Discover What it Takes to Run a Successful Ezine
If you have decided to achieve success in email marketing, then a surefire way to do that is by having your own ezine or newsletter. There’s nothing wrong with advertising in other ezines, but you’ll always benefit much more if you’ll build your own e-newsletter.
But just by running another ezine you won’t become successful. There are tons of ezines that come and go. Many fail, because they don’t follow the basic rules of successful newsletter that are simply essential for a long term success. One of the main rules that you should follow if you want to achieve success with your ezine is giving your readers what they want.
Give Your Ezine Readers What They Want
It sounds very simple right? But you won’t believe how many marketers fail to listen to what their target market wants. They just blast one sales pitch after another and hope they’ll become successful this way. But after a few months you see them shutting down their newsletters and saying it doesn’t work.
It works. But only if you spend a time to do a little research.
If you want to have a successful newsletter, find out who is your target market first. If you don’t know who you’re advertising to, then how can you provide useful content that your target audience will want to read? You have to research your niche. Go to forums related to your market and read what problems people have. If you have a budget, spend some money and survey readers of other (related to yours) ezines. Use keyword research tools and see what keyword people type in search engines to find solutions to the problems they have. Go to ezine directories or search for ezines on the internet. Many ezines publish their readers’ sex, age and even hobbies. So you can see what kind of people read your type of ezines.
By doing this, you can visualize your average reader and find out what do they want and need. And when you know what your readers want, it becomes relatively easy to run a successful ezine. All you need to do is provide your readers the information that you know will make them interested and make them wait for your new publications.
Choose Format for Your Ezine Success
Another point to consider is the format for your newsletter or ezine. If you’re planning to pull the most of your ezine then having a text based newsletter is not enough. It was proven many times that HTML based newsletters outperform text based ones many times. So if you want to have a successful newsletter, allow your readers to receive your ezine in HTML format.
You shouldn’t ignore text format either. Some time ago, when HTML newsletters couldn’t be read by older email clients, text format was dominating. These days, you’ll rarely find people using email clients that can’t read HTML emails. So most of your readers will probably be able to receive HTML emails. However, some people might just not like it, so allow them to receive text version of your ezine.
More Tips for Your Ezine Success
If you’ll follow the rules and deliver your readers the content they’re actually interested in and if you allow them to receive HTML email messages that are more attractive, then you are on the road to having a really successful newsletter that people will read and enjoy it. But there are some more tips you should follow if you want to offer the best ezine in your market.
- Personal Point of View – There are so many newsletter on the web today that standing out is getting harder. One thing you can do is by personalizing your ezine. Don’t just blast one article after another to your list. In every message, include some kind of comment (at least). Better, talk in your ezine just like you would talk to your close friend. Don’t be afraid to tell your honest opinion. Look at blogs. You know why people love them? Because they provide authors’ thoughts on one or another subject and not a cold information.
- Provide Freebies – If you want to build a long term relationship with your readers, then you must from time to time offer them some kind of freebie. It might be a free software, script, useful report, interview, audio or video content, link to a useful service or anything else. But keep in mind that freebies satisfy your readers. Even if you offer a paid subscription to your ezine or you send your list only paid offers, try to surprise them with a freebie that will benefit them in some kind of way.
- Sell Less Often – If your ezine’s primary purpose is to provide useful information (articles, tips), then don’t blast too many product offers to your list. Do you like to receive one sales letter after another from the owner of the ezine? Probably not. So don’t advertise to your readers too often. How much is enough? It depends on how often you send your newsletter out. If you send ezine every week, then promoting some kind of useful product once a month to your list won’t be a crime.
- Offer Special Discounts – Imagine that you already have an ezine. You have a couple of thousand of subscribers that are very responsive to your emails. Now you decide to promote a product that recently shook the internet. Are you going to blast the same promotion to your list just like everyone else? Why would your readers want to order from you when they can order from someone else? Sure they trust you. But if you want to make them feel special and important, always try to offer them a discount on one or another product that you promote. Try to negotiate a lower price, or lower commissions to yourself, but give your readers some kind of discount. They’ll appreciate that and will become even more loyal readers.
- Include Unsubscribe Link – It might seem like an obvious thing, but there are still some people that will subscribe you to their list and not give you a link to unsubscribe. This is not only annoying, but it breaks the rules of Can-Spam act. It’s clearly stated that you simply must provide unsubscribe links in every commercial email you send. If you fail to do that, you’ll be accused of SPAM. But some people still fail to do that. Always make sure that you give your readers ability to unsubscribe in every email you send them.
In Conclusion
Ezine success can be achieved relatively easily, but only when you know who your target market is. You can’t have a successful newsletter without knowing what your readers want. You might provide them any information that comes to your head, but you’ll start noticing more and more unsubscriptions this way.
Only when you clearly know what your readers want, you can have a successful ezine. By following and implementing the tips above, you can build strong relationship with your target market and in the end, enjoy a successful ezine that will bring you a great feedback and lots of money.