eZine Web Promotion

Web Promotion By Means Of eZines

First of all, what is an ezine? An ezine, or newsletter as they are also called, is simply a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly email message sent out by someone to a group of people who have requested it, or 'subscribed' to it.

They're kind of like mini electronic magazines.

There are thousands of ezines on the Internet pertaining to just about any topic you can imagine.

Most are free to subscribe to.

You see ezines all over the place. Most web sites offer their own ezines as a way to keep in touch with visitors.

You should start your own ezine about whatever your site is about. We'll talk about this more later.

There are several ways to gain traffic to your site through ezines. Namely:

1. Writing articles for other people's ezines
2. Buying cheap ad space in other people's ezines
3. Starting your own ezine

Before we go any further, I need to discuss something important. There are two types of ezines.

1. Opt-in ezines. In which people have voluntarily subscribed to the ezine. These people have asked to receive email from the list owner.

2. Unsolicited bulk email. In which people have NOT subscribed to an ezine. And have NOT agreed to receive email from the list owner.

The first, opt-in ezines are what we will be dealing with.

The second, unsolicited bulk email should be avoided at all costs. If you send out bulk email to a group of people that haven't asked to receive your email, you will get in trouble with your web hosting provider, and you will probably lose you web site and internet connection.

We call this SPAM. Don't do it period.

A quick distinction should be made here. A few chapters ago when I told you to find other web site owners and email them asking to swap links, that is not considered spam because you aren't sending BULK mail out to complete strangers. With the link exchange, you are directly emailing a single person personally with a specific question about their web site. This is completely ok for you to do.

Ok, so back to ezines and how they can increase your site traffic. Once again, there are several ways to get traffic from ezines:

1. Writing articles for other people's ezines
2. Buying cheap ad space in other people's ezines
3. Starting your own ezine

Number 1, writing articles for other people's ezines. Whatever your web site is about, you probably know quite a bit about it. So write some page long articles about whatever topic your site pertains to.

At the end of each article put a small signature (like your message board signature but a little bit more in depth).

Head over to your favorite search engine and search for ezines that relate to your web site. Make a big list of these ezines and subscribe to them all. Spend a couple weeks reading the ezines to get a feel for them, then write articles that will fit in with the ezine.

Email the owner of the ezine and send them your article and ask them to print it in their ezine. Many will, especially if your article will be beneficial to the other ezine subscribers in some way.

Ezine editors are regular people like you and me. Every week they have to send out their ezine. Often they don't have anything to write about and will GLADLY accept your article.

Overnight your article, and therefore you signature ad, can be seen by thousands of targeted people at a cost of ZERO dollars to you.

Just like posting to message boards, don't write an article that's nothing more than a big advertisement for your site. Put yourself in the shoes of the readers. What would interest them? What do they want to know about? Write about that.

If your article is informative and helpful, those readers will check out your web site as mentioned in your signature file at the end of the article.

You can look at other articles that have been printed in the ezine to see what other writers put in their signature. Emulate their signatures.

A normal signature might look something like this:

*************************************************
Article Written by Mary Weirdname Permission to reprint
This article granted as long as this signature remains intact.
Mary Weirdname is the owner of http://www.DogLover.com
Where you can learn everything you ever wanted to know
About dogs, dog training, dog nutrition, and dog grooming
*************************************************

You get the picture. Find as many ezines as you can, submit your articles weekly. Keep at it, it may take you a while to find ezines that will accept your articles but when you do it will really pay off.

The Second way to gain traffic with ezines is by purchasing ad space in them. Many ezines sell ad space very cheaply.

One ezine I recently purchased ad space in went out to over 180,000 subscribers twice a week. I purchased a 3 line classified ad that went out in 2 issues of the ezine and it cost me $30.

Yep, 30 bucks gets my small ad seen twice by over 180,000 subscribers. Not bad huh?

Granted all ezines aren't sent out to that many people. And all ezine ads aren't that cheap. A 6-7 line top sponsor ad in the same ezine I just mentioned costs around $300 dollars...still a pretty good deal.

Ezine subscriber bases can be anywhere from 500 readers to several hundred thousand. No matter what the readership number, you'll be hard pressed to find a cheaper way to get the word out about your web site.

I could write an entire book about writing good pulling advertisements for ezines, and that's not really a newbie thing to talk about so I'll leave it at that.

The third way to gain traffic using ezines is to start your own ezine. Every time someone comes to your site, offer them the chance to sign up for free to your ezine.

Get their email address and first name. Then every week or two send out a small email newsletter to all the people on your list.

This is a GREAT way to stay in touch with people who you already know are interested in your site.

This way you can contact them whenever you add new stuff to your web site that they may be interested in, or if you come out with a new product, you can use your ezine to sell it to those people.

I could write an entire book about starting your own ezine as well, and it goes way beyond the scope of this book, so I'll just tell you to look into starting your own ezine.

Your list of subscribers will become your number one asset online. And also, once you get enough subscribers, you can start selling ad space as well!

Ezine Resources (places to find ezines on any subject)

In this appendix I've listed a number of directories of ezines. You can use these web sites to find ezines on just about any subject imaginable. Many of them also have contact information for the ezines (so you can contact their editors about getting your articles posted) and some also have ad price information so you can learn how much it costs to advertise in them.

http://ezine-universe.com/ Email Newsletter directory

http://list-universe.com/ Email List Publisher Resource Network

http://www.list-city.com/ Contains a list of ad rates and contact info for hundreds of ezines

http://www.newsletter-directory.com/ 1,000's of ezines listed

http://www.freezineweb.com/ Good detailed info on wide range of ezines.

http://www.ezine-news.com/

http://www.fun-lists.com/ Good directory of ezines. Each ezine rated with star system by site visitors (5 stars best - 4 stars good etc)

http://www.ezine-marketing.com/

How To Market Your Business With Email

Email marketing has become a favored method of reaching consumers among U.S. businesses. In a survey by the Direct Marketing Association, two-thirds of companies say their sales increased in 2001 because of email marketing, and sixty-three percent credit email as the most effective way to retain customers.

This isn't so surprising given that email is the most popular activity among Internet users. This popularity, coupled with email's cost-effectiveness as a marketing vehicle, make it an important customer acquisition and retention tool.

Before looking at the various ways you can use email marketing, let's examine how to make your campaigns more effective. Like other marketing methods, when using email you should pay attention to some basic rules of engagement.

1. Target Your Message
   
   Put your messages in front of people who are most likely to have an interest in your product or service. Know who your product or service will benefit and where these people can be found.
   
2. Offer Value
   
   When people visit you by way of your promotions, create an environment of value which puts your visitors in a buying mode. That is... offer irresistible benefits, make it effortless for people to see the benefits, create an urgency in people to get the benefits from your product, and make it easy to buy the benefits (your product or service).
   
3. Use Repetition
   
   An integral part of successful marketing is your visibility in front of potential buyers. Therefore, it's important to realize the necessity of putting your message in front of people repeatedly.
   
4. Track Your Marketing Results
   
   Another important consideration is the performance of your promotions. Tracking allows you to test your promotions and zero in on things that work.

1. Start an Opt-In Mailing List
   
   This is a favored method of many email marketers. Those who opt-in to your list have already shown an interest and are ripe to receive your messages. Provide useful and free information people can really use, and at the same time offer services or products which cater to their needs.
   
   To collect email addresses you can use a free cgi script such as the one offered at WorldWideMart.com. Another increasingly popular email collection technique is the "one-click" script from OptInAutoMator.com.
   
   To send out your messages you can use programs that run on your computer or you can use an online service and avoid all the techie stuff. Programs such as GroupMail from Infacta.com and WorldMerge by ColoradoSoft.com are both good choices for personalizing and sending mail from your computer. Topica.com, Dundee.net, and Sparklist.com provide reliable online distribution service.
   
2. Offer an Email Course
   
   There are a couple of ways this can work. The first is to offer a free email course from your site. Over the period of a week or two you set up an autoresponder to deliver your course by email. Make sure your e-course provides information which has real value to your visitor.
   
   Alternately, you could offer a valuable freebie that requires your visitor to leave their email address before claiming it. The delivery of your e-course becomes a condition of claiming the freebie.
   
   With tactful and casual grace, you can then introduce your subscriber to your products and services within the context of the e-course. Just make sure you are enhancing the information they first sought. Overall, the idea is to create a relationship with people - a bond built on your expert status and ability to deliver truly useful information.
   
3. Self-Submit Ads to Ezines
   
   You can save some money and place ads in your own hand- picked ezines. There are literally thousands of ezines looking for advertisers, and if you've got the time to browse directories such as EzineAdAuction.com or EzineLocater.com, you're bound to find many ezines that target your market.
   
   Placing classifieds is very cost effective and if you choose well, you can see fantastic results. A few other good ezine directories are EzineHub.com, EzinesPlus.com, WebScoutLists.com, and MarketersMarket.com.
   
4. Advertise in Email Newsletter Networks
   
   These services let you advertise in newsletters within their network. The amount of time you'll save is worthwhile in itself, but the real value comes from being able to profile your ad for specific target groups. Some reputable networks include Opt-Influence.com, EzineAdHelper.com, PennMedia.com, SodaMail.com, and ShagMail.com.
   
5. Rent-a-List
   
   You can promote your business with a rented list. Reputable companies providing this service maintain only the email addresses of people who have agreed to receive commercial email. Renting a list can be quite expensive since you'll pay as much as 25 cents per address, however you can get some great results with a highly targeted list. Safe list sources include BulletMail.com, HTMail.com, PostMasterDirect.com, and HipLists.com.
   
6. Write Articles and Get Published
   
   Many ezine publishers and site developers are hungry for good content. Getting published in just one high-profile ezine can give you exposure in front of thousands of potential buyers.