How To Start Your Own NewsletterYour Road Plan To Email Marketing Success |
4. Search Engine Search BoxSearch Engine search box Many websites and even Ezines feature this service. Ezine publishers establish an association with the search engine of their choice. Consequently, publishers are allowed to place a search engine textbox within the ezine. Readers of the ezine can thus enjoy all benefits a search engine provides right from the ezine itself. They don’t have to open another browser and go to the search engine website and then search for their query. The Ezine will still be displayed in the background even though readers may have searched directly through it. The search engine script opens a new web page for every search generated so that the window that displays your Ezine does not vanish. This is an added service that you can provide to your readers, which may also benefit you. Updates to your website Your Ezine is the perfect vehicle to launch your website and proclaim it to the Internet community. You can also regularly announce new changes or updates to your website. All you have to do is remind your readers to visit your website. You will be amazed at the clicks you can get on your website! If you get more clicks to your website, you might also be able to generate more advertising revenue. Additionally you can also announce launch of a new product, recent happenings, latest industry trends and so on. Interviews Another addition to the content of your ezine could be interviews of experts in your field. The interview need not be face-to-face interview or even phone interview. You can have the interview over the Internet also known as an electronic interview. All you have to do is contact your guests and find out a time suitable to them. Once you have their approval you can email them a short list of questions, which they may answer in brief. Remember devise the questions from your reader’s point of view. Do not ask too many questions to put off the expert. Respect the time that your interviewee is setting aside for you and ask only relevant and to-the-point questions. Don’t hesitate to ask for clarifications if your interpretation is slightly unclear. When the interview is emailed back to you, you don’t have to publish it as it is. As the editor of the ezine, you can select what part of the interview should be published in the Ezine. However, you cannot ‘edit’ the interview and twist the language, tone or idea presented in the interview. For instance, you may have asked the expert about his opinion on the new suburban restaurant that specializes in Lebanese cuisine. If the expert gives biased or derogatory opinions using foul or unacceptable words to describe the cuisine, you may choose to completely eliminate the question. You may include biased opinions – after all these are not your views, but you are much better off eliminating foul language in the ezine. That said, it is highly unlikely that a respected professional would use foul language to describe his opinions. This way you get to maintain the expert’s opinion as well as be diplomatic so as to offend no one. However, it is a good practice to get an approval from the expert on the final version of the interview. When introducing your expert, be precise and thoughtful. An introduction would highlight the expert’s credentials, current profession, interests and operations. The tone of the interview should not be bookish or prose-like. It should feel that the interview has been carried out in person and should be interspersed with expressions and statements commonly used in conversations. Hence, instead of ‘the recent practice of co-habitation amongst young urban individuals is contemptible’; choose ‘I don’t really care about the living-in scene that the yuppies go for nowadays’. Interactive features that initiate reader involvement There are plenty of ways through which you can motivate your readers to participate in some of the activities of your Ezine. You can set up polls and surveys that entice and amuse your readers. Even simple polls like ‘what is your favorite pizza topping’ will be welcomed! Some of these polls and surveys are for fun, some for getting an idea about the consumer behavior and some just to increase reader participation. The key is to encourage reader involvement. This can only help you in improving your ezine. You can have bulletin boards and encourage your readers to post their opinions about the articles, reviews, etc. published in the Ezine. You can have a section such as ‘letters/emails to the editor’, like the kind magazines have, in which you can publish a few, if not all letters. You can also publish a few comments or quotes from the email; you don’t have to put the entire email. However, don’t go on printing only the good stuff about you and the Ezine! Be sure to include some brickbats or criticism from your readers, your modesty and willingness to accept negative comments will not go unnoticed. People love to see their name in print. You could have small perks like ‘reader of the day’ or ‘opinion of the week’ or something similar. Of course, ask your readers explicitly if you can publish their name and email address on your Ezine, as some people are fiercely protective about their online identity. If your reader wants to be anonymous let it be so. Always publish a privacy policy for your readers to access and understand. Convince your readers that your company adheres to such a policy. Ask your readers for feedback and you can have a whole section dedicated to it. However, don’t make it lengthy. When you implement your reader’s suggestion, it won’t hurt you to say ‘Thanks to the suggestion made by Mr. Andrew Sutton of Dallas, Texas that you are getting a whole new ‘Downloads’ section’. To sum up, most people just ‘skim’ through Ezines. Don’t make skimming through your Ezine a daunting task for them. They don’t want to read lengthy articles or really long sentences that use words lifted from the thesaurus. Make your paragraphs short and your sentences brief. Use a lot of white space, as it will make your Ezine appear neat and less cluttered. Personalize your Ezine. This makes your Ezine more approachable. For example, ‘John, here is today’s thought of the day’. You can also personalize ads that appear in your Ezine. Building Your List with Articles You can build your list simply by writing articles, whether you have thought of it or not. Quite simply, you write and submit your articles on your topic of expertise or business nature to popular article directories where eZine publishers and readers are looking for the information you provide. Leveraging your viral marketing efforts on article writing can be rewarding, if done right. In the real sense, you are actually proving your worth and demonstrating your expertise about your business through the articles you write. So, how can this method in effect build your mailing list? The answer: the resource box you attach to your articles. In your resource box (also known as bio box), you include a brief detail about yourself and your business site together with its URL. It is strongly suggested that your resource box URL links to your mailing list’s landing page where you can get your visitor’s name and email address, which will in turn help you build your mailing list at no cost. If your articles are found worth sharing, eZine publishers will republish your articles together with your resource box for their readers and subscribers. The wonderful result: viral marketing without effort on your part! You can start by writing and submitting your articles to trusted article submitter sites such as http://www.articlemarketer.com/ and begin your article marketing journey today. You don’t have to write lengthy articles to have a successful ezine. In fact, like we discussed earlier, lengthy articles can only have a negative impact on the quality of your ezine. Your article should have words ranging from 500 to 750, not more than that. There are various resources available on the Internet that provide free articles, which can be used for your Ezine. Before you use any article described as free, make sure that you have asked for the author’s permission. Do not assume that just because the article is mentioned as free, you can use it conveniently. Carefully read the disclaimer mentioned on all these websites, just to get an idea of what kind of procedures do you need to follow. Usually, you may have to mention the author name by giving him/her due credit and provide a formal introduction.
|
Browse Site3. Invite Guest Writers to Write in Your Ezine 5. Free Resources on Writing Skills 6. Write Attractive Descriptions 8. Free Hosts – a Definite No No 10. Suggest the Change Subtly to Your Readers 11. Creating a Comprehensive Online Media Kit 13. Always Look for Opt in Ezines 14. Auto Responder Improvements |
||
| copyright - 2006 - kenmathie.com | |||