How to Build Your Business With Ezines

Ezines are everywhere – you may even be a subscriber yourself. But for those concerned with internet marketing, the humble ezine offers huge opportunities for business promotion. Over the past few years ezines have become more and more interactive, and are no longer merely web-based versions of print magazines. They offer targeted information in a dynamic, easily digestible format, and hundreds of new ezines are appearing every week.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A business
• A computer
• Articles

1. Opt-in ezines and e-newsletters are a legitimate way to provide potential clients with sales information. All you have to do is write an article for an ezine – or have someone write it for you if you don’t have the time or the right skills – and include links to your product or service. Submit the article to popular directories for inclusion, and wait for the enquiries to flood in.

2. Produce your own in-house ezine. This could start life as a newsletter, emailed to clients and offered free to visitors of your website. By asking potential customers to opt-in to a newsletter you fulfil two objectives:
   1 - you capture their name and email address, and 2 – you stay in their consciousness whether they bought from you or not.
   In time, as your mailing list grows, your newsletter can also grow into a fully-fledged ezine, with articles sourced from all over the web, and targeted marketing for your opted-in subscribers.

3. Get prospects to opt-in by making sure your newsletter or ezine contains information that will be really useful and interesting. Keep news-style items current and up-to-date and don’t indulge in any blatant advertising or sales-speak. Make your ezine arrival an event your readers look forward to in its own right – when they consider you an authority they will buy from you without having to be coerced.

4. Articles for ezines and newsletters can be sourced free from ezine directories (see below) – but bear in mind the articles will have links to the author’s products or services so make sure they don’t conflict with your interests.

5. It’s a good idea to let your subscribers know that their information is safe with you by including the following text on the opt-in page:
   We will NEVER sell or give away your e-mail address or phone number to anyone. We will always respect your privacy.
   This way they will be able to give you their email details with confidence. It is also good practice to give subscribers an easy way to un-subscribe should they choose, usually with a link at the bottom of each newsletter.

Resources

• Article directory
• Article directory
• Ezine and webcopy writing service
• Loads of great ebooks about internet marketing

[Isolde]

on 7/25/2008 that is great information - thanks so much for putting this out there!