Tag: ezine

Categories
Online Business

Sending Emails To Your List: How Often Is Too Often?

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Knowing how often to send emails to your mailing list is a big dilemma that many solopreneurs face. You don’t want to bombard your subscribers with emails, but neither do you want them to forget you. One of my own subscribers recently emailed me to ask me about how often you should send emails to your subscriber.

Here’s an excerpt of what she said:

“Your article piqued my interest today, and offered solid advice. It is interesting to note that I just attended a teleseminar where it was said that emailing your list daily was imperative and that every email needed to be full of outstanding content. Since I am shortly beginning my first online business, I felt overwhelmed by that directive to insure my online success.

The first thing that came to my mind was that weekly should be often enough. How would I ever come up with outstanding content on a daily basis to send my list and still have enough time in the day to do everything else?”

From my experience and working one-on-one with many clients I know that this is a big dilemma for many solo business owners – after all, you want to build a relationship with your subscribers, but you don’t want them to forget you, and neither do you want them to unsubscribe because you’re bombarding them with so much information. It’s all about striking a balance!

I honestly think that those ‘experts’ who tell you you should be emailing your list daily have nothing else to do! And how you can you put out valuable, quality content on a daily basis – it would be draining both emotionally and time-wise! Plus the flip side to that is that your subscribers are going to feel completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of emails you’re sending them and are more likely to unsubscribe.

If you’re going to publish a regular ezine (newsletter) then it’s important that the frequency fits best for you and your business. My contact with my subscribers has been gradual in it’s frequency. When I first started I emailed once a quarter, then moved across to monthly (first of every month). Then a while back I decided that I’d do twice a month (1st & 15th) and it stayed that way for about 18 months. At the start of this year I decided to publish my ezine every two weeks on a Friday, and then a couple of months ago I decided that I’d publish weekly, but rather than produce a full-blown ezine every week I would create in-between issues that simply directed my subscribers to one of my blog posts – I have such a lot of content on my blog that wasn’t being fully utilized.

Therefore this strategy was two-fold, first I was staying in touch with my subscribers on a weekly basis, and secondly I was repurposing the ton of content that was readily available on my blog!

Conclusion: Create a schedule that is the best fit for you and your business, and one that works in frequency for your subscribers too!

Categories
Online Business Sales & Marketing

Article Marketing: Repurpose Your ONE Article in 3 Easy Steps!

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So, you’ve written your ezine article and published it in your ezine – now what? Do you just let it sit there, never to see the light of day again, or do you repurpose it and let it really work for you to grow your list?

I say the latter – repurpose your article and let it build your list!

You know I’m a huge fan of repurposing your material and really leveraging your time, and using your articles in this way is one of the most effective strategies you can implement to build your business and grow your online community, a.k.a. your list.

Today I’d like to share with you 3 easy steps as to how you can take your ONE newsletter article and use it in a variety of different formats to reach more of your ideal clients and customers.

Step 1 – Post it to your blog

After you’ve published your article in your ezine (hint: let your subscribers be the first to read your brand-new articles – one of the perks of signing up to your list!) take your article and post it to your blog. This is a great way to reach a whole new audience to let them know about your ezine, and to reach those people who are subscribed to your RSS feed.

If you also include your Author’s Resource Bio at the end of your blog post you will provide an additional way for your blog readers to sign up to your ezine.

Tip: If you use a blogging platform such as WordPress, this is hosted on your website. Each time you post to your blog you are creating fresh content for your website, which the search engines love!

Step 2 – Link your article to your Social Networking Profile(s)

If you’re active on Facebook and Twitter and other social networking sites, create a link to your newly posted blog article and let your social networks read your article too. Encourage them to also post comments so that you can engage with them on your blog.

If you’re using Facebook, you can set up your profile so that it automatically pulls all blogs posts into your Facebook account each time. This is done via the Notes feature.

And, because you are also driving traffic to your blog via your social networks, this is going to help improve your search engine rankings.

Step 3 – Create a Podcast

Reach those people who prefer to listen rather than to read, and create a podcast episode out of your article. A podcast is simply a digital recording that is made available on the Internet so that people can listen and download the files to their iPod or Mp3 player.
And if you’re using the services of a streaming media company such as BYOAudio creating your podcast becomes a cinch!

The three simple steps that I’ve outlined for you above all work very well on their own to help you repurpose your articles, but if you put them all together into a system then you have the foundations for your online marketing system and these strategies, if implemented regularly, will drive traffic to your website and build your list.

Categories
Online Business

Blog vs Ezine? How To Choose For Your Solo Service Business

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I often read debates on forums about whether you should have just a blog or just an ezine, with questions like,

“I currently publish an ezine and a blog, but I’m thinking of dropping the ezine and going with just the blog.”

My answer… you need both!

And here’s why:

Creating a blog post is much easier to do than going down the whole ezine publication route; however, as you do not know who is reading your blog you cannot begin to build a relationship with the reader in the same way you can when publishing an ezine.

Therefore you are missing out on building the like, know, and trust factor that is so important for a solo service business owner.

That said, a blog is also an essential online communication tool simply because there are some people who do not wish to subscribe to a regular newsletter, but will subscribe to a blog’s RSS Feed.

RSS Feed? Put simply, anyone can come along to your blog, and subscribe to your RSS feed thereby receiving any blog posts that you submit as soon as you submit them. By not publishing a blog you are missing out on this whole other target market reach.

My preferred tool for blogging is WordPress and I’ve been using this for the past three years. The main reason I use it is because it’s hosted on my website so each time I post to my blog, I’m creating fresh content for my website, which the search engines love, and all of this goes towards improving my search engine rankings.

A blog allows you to interact with your target market as readers can leave comments. However, as it’s not directly delivered to your target market’s inbox, it can be much harder to develop a relationship.

So let’s just take a look at some of the pros/cons of a blog vs. a newsletter:

Pros
* You can really show off your expertise by posting on a regular basis.
* Blog posts don’t need to be very long – approx. 200-350 words.
* If you have some important information to share, you can instantly create a post – no waiting for your next newsletter to make your announcement!
* If you use a blogging platform such as WordPress, this is hosted on your website. Each time you post to your blog you are creating fresh content for your website, which the search engines love!

Cons
* You need to post regularly – at least once a week – in order for this to be an effective marketing strategy.
* You need to feel confident that you will be able to write fresh content regularly.
* It can be difficult to build a direct relationship with your reader.

When And How Often To Post

Now, this can be a dilemma. It’s important that you post to your blog regularly in order to provide fresh content to the search engines; some experts say you should be posting at least two to three times a week!

Now that’s a big commitment if you’re not really a writer, so here’s what I advise to get your blog going…

Each time you publish your newsletter and write a fresh article for it, post that article on your blog.

And then try and make other posts throughout the month so you’re keeping your blog content continually updated. Posting to a blog is not as rigid as publishing an ezine so it can be difficult to create an editorial calendar or some other system. You want your blog posts to be spontaneous wherever possible. You also want to have in place a sign-up box to your ezine on your blog either in the sidebar or at the bottom of every post.

Some possible topics for your blog posts:

* Links to other blog posts of interest to your target audience
* Any new products or services that you’ve launched
* Any places where you’ll be speaking
* Events that are taking place within your industry
* An opinion that you have about something that is happening within your industry
* Links to resources that you’ve found to be invaluable

Conclusion: A blog + an ezine = more targeted traffic to your website, more subscribers to your list, and positions you as an expert within your niche!

Categories
Online Business

How To Fix Low Ezine Newsletter Deliverability

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If you publish your ezine through one of the emailing list services then you will also be provided with tracking stats for each issue. Are you happy with the open rate, or does it seem exceptionally low for each issue? Not only is it important that you publish your newsletter regularly, but equally important is that your subscribers receive it.

Is your list a double opt-in list?
Do you send both a Text and HTML version of your newsletter?
If you have answered NO to one or both of these questions you could be sabotaging your own newsletter efforts!

Why do I need a double opt-in list?

Double opt-in is the process whereby when someone signs up to receive your newsletter via your website they receive an email from your email list provider, which asks them to confirm their subscription by clicking on a link in the email. Once they have clicked on this link they are then confirmed as a subscriber to your list.

This process is known as double opt-in as:
:: they opt-in once via your newsletter sign up form on your website; and
:: they opt-in again by clicking the link on the email that they receive from your email list provider.

It is very important that you have this process in place as it avoids a subscriber being signed up to your newsletter by a third party, and therefore reduces the number of spam reports that you are likely to get. Your subscriber has had to confirm for a second time that they want to be on your mailing list.

The downside to this is that your subscriber may not confirm their subscription, in which case you would lose the subscriber. But if they really do want to receive information from you they will be on the lookout for your confirmation email. And isn’t it better to have 100 subscribers who really do want to receive your information rather than 1,000 subscribers who aren’t that interested?

Just recently I had a conversation with support at my email list provider and asked them about their double opt-in process. They told me that those lists that are set up as double opt-in lists are sent via a secure server that has been approved by the ISPs thereby resulting in a higher deliverability of your ezine. Lists that are not set as double opt-in get sent out on a different server and could result in your ezine being blocked by the ISP.

So even if your subscriber has you on their white list (or friends list) if your list is not a double opt-in list they may not even receive your ezine as it could be blocked by their ISP.

Check with your emailing list service as to their policies on double opt-in.

Why do I need to send both Text and HTML versions of my newsletter?

Again sending both versions of your newsletter ensures that it will get through to your subscriber. Some subscribers have their email programs set up to only receive text emails, and if you only offer a HTML version of your ezine they are not going to be able to read it.
Also, if you’ve sent your broadcast in both versions there’s a good chance it won’t be viewed as spam/junk email as spammers don’t usually send emails in both formats.

Conclusion:
To fix low newsletter deliverability there are two things you can do right away:
1. Ensure your list is set to double opt-in.
2. Send out both Text and HTML versions of your ezine.