ezine, build relationships through a daily newsletter or an e-course and sell them your own products or promote affiliate programs.

Once your Ezine is on autopilot, you can create ANOTHER Ezine and create another profit funnel for yourself! You can create one after another and soon, you will have many online businesses operating for you each giving you residual income.

The best thing about Ezines is that you can build them with any other Internet business models out there. Let’s say you are into AdSense publishing, a newsletter will turn a common subscriber into one of your loyal blog readers. How about Google AdWords? If you have a powerful newsletter linked to a well written sales copy, you can even use AdWords to draw traffic into your newsletter.

How about with affiliate programs? You can create many different Ezines all with recommended resources to all sorts of affiliate programs out there. The possibilities are endless. All you need to do is source for the ones that pay the highest commissions and which programs are most suitable for your subscribers.

Anyone Can Do It!

Almost anyone can write an E-zine. This business model is so simple that any layman with the right attitude and basic aptitude for computers will be able to succeed as an Ezine publisher. (Of course you must work very hard at it, just like any offline business)

Just put yourself in the shoes of a well known publisher and imagine yourself with all the facilities without the overheads or headaches.

Ezine publishing is a dream business for anyone and if everyone knew how profitable Ezine publishing can be, they will jump on the band wagon immediately.

Are you prepared to think like a marketer? Do you have any sales experience? These assets are also very valuable when it comes to Ezine publishing.

Always remember that the basic principles in an offline business will always apply in an online business. You will need to have a service oriented attitude. You must be able to anticipate your subscriber’s needs. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. These are all part and parcel of any successful business that provides value.

Are you up to the task? The only problem is with us. The 80-20 rule will always apply no matter you are in conventional business, network marketing, direct marketing or Internet marketing.

Many people think that all they need to do is purchase a ‘business’ or an ‘opportunity’ and all they have to do is sit around and wait for their money tree to sprout money. Don’t be naïve – you have to put in a lot of hard work when it comes to Ezine publishing and you have to stand out among the crowd.

If you have no love for the computer or the Internet, then don’t bother – Ezine publishing is most probably not for you.

The good news is that this business model isn’t as technically challenging as programming languages. Even if you can’t write, you can always outsource to ghostwriters who will help you get the job done for a fee.

The Process of Getting Started

You will need basic tools such as a domain name, web hosting and an auto responder. Purchase a domain name that is related to the niche you are targeting. Find a reliable web host to host your website.

But, among these three basic tools, the most important one of all is the auto responder. Some people even run newsletters without a website (although owning a website will increase your credibility and profit funnels).

An auto responder will do the work of your sales force, manage your customer and subscribers for you and help you build relationships with your subscribers and support them with any issues all while you are asleep.

Auto responders are also very important for customization. You can address the subscriber by his first name and give it a very personalized touch.

If you spend your time trying to respond to all your customers’ e-mails you will feel like quitting because of the sheer amount of support work!

Not only will you have little time for product creation and marketing, your customers will become a very angry bunch because you are taking far too long to reply their emails! Customers can get really edgy at times and you must make sure you attend to each of their every need.

In addition to that, you need content. Lots and lots of content royalty free content will help you to get started. Why is relevant content important? It’s because you need to spend hours of research when you start out on your first Ezine campaign. You must have content that you can use to play around with, tweak your Ezine and cross reference with or else you don’t stand a chance against the competition outside.

Remember to do a lot of market research on your chosen niche. At the end of the day, you have many options ahead of you, all that is needed for you now is to take action and get your business started as fast as possible!

Ezine publishing – A Top Lucrative Internet Marketing Method