5) Builds Relationships: Let's face it -- Building a relationship takes time. Ezine publishing is one avenue towards doing so. I can't tell you how often I get an email from someone who feels she knows me after subscribing to my ezine for past year or so. Relationship marketing is important on Web and publishing your own newsletter will help you do just that. The truth is, we'd rather spend our money with someone we like than someone we don't know.

6) Allows You to Build an Opt-In Email Marketing List: Repeat after me: Spam is bad, opt-in is good. You can't buy a list of names and start blasting out your marketing message to people you don't know without getting yourself into a lot of trouble. But if those people have opted in to your ezine they have given you "permission" to send them email. They're an attentive audience who has already said they want to hear from you on a regular basis. You never want to abuse this right, but if you send out helpful information you'll be able to plug your company in between lines without making anyone angry.

7) Keeps Your Website Fresh in Visitors' Minds: Have you ever gone to a website and really liked it, only to forget about it later? Sure, you may have bookmarked site, but maybe you haven't gone through your bookmarks in a long time. I love when I get an ezine from one of my favorite sites, which serves as a trigger to "pop in" for a re-visit. This technique of "reminding" someone about your site is important; it really helps to keep a constant flow of traffic returning to your website.

Ezine publishing is one of most effective marketing tools online today. Not only is it powerful it's probably one of most cost-effective tools you can use in promoting your website. If you haven't tried it, it's never too late to start. Publishing your own newsletter can be one of most rewarding tasks you perform....not just financially, but also personally. You'll get a warm and fuzzy feeling from all of people you'll be helping.....and that, my friend, is a reward in itself.

I think I wanna die now. Full scale depression sets in and I dredge up energy to send a note to both ListBot Gold and to ListBuilder support teams that I've got a real problem with way this whole thing went, begging for some sort of solution from them and got two canned responses saying,

"subject:RE: CST34553119ID

We appreciate any ideas you may have concerning a resolution to this problem. I will be glad to forward them to Product team. Rest assured that we are continually seeking ways to bring you best email list service there is."

I'm literally screaming, "Help! I've been seriously injured and need medical attention to save life of my list before it bleeds to death!" They're standing beside me scratching their skulls saying, "Gee, got any ideas on what we could do to help? I wanna be a doctor some day." I want these guys to be first on scene of any accident I'm involved in!

I went back to my ListBot Gold account and hit that link that said "Restore a deleted list" and found to my relief that it worked and I now had an active list in both places. I'll just have to import new subscribers manually each week to ListBuilder account for everyone that sees my articles and uses subscribe link available from my resource box of articles published in archives of dozens of large lists where my articles had been featured over last two years or so.

I'll definitely look closely at any such new changes to be certain they don't affect my business on that scale in future. This has nothing to do with value or utility of service. I'm just outraged that I wasn't warned of problems that occurred here. MSN bCentral didn't warn me that all my subscribe links would be broken, they didn't say I'd need to change all my subscription boxes sitewide, they didn't say change would take my previously public archive private and they didn't warn of any potential problems change might pose. They were incredibly short- sighted in promoting "upgrade" to existing paying clients without posing any potential "issues" related to change.

I'd recommend that each of those items be clearly stated along with current warning that "Migration may cause a delay in delivery", which caused me to delay signing up until it wouldn't create that problem. If I'd foreseen other issues myself, I'd still have made move, but only after reconciling problems. The warnings should have been posted and if they don't do it now, I'd be surprised if others didn't consider taking legal action.

Friday June 22, ListBot Gold customers were notified that service was to be "Shut Down" by August 20 and those who fail to migrate to ListBuilder service will lose their data. Essentially saying to subscribers of service that they could care less how it affects them and by way, hurry up and get your stuff outta here. Almost like a bitter spouse booting her cheating hubby rather than a paid service that should respect those long-time customers and income they bring.

Current ListBot Customers who would like to move their list to a decent host, we've arranged a special deal for you. Visit:

http://website101.com/listbot_members.html for one month free hosting of your own newsletter, ezine or discussion list.