Ezines are a great way to keep in touch with current and potential clients. Studies show that people usually won't do business with you after visiting your website once or twice, especially with higher end services. It takes at least 7 contacts with you, on average for people to decide if they want to do business with you. Sending out an ezine is a way for your potential clients to get to know you, and for you to establish credibility as an expert in your field. It's also a way to educate your current and potential clients, and more efficient than sharing the information one on one.
In this eZine, I share some of my information and experitse on internet marketing and business development. If a subscriber decides to use my services, consulting on internet marketing strategy, search engine optimization, and other topics is much easier, because the client will already have some knowledge and context on these topics.
You can re-use articles from your eZine, and submit them to article directories for more free publicity. Include your byline at the end of the article, offering your free ezine. A byline is a short paragraph about you and/or your eZine, with one or two links, and sometimes your photo.
I promote my eZine in my byline, instead of my website, because people may check out my website once, and forget about it. But if they sign up for my eZine, and the find my information useful, I can keep in touch with them long term. If at some point they have a need for my services, they are more likely to contact me.
You can also post your eZine articles on your website or blog. And with a blog, you can invite comments as a further relationship building tool.
And of course you can also make offers to your readers - for your own goods or services, or ones from an affiliate. Make sure these are relevant to the article and/or your target market.
If you want to get started with your own ezine, you're better off using a newsletter management service, instead of your own email program because once your list starts growing, it'll be extremely difficult or impossible to manage/transfer (depending on how large the list is).
A couple of services to check out are: Constant Contact - it's the least expensive service I've found, with pricing starting at just $15 per month. It's one of the largest email newsletter services, reliable, and they have good customer support.
Another good one is AWeber. It's also reliable, and they make it easy to schedule ulimited autoresponders, follow up messages or eZines. The pricing starts at $19.95 per month, regardless of how many emails you send out.
Feature your eZine sign-up box prominently on the home page, and preferrably every other page. Make it easy for people to sign up. Say something enticing about what you'll be offering in your ezine because people get so much email these days that they need a really good reason to sign up for your ezine.
You could also offer some kind of freebie as an incentive for subscribing. It can be some targeted information in the form of a free report, or something else you think your target market would like.
© 2007 Emilie Nottle
Want to use this article in your website or ezine? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:
Emilie Nottle of Zooop Design, publishes Grow Your Biz, a bi-monthly eZine for entrepreneurs and small business owners. If you're ready to take your biz to the next level, using your website as an effective marketing tool and automating your marketing efforts, subscribe at http://www.zooop-design.com/subscribe_info.html
