Lost TimeWritten by Bob Osgoodby
Lately, there are a lot of articles about how you must publish your own Newsletter if you wish to succeed in your online business. Bunk! It just isn't "panacea" it is purported to be.Publishing a Newsletter is a lot of work. Over years, a number of publications have come and gone because of several factors. First and foremost is lack any meaningful content. Many are simply glorified ads for their product or service. People may get them once, and immediately ask to be removed from distribution list. If you don't remove them, you face problems associated with spamming from your ISP. A Newsletter going out to a couple of hundred folks, just doesn't cut it. In order to be a viable process, it must go out to thousands. It takes a lot of time and effort, to build a subscriber base and can take years. You must identify your target market, and point your ezine toward them. Some offer free ads in their publications to new subscribers. Sure they might sign up, but how many continue after their ad has run? If your newsletter consists of an article or two, and rest is ads, don't count on an ongoing audience. One of best ways to build subscribers is to swap ads with other publications. This is a "win-win" situation for both. It also takes a lot of research to create meaningful content. While many articles are available for reprint, you must cull through them to find appropriate articles for yours. Just because someone submits an article to you, doesn't necessarily mean they are an authority in what they wrote about. People like original content. If you publish weekly, it is difficult to come up with fresh content each week. Of course, a higher frequency of publishing makes it that much more difficult. Maybe you are a pro in your field. If so, you are a viable candidate to become a publisher. But you also have to be literate, and gear your language to your potential subscribers. Spelling errors, punctuation errors and grammatical mistakes have no place in a publication. Sure, you might misuse a word once in awhile, and for example, say site when you meant sight, but you should make every effort to keep them to a minimum. The absolute best way to avoid these types of errors is to have some one else proof your publication, before it is released.
| | Publish or PerishWritten by Bob Osgoodby
While concept of "publish or perish" is certainly true for a college professor, it may not be case for fledgling entrepreneur. Many of pundits say that to get known on Web, you should publish a newsletter. What you quickly learn however, is that subscribers are not easy to come by, and that many of startup publications go away as quickly as they began.Some feel that if you accept free ads in your publication, it will help build your subscriber base. If you do decide to accept free ads with hope of quickly building your subscriber count or a mailing list, you just might be in for a big surprise. Realizing that spamsters will most likely harvest their email address, many advertisers get a free "throw away" email address. They use this in their ads, so they don't have their permanent email address inundated with offers from other advertisers. When their offer changes, they get a new one and "beat goes on". Statistics show that almost 8% of all email addresses submitted by advertisers, are undeliverable each and every week. That means that in about 12 weeks or so, many any of original addresses you gathered are no longer valid. If you are not getting new subscribers at a higher rate than you are losing them, you will find that work is not worth effort required. The free ad route is a difficult "row to hoe", so why do it? Some people offer free ads with hope of converting them to a paid advertiser. Many people who rely on free ads as their primary method of advertising however, are just not serious when it comes to their business, When they don't achieve immediate success, they either give up or try something else. While some publishers may consider an "affiliate arrangement", whereby they provide free advertising in return for a split of profits, most won't. While it sounds good on surface, in practice it seldom works out. This also applies to offline advertising such as telemarketing or list services. Most publishers have learned a long time ago that giving away advertising space like this is not cost effective. It is possible though to earn income on web. Some will achieve a high level of success, and others are happy to simply supplement their income. The first thing any potential publisher must determine is what level they wish to reach. If this is simply a part-time effort, you can reach lower levels and supplement your earnings.
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