Ezine Tips: Format and Structure

Written by Richard Lowe


So you've decided to create an ezine! Congratulations. This is an excellent decision which will increaserepparttar odds that people will return to your website often (depending upon your publication schedule). Another very real (and often overlooked) benefit to running your own ezine is you get targeted traffic. People come to your web site because they are interested in what you've got to say, not because they randomly found your link on a search engine.

Before you put out your first issue you are faced with some decisions. Some of those are listed below, with pros and cons. Do you use HTML or text? - Text hasrepparttar 124383 advantage that it is supported by any email client. Also, text is fully self-contained, meaning people can easily read your message whether or not they are connected torepparttar 124384 internet. This can be an advantage is ensuring your ezine actually gets read.

HTML can be made to look better as you have much more control over formatting. You can also include graphics, sound and even multimedia. Note, however, that all of these elements must actually be stored elsewhere, which requires bandwidth and also means your message is more difficult to read offline. Onrepparttar 124385 other hand, you can embed a banner or other graphic which can be used to determine how many people are actually reading your newsletter.

You can combinerepparttar 124386 best of both worlds by using stationary files, although this restricts your readership to people who have clients which can view them. Stationary files can come with their graphics self-contained, which allows offline reading, and they have all of repparttar 124387 formatting capabilities of HTML.

Do you include outside advertising? - A major question, and it depends uponrepparttar 124388 purpose for your ezine. Some ezines are pure lists of ads - I believe these last about two seconds in your average inbox before being deleted. Why? Who needs a list of advertisements? We all get so much spam already that more ads just don't make sense to most people.

A better strategy is to provide some content, with lots of links back to your web site. You can then include advertisements interspersed withrepparttar 124389 articles, which increasesrepparttar 124390 chances that they will be seen. If you get enough subscribers you can even sell advertising space if you do it this way.

Personally, I don't mind a few ads in an ezine. This isrepparttar 124391 same model that magazines inrepparttar 124392 real world use - advertising pays forrepparttar 124393 content. However, I like to see a ratio of 4 to 1 at least, content to advertising. You give me too many ads without adding value, and I will tend to deleterepparttar 124394 ezine or to unsubscribe entirely.

Do you include full articles, partial articles with links to your website or just links? - There are pros and cons to each method. Including full articles tends to make for very large newsletters. In addition, I've found that I am less likely to make it torepparttar 124395 bottom ofrepparttar 124396 ezine if there is a large amount of text. This is especially true if I run into an article which I do not find useful - in that case I am very likely to just deleterepparttar 124397 message without reading any more.

Partial articles is an excellent way to get people to read your ezine. By doing this, you allow them to see that there is, indeed, more torepparttar 124398 message than just one article. Thus, they are less likely to stop reading if they find something which is not of interest. Of allrepparttar 124399 methods, I dislike lists of linksrepparttar 124400 most. I find this confusing and I am entirely likely to just deleterepparttar 124401 ezine unread.

I thinkrepparttar 124402 best of all worlds is to combine all three methods in each ezine. I like to include partial articles with links right at repparttar 124403 top ofrepparttar 124404 ezine, where they are likely to be seen. Following those links, I generally include a couple of articles in full, generally reprints from my website. Atrepparttar 124405 end, I include a number of useful links to articles and features which my readers may find of interest. If anyone makes it this far, they are, in my opinion, much more likely to click on a link than anyone else.

Do you include a table of contents? - If you've got a very long ezine, then it is probably a good idea to start with a table of contents. This makes a lot of sense ifrepparttar 124406 ezine is in HTML format, as you can include hyperlinks to each article.

Thinking of starting your own newsletter

Written by Vern Anderson


Since I have only been at this for five months, I am in no way a pro.

I can however give yourepparttar pro's and cons of having your own newsletter.

OK let's start withrepparttar 124382 pros.

You get recognition

You can place your own ads for free.

You get to have your own opt-in list.

You find there are still very nice people out there, reading your newsletter.

You can post your articles for other ezines to use, creating advertising for you.

With a large enough subscriber base you can sell ads to other marketers, once you can do this, you can start getting back some ofrepparttar 124383 bucks you spent getting to this position. (I HOPE)

You also have a sense of pride, that in some small way, you may have made someone's day a little better.

Now let's take a look atrepparttar 124384 cons.

Before I startrepparttar 124385 cons, I want to tell you this. Don't let this talk you out of starting your own newsletter. I am convinced this isrepparttar 124386 thing to do if you plan on staying onrepparttar 124387 internet and marketing.

You can start out without spending money, until your subscriber base gets to seventy five to one hundred. Then look out, because it starts to overwhelm you.

You are trying to send out one hundred emails by hand, using copy and paste.

You are receiving emails with subscribe inrepparttar 124388 subject line, and you are putting them on your opt-in list manually.

You print each and every subscribe, so if you get accused of using spam, you have proof that they signed up of their own free will.

You keep all of these in a special three ring binder, hoping you will never need them.

You try many many things as I have to try to handle all this without spending money.

Finally, you tell yourself, I just can't keep up and I must do something different. So you start looking for that free service, that will do this for you.

Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
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