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I’m sure you have heard many online marketers touting the benefits of having a newsletter. I have used newsletters in the past for many sites. I’ve used them as a source of revenue by having advertisements embedded within the newsletter content. They are also effective as a means to keep a site sticky - to “anchor” clients and bring them back to the site. Newsletters can also be a great selling tool to provide free information, samples of your expertise or services, and as a taste of your full product/service. The lure of free content from newsletters can help you to turn casual surfers to potential customers and then finally paying customers.

I find the biggest problem for me personally is to consistently provide new content (which is strange since I have no problems writing a daily blog, go figure!). Consequently I have looked for methods to get around this problem.

Many of the sites I control I enjoy for the business management side of things and don’t actually provide the core services myself. For example at BetterEdit.com I don’t do any of the editing. I have professionals on staff that handle that aspect of the business. Consequently I have found it difficult to write newsletters that appeal to my target audience. Other times I’ve just grown bored of the subject matter and it becomes a chore to write a newsletter. If you don’t have enthusiasm your output is not going to be very good.

Over the years I’ve developed ways to make money from newsletters without writing them myself.

1. Hire Writers

The first and most obvious way is to hire people to do it for you. I did it this way for a community site I built with over 1000 members. In this case it was quite easy to find people that had experience and enthusiasm for the subject matter; I posted a news announcement looking for newsletter writers. I hired two people and paid cash on a per newsletter basis though at one point my writers were happy to write for free, they just enjoyed contributing to the community (though I made sure to pay them whenever there was advertiser revenue). To make a profit I just made sure I had more revenue from advertisers than I had to pay my writers. A simple equation but one that takes time to balance since you need an audience, advertisers and writers. If you have a popular site (the audience) the other two variables should come easily. Alternatively you could try searching for a freelancer to write for you.

2. Other People’s Content

Another method that I’ve utilised is to put together a summary style newsletter that simply links to content online. You take the time to find the quality articles and links for your members but you don’t have to actually do any writing yourself. IncWire is a good example of a newsletter like this. It provides links to great entrepreneurship articles that have been drawn from all over the net. The newsletter is free and sponsored by advertisers. Of course you can also make use of article repositories such as EzineArticles.com and simply use other people’s articles in your newsletter. This is a reliable and easy option since there is no shortage of great articles available for free publication everyday.

3. E-Course

You can also try an e-course style newsletter. This is a bit different to a traditional newsletter. Your visitors sign up and then over a period of time intervals they get sent the course via email. You can use plain text emails (this is the best method in my opinion - keep it simple stupid - kiss!), or HTML email or Adobe PDFs. You can send them out once a day for the next seven days or once a month for a year. It’s up to you but generally the sooner the better because you want to continually build up interest over a short period of time. Will Swayne at Marketing-Results.com.au recommends a consecutive seven day e-course.

While initially you do have to write the content yourself once it’s written your done. You don’t have to constantly provide new content and your course can be sent out to unlimited subscribers. The benefit of an e-course is that you can really focus on what your speciality is. Your course acts as a showpiece for your core competency, your skills, and allows people to try before they buy. You can monetise the course by inserting affiliate links, advertisements or selling your own services/products (or all three!).

Newsletter Software

You might be thinking this is all well and good, but how do I manage my newsletter. How do I handle an e-course being sent out every day for seven days to hundreds of different people without being blocked by SPAM blockers. What technology is available and what do I recommend.

Personally I use Marketer’s Choice to handle all email communications but if you just want a newsletter service it’s definitely way too expensive - it’s more of an all-in-one marketing tool.

I’ve tried a few different newsletter software packages. Some you install on to your own server and then manage online, others that are externally hosted subscriber based services and one that functioned a lot like an email client that sits on your desktop and sends out emails through your mail server. All of these have pros and cons. Of course it depends on your budget, but as I have stated you often get what you pay for so be wary of the free packages out there.

I recommend you try my favourite script source, The PHP Resource Index (http://php.resourceindex.com), in particular the Mailing List category should be your first port of call. You can try good old Google search as well.

Anti-SPAM

Before you commit to any newsletter software make sure you check how they deal with SPAM. Do they have an official policy and description of how your newsletters will be received? Are they just mass broadcast? Your newsletter software should provide double-opt in protection which means your subscribers have to opt-in and confirm their subscription via email before they receive anything. This helps to keep you from being accused of spamming.

One of the main reasons I chose Marketer’s Choice was because they have a very good system to make sure your mail is delivered to your subscribers. They have an in-built SPAM checker which reviews email you send out and tells you the likelihood your mail will be blocked by anti-SPAM software. It has the capability to personalise every email that is sent out so it appears with “Dear clientname” rather than just a generic “hello”. This is an important feature both as a sales tool (people tend to read emails that start with their name) and it’s more likely that your mail won’t be classed as SPAM by anti-SPAM software, which flag non-personalised email as potential SPAM. It’s the extra benefits that professional services provide that make them worth the cost, but you do have to go out there and test to find what suits your needs.

Newsletters Are Ace!

Really I can’t think of many reasons not to have some form of newsletter or e-course on your site. Yes it does take time to set things up but it’s worth the effort. I suggest you write it in your to-do list now if you don’t have a newsletter already!

By Yaro Starak
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

Do you want to profit from your own successful home based Internet business?

Learn from Yaro Starak, a young entrepreneur from Australia. He works part time from home on several web based business that generate between $2,000 and $8,000 per month. Get your free articles and audio now - visit his Internet Business Blog.

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If you want to drive your organization to a higher level of success, here’s a word of advice: set some ambitious goals. No one ever unlocked the leadership capabilities, creativity and passion of their employees by asking for modest gains. Unfortunately in our “prove-it-before-you-do-it” ROI world, some organizations limit risk-taking and inadvertently penalize those who consistently think outside the box. The result is an organization as demoralized as it is bored.

In advertising, this propensity can be deadly. The best advertising people thrive on risk-taking because that’s where the big breakthroughs live. And breakthrough advertising helps build brands and profits. When the pressure to limit risk and drive down costs is overwhelming, it shows in safe, lackluster work.

Lou Tice, personal coach extraordinaire, reminded Seattle’s downtown Rotary last month that setting unrealistic, audacious goals actually increases the likelihood that the goal will be achieved. This may sound counterintuitive, but it’s actually good common sense. Those who set small goals never stretch and grow. So sacred cows thrive, people stay in their comfort zones, the quality of their work suffers, and they influence others to underachieve. Conversely, when people set outlandish goals, the only way they can achieve them is by changing the way things are done, moving into a new zone where innovation can flourish, and turning sacred cows into hamburger.

One of the most dramatic examples of the benefits of setting big goals can be found right here in Seattle. Several years ago, City Librarian Deborah Jacobs and Executive Director of the Seattle Public Library Foundation Terry Collings decided to dream big. In what became the “Libraries for All” initiative, her team set about rebuilding the entire public library system here in Seattle. Not content with providing a much-needed facelift to the facilities, they wanted to show the world that Seattle was serious about opening our doors to anyone who was hungry for information. Reaching this goal required better facilities, more resources for books and programs, and innovative thinking about the role of the library in the digital age.

An amazing thing happened. Their goal was so breathtaking, and the leadership so resolute about achieving it, that momentum started to build. In 1998 Seattle voters approved a $196.4 million bond measure, the largest library bond measure in American history. This funded construction of the new library buildings. Private support flowed into the foundation as momentum built and this provided much needed support to buy books and expand programs. As an icon of this bold, new initiative, the foundation hired the controversial Dutch architect, Rem Kulhaus, to design what has since become the new Central Library, a building universally lauded for both its architectural merit and for bringing the library into the 21st century.

When the Central Library opened, The New York Times architectural critic wrote: “At a dark hour, Seattle’s new Central Library is a blazing chandelier to swing your dreams upon. If an American city can erect a civic project as brave as this one, the sun hasn’t set on the West. In more than 30 years of writing about architecture, this is the most exciting new building it has been my honor to review. I could go on piling up superlatives like cars in a multiple collision, but take my word: there’s going to be a whole lot of rubbernecking going on.”

Today, every single community library in the Seattle system is being renovated or rebuilt.
And I’m sure it’s no coincidence that in 2005 we were named the “most literate city in America” by an annual Central Connecticut State University study.

Most people involved in this monumental accomplishment consider it a career-crowning achievement. It started as a goal that seemed too big to achieve, but teamwork, tenacity and out-of-the-box thinking brought this bold idea to its unabashed triumph.

With its unrelenting focus on ROI, corporate America may be crushing the kind of innovation that built our new Central Library. And what is particularly ironic is that bold action often provides a better ROI in the long term than a so-called safer approach. That’s why it’s incumbent upon those of us in advertising and marketing to make the case for risk-taking. We need to push back on the money people and request budgets that allow for innovation, and even the occasional failure. The more conservative, risk-averse philosophy may look sensible, but an approach that guarantees conventional thinking, bland solutions, and modest returns is far from it.

Bill Fritsch is president of Hydrogen Advertising, an award-winning, Seattle-based advertising agency emphasizing superb ideas efficiently produced. Reach him at 206-389-9500, ext. 224 or email bill@hydrogenadvertising.com. For more information, visit http://www.hydrogenadvertising.com.

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One of the most cost effective marketing strategies you can utilize is an online newsletter, also referred to as an E-Zine.

You can provide valuable content to your customers and potential customers with an E-Zine. The beauty of utilizing the Internet to distribute your information is often people will forward your information to others who have similar interest.

The key to success with an E-Zine is consistency in distribution. It won’t be beneficial to have a sporadic schedule. Distribution of your online publication should be done like clockwork. With all the automation tools available you can develop a system that is relatively trouble free.

For many, the greatest challenge will be the development of content. There are a few ways you can handle this. One, take a day to write several articles and put them in a file that you can easily access. That way, the writing is over and done.

Second, have others write articles for you. Many people are anxious to write for online newsletters.

Third, a quick Internet search is bound to produce several places you can access articles that are there for the taking. Usually, the only requirement is that you give full credit to the authors.

Because I love to write so much I prefer to write my own articles. And yet, if ever in a pinch, I know there are many options.

Here are some examples of well done E-Zines. Each has produced excellent results for name recognition, promotion opportunities and back end business. Notice all have a place to leave an email address. I highly recommend this in that this helps you to build a solid database of interested readers.

http://www.justbearsandstuff.com/newsletter/newsoctober2004.htm

http://www.greatsmilesutah.com/october-04.htm

http://www.kathleengage.com/newsletters/enewsoctober2004.htm

In my experience, I have found E-Zines, when sent to people who want them, are one of the most incredible marketing tools you can use.

Copyright © 2004 by Kathleen Gatge

Publishing Guidelines: You may publish my article in your newsletter, on your website or in your print publication provided you include the resource box at the end. Notification would be appreciated but is not required.

About The Author

Kathleen Gage is a business advisor, keynote speaker and trainer who helps others gain dominance and visibility within their market. She is the recipient of the 2004 Giant Step Award for Business of the Year in the State of Uta. Visit www.kathleengage.com.

Kathleen@turningpointpresents.com

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