Self-Marketing News - a marketing newsletter for small to mid sized businesses

PetalsNCents - a marketing newsletter for floral industry

Creating A Legacy - a newsletter for nonprofit community, and

Ramblin' Rose - a newsletter for my retail customers.

WECommerce News - a newsletter for Women Who do Business on web

The first thing you must do is collect your customers/clients e-mail addresses. We collect them when they call, visit my retail business, answer surveys, or enter our contests. We ask for an e-mail address every time we have interaction with them.

Formatting your E-zine

Keep it basically same from issue to issue. Consistency in format – can apply to many marketing strategies on web. That includes keeping it consistent with colors and look of your website to consistent categories in your newsletter. Consistency helps your stakeholders understand what is coming next – so they continue to look forward to receiving it.

Test new strategies with your newsletter – but you also need to keep certain things similar so that you do not confuse your stakeholders. This will decrease amount of un-subscribes you will receive.

Length and frequency of delivery – Make it easy to read and brief. The length of your e-zine will depend on frequency in which you publish. If you publish your e-zine once a month including two to three articles is norm, however if you publish on a daily or weekly basis, then I recommend only one short article and or a tip. Too much or too little content will quickly drive readers away.

Subject Line – The subject line of your e-zine should be consistent. You can use name of your e-zine, your organization or another catchy title. The main thing is to use same subject line with each issue.

Table of Contents – "Table of Contents" or “In this Issue” should appear at beginning of e-zine. This to let people know what is in this issue. Most people scan table of contents see if there is an article that interests them..

Categories – Should remain same from issue to issue. They could include:

Editor's or Executive Directors Remarks – A great place to welcome people and thank them for their support.

One to three articles – Lead with most important or interesting article. This will get people to read rest of your e-zine.

Volunteer recognition and Thank-you’s

What's New in organization – Such as events and happenings.

Resources – Things your readers would appreciate receiving such as complimentary reports, notices about upcoming seminars that would be of benefit to them as well as a book review or two are great items to put in resource section of your e-zine.

Advertising and Sponsorship Support – Here’s where you thank your supporters of organization and advertisers of your e-zine. Getting sponsors and advertisers to put ads in your e-zine can make it cost you virtually nothing to produce. One word of caution, follow 80/20 rule so people won’t feel that all you are trying to do is sell them something – that means your e-zine should be 80 content and nor more than 20% advertising.

Questions, Comments, Reader feedback – A great place to answer stakeholders questions that other may also be interested in knowing, comments and by all means any testimonials you receive from your readers.

So how do you take advantage of email marketing? The best method is to begin your own opt-in periodic ezine--or an electronic magazine. There are over ten thousand ezines on internet addressing hundreds of subjects.

What is real power behind ezine marketing? It is RELATIONSHIPS. Those who have learned art of editing an ezine are developing relationships with readers that will (in many cases) be transformed into customers and business partnerships.

There are several skills that must be learned to become a effective ezine editor. Here they are:

FIND A FOCUS

In his best-selling marketing manual "Make Your Site Sell," Ken Evoy points out that any effective marketing strategy must remember that "if you try to sell to everybody you'll end up selling to nobody." That's why he points out haw important it is "target your audience" (learn more about Ken's book at http://allaboutsuccess.sitesell.com/).

This strategy is also important for newsletter editing and promotion. Think about it. The next time you pass magazine rack in your local grocery store look at each publication. Each has a theme that is specifically focused toward a particular segment of society. Your ezine should also be focused in that manner.

What should your focus be? That depends on you! What are your interests? What are your areas of expertise? With what segment of internet community do you hold a particular affinity? I've seen ezines that address e-commerce, web site development, comic book collecting, cat lovers (ugh),etc.

What's your niche? If you don't find it you'll only develop a nice safe-list--you won't be editor of an ezine! Do you know difference between two? It's relationships. An ezine helps you develop meaningful personal and professional relationships.

Got your focus. Great! Now you need to...

DEVELOP A FORMAT

Many editors overlook this aspects of their ezine development. Without a effective format, however, your ezine appears disorganized and frustrating to read.

Here are some things to consider as you develop your format.

1) When you open ezine email, does first page grab readers attention and make them want to keep reading? Items such as a "quote of week," a personal greeting, or a attractive table of contents will help keep subscribers reading.

2) Is you format geared toward advertisements or content? You've read those ezines that look like the classified ad section of your local newspaper, haven't you? Neither have I! They are annoying! Focus on content, not ads. Both your advertisers and subscribers will appreicate it. Your subscribers will appreciate your focus on content. Your advertisers will appreciate fact that their ad will probably be read.

3) Don't forget to provide clear and easy to follow subscription and unsubscription instructions.

Now that you've got your focus and format, what's next? Oh yes, you need to...

GET SUBSCRIBERS

How do you get subscribers? You ask them to subscribe!