STEP #4: Ad Swap With Other Newsletters & E-zines

A great trick for increasing your subscriber base involves contacting other newsletters that relate to your target market and offering to swap ads with them.

Tell newsletter owners that you'll promote their newsletter to your subscriber base if they'll return favor. This is a great way for both of you to INCREASE YOUR READERSHIP!

Subscribers will appreciate recommendation of another source of QUALITY INFORMATION, and as long as sites you swap with are complementary and not competitive, it's not going to hurt your business at all.

STEP #5: Promote Your Newsletter In Newsgroups, Discussion Lists, and Forum Postings

Another good place to promote your newsletter and locate targeted potential subscribers is in newsgroups, discussion lists, and forums that relate directly to your industry or niche. Simply post a brief description of your newsletter and a link to your subscription page.

STEP #6: Offer Subscribers The Opportunity To Give Gift Subscriptions

Offer or announce "gift subscriptions" in your newsletter that encourage your current subscribers to send gift subscriptions to friends.

You can automate your web site to send gift subscription with a little blurb stating whom gift is from and what they will be receiving (and opportunity to unsubscribe, of course!).

A friend of mine has built most of his mailing list doing this alone. He went from 5,000 subscribers to over 16,000 subscribers in less than a year just using this one technique.

STEP #7: Renting Opt-in E-mail Lists

Renting e-mail addresses from third-party list providers is a route that some new newsletter owners choose because you are given QUICK ACCESS to a list of hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have "opted" to receive e-mail on topics that interest them.

You can usually expect to be charged 5 to 20 cents per deliverable message, and you should expect any e-mail addresses that are "bad" or that "bounce" to be replaced by addresses that are current.

If you decide to use a service like this, it's ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL that you find out how e-mail addresses were obtained.

You want e-mail addresses that have been collected ethically and responsibly, and this means that you want e-mail addresses of people who:

a) are directly interested in your product, industry, or field of expertise, and b) have given their permission and "opted-in" to list.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you buy lists of e-mail addresses that have been "harvested" from newsgroups, classified ad sites, online services, etc., you’ll be accused of spamming!

These people have NOT given you permission to contact them, and you can get into a LOT of trouble this way. Again, I can’t overstate importance of making sure that e-mail addresses you rent have been collected ethically and responsibly!

A few reputable third-party list providers who offer targeted opt-in e-mail lists are:

Postmaster Direct http://www.postmasterdirect.com YesMail http://www.yesmail.com E-Target http://www.e-target.com Targ-it http://www.targ-it.com Focalex http://www.focalex.com TargitMail http://www.targitmail.com

Buying or renting e-mail addresses this way can get very expensive, so you need to be sure that your entire sales process (i.e., your web site, your sales copy, your ordering system) has been tested and tweaked before you roll out an e-mail campaign like this in full force.

Do some tests using a few thousand addresses and you should get a fairly accurate picture of how successful you're going to be.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Ultimately, your goal should be to develop a relationship with your subscribers through quality articles in your newsletter before you even *consider* trying to sell them anything.

Give them quality information that they will benefit from in order to establish your credibility and develop a rapport with them.

Remember that true value lies in RELATIONSHIP that you develop with person who owns e-mail address -- not in e-mail address itself.

It will be relationship that you develop with your subscribers that will result in big sales both now and in future -- an important point to keep in mind no matter how many new subscribers you attract.

I unsubscribed to ezines that had nothing but ads. That gave me feeling that I was in control. But, my friends, we know how false that feeling is. I was still hooked on good ones.

To make matters worse, I started earning an income working at home. I'm just minding my own business. Reading ezines; learning from ezines; applying what I'm learning. Money starts coming in. You think you have your life planned and something like this happens. I don't know what to tell you. I never saw it coming.

My friends say I've changed. I'm more self- confident; I'm happier; I'm more positive about life. They just don't understand and I can't tell them my secret.

I thought I could control problem by shutting down my computer. I realize now that I was just in denial. Before long I was sneaking into office. I'd tell myself, "Just one ezine. I'll just read one." An hour later, dinner hadn't been cooked and litter box hadn't been cleaned. I was off and running. Lost in world of ezines. With trembling fingers, I would turn off computer. But I knew truth; I wanted more.

I don't know what answer is. Just when you think you're in control, you find another ezine to subscribe to. Even if you're particular about what you read and don't like cheap stuff, there's always one more good ezine out there calling your name.

Well, that's my story. Thanks for letting me share. I won't tell you I'll ever be cured. The truth of matter is I don't want to be cured. I'll just have to take it one ezine at a time.