The most common forms of permission-based emails are ezines or email newsletters. Currently there are hundreds of thousands of ezines available on internet.

Ezines are excellent tools for generating new and follow-up sales, driving more pageviews, building customer loyalty, and improving sales credibility and brand awareness.

Even though ezines are vital to success of every online business, there are some marketers who unknowingly kill their ezines with not-so-wise marketing methods. I have highlighted some of killer mistakes below.

Killer #1 .. Who needs permission? Just mail 'em!

A recent study of permission email recipients by IMT Strategies revealed following:

48% were curious to read permission email 13% were eager to read 30% were indifferent 7% open it somewhat annoyed 2% deleted it without reading

When it came to unsolicited email or spam:

77% deleted it without reading 16% said they were annoyed but opened it 3% were indifferent to it 4% were curious to read spam email 1% percent were eager to read it

In above results, we can see that 9 in 10 recipients of permission email were fine with reading messages, with a near half curious to read!

But for spam, 9 in 10 didn't even read email or were seriously unhappy about opening it.

We can clearly see a remarkable difference in response to permission-based emails and unsolicited emails. Always ask for permission!

Only add subscribers who have consciously chosen to receive your ezine. You'll reap rewards of having a highly targeted and loyal audience that are interested in reading what you send them.

There have been many times when I received issues of ezines that I don't ever recalled subscribing to. These ezine owners had taken their own 'initiative' to add me their list. Such spamming antics only seriously piss me off!

Never try to buy a list of email addresses and then send them your ezine issue telling them to remove themselves if they don't wish to get further mailings. That's spamming.

Killer #2 .. Don't let 'em unsubscribe

Since it is so difficult to acquire new subscribers, let's prevent them from un-subscribing at all costs. Heck .. just don't provide them with an unsubscribe option in newsletter. Then they won't unsubscribe!

Nothing pisses me off more than newsletters that I cannot unsubscribe from. There are no unsubscribe instruction nor any email address to send an unsubscribe request to.

Such practices are totally unethical and unprofessional. If your subscribers can't even trust you over something so minor, how would they feel secure doing business with you?

"But wait a minute," you say. "Aren't I supposed to be

creating great articles for MY e-zine?"

Yes, you are! AND after your article appears in your OWN e-zine, you should then submit it to others. This past fall, I quickly learned that this is by far BEST, FASTEST, FREE way to promote an e-zine for three reasons:

1) Instead of just advertising your e-zine, you're giving others a hearty taste of it! And by sharing these useful articles, you emphasize your expertise in your particular subject area.

2) You have right to plug yourself, your biz, and your e-zine at end of every article! And anyone using your article must keep this information intact. (More on that in a minute.)

3) You can quickly gain exposure to THOUSANDS of untapped prospects at a time. For example, last summer, a popular Internet marketing e-zine featured my article "Avoid These 5 Web Site Blunders." I was overjoyed to learn publication had more than *10,000* subscribers! Since this was a great article, and all of these readers saw my ad for my e-zine right after it, I gained hundreds of new subscribers by end of that week.

<< HERE'S HOW TO GET STARTED >>

1. PICK A WINNER

Browse through your archives and pick an insightful article that really showcases your expertise. Make sure it's one that you featured in your e-zine several issues ago. Why? It's a courtesy to make YOUR subscribers feel as if they're receiving unique information from you, BEFORE you offer it to rest of world.

2. POLISH IT 'TIL IT SHINES

Since you probably haven't looked at this article in awhile, do another proofread and clean it up if necessary. Publishers will not be interested in your article if it contains typos, misspelled words, grammatical errors, or inactive Web links --- these goofs would compromise integrity of their publications.

3. ADD A COPYRIGHT NOTICE

At end of article, insert a copyright notice, dated when you first published article. Example: (c) 2001 Alexandria K. Brown

4. WRITE A JAZZY "RESOURCE BOX"

In exchange for your letting other publishers reprint your article, it's customary to require that they include contact information you provide. This is usually called "resource box" and it should come RIGHT after your copyright notice.

Here's where you can ham it up! Take about five lines and promote your E-ZINE!