Jesus had a strategy. He thought outside box. And he knew where to go. Of course, when you're God, you tend to know a lot of things.

What about fishing for ezine subscribers? Don't expect Jesus to tell you where to cast your subscription net. You will have to build some other strategy. In meantime, here are six steps I sued to grow my free online Happy Class ( http:/ hehappyguy.com/self-actualization-happy-class.html ) list by 27 last night, and my Daily Dose of Happiness (http:/ hehappyguy.com/daily-happiness-free-ezine.html ) by 10.

Step # 1: Sign up for Subscription Rocket ( http:/ hehappyguy.com/SR.html ) and install code on every page of your web site. SR is a small pop-under offering your visitors free subscriptions to newsletters. Unlike some pop-ups, this pop-under is unobtrusive and nobody has ever complained. Every time screen pops under your site, your ezine pops under four other similar sites. Most of my ezine subscribers had never even heard of me or visited my site before they signed up.

Step # 2: Get lots of traffic to your site. The Internet traffic gurus will tell you to attract only TARGETED traffic. But, with SR, any traffic will do. 1000 non-targeted visitors might be useless to you, but they will trigger 4000 appearances of your ezine notice to targeted visitors of other sites. Get most targeted traffic possible, yes, but whatever you do, get traffic. More on this later.

Step# 3: Get sub-affiliates, and get lots of them. Every time web sites you referred get visitors to their sites, you earn three credits. So 1000 visitors to www.Looky-who-I-referred.com means YOUR ezine gets seen by 3000 targeted visitors at other sites.

Step # 4: Replace some of SR codes with Subscriber Drive codes. What's difference? Not much. They are almost identical. You can see how SD works at www.TheHappyGuy.com/self-actualization-articles.html . Why use both? Two reasons.

Copyright 2003, The Write Exposure

Offering your email newsletter in HTML frequently results in higher subscribe rates, greater reader recognition and impressive ROI. That is, if they're done right. Done wrong, your reader may suffer broken links, missing images, or worse.

To take advantage of best HTML has to offer, your HTML will need to be error-free. Fortunately, that's not as complicated as it sounds. While constructing and testing HTML newsletters, we've found six steps that eliminate about 99% of all HTML errors. You can do them yourself or look for a company that offers HTML email testing.

1. Perhaps easiest way to avoid HTML problems is to offer a plain text version separately (depending on your distribution system this may mean setting up two separate lists). Though many email distribution systems do allow you to send both your plain text and html versions in one message, technology behind multi-part MIME can create problems with older email programs.

Because email programs vary, sending both versions of your newsletter in one message may actually create more problems than it solves (readers may see both versions, HTML may become garbled, etc). Though maintaining separate lists is a little more work, you'll wind up with a newsletter that's consistently delivered correctly, because your readers choose version that's best suited to them.

2. Write your HTML code by hand. Though WYSIWYG editors (like FrontPage and DreamWeaver) make quick work of HTML design, they're also notorious for adding unnecessary codes.

Excess code presents two potential problems. First, it bloats file size which results in longer download times for your readers. Second, these excess codes can confuse email programs which tend to be less forgiving of HTML errors than are typical web browsers.

3. Preview your HTML newsletter in a web browser often. Watching results of your coding in a browser is easiest way to catch HTML errors as they occur. You can use whatever browser you're most comfortable in, but remember each has its own idiosyncrasies and isn't identical to an email program.

By checking on your progress regularly, you'll also ensure newsletter looks way you want it to look. This saves you from going through all steps only to discover your newsletter looks nothing like you'd planned.