Publishing An Ezine or Newsletter 

Publishing an ezine or newsletter on your website is an extremely effective way of getting your visitors attention, building a relationship with them and getting them to return to your site on a periodic basis. 

There is a fair amount of thought that goes into creating an ezine. But not to worry, a little up front work and creativity goes a long way and the work of publishing your ezine or newsletter will become fairly routine after just a few short months. 

But before getting started you first need to know who your audience is and how you are going to deliver the goods, so to speak.

Find a pencil and piece of paper and think carefully about the following. Write down your answers and review them:

• Why do you want to start an ezine publication? 
• What is the purpose of the ezine? 
• Who do you want to read your ezine? 
• How much do you want to cover in your ezine? 
• How do you hope to affect your readers? 
• How often do you need to publish your ezine to reach your objectives and goals? 

The Who, What and How of Your Ezine or Newsletter?

These are all things that you're going to have to think about in order to find targeted readers, give your readers what they want to read and keep them interested.

Who are they? Are they men or women? Are they moms, dads, business people, college students. Do they work from home, work at a job, handicapped? How old are they?

How old are they? Are you appealing to college students or middle aged men? Keep in mind that your website could appeal to all ranges but you don't want to waste time targeting people that really have no interest. For example, I probably wouldn't want to seek out middle aged business executives for my beauty skin care site.

Where do they live? Is your business demographic specific? Is your product or service relevant to only certain areas of the country. For example, it might not be wise to sell snow boots in Florida?

Do They have hobbies?  Perhaps your product or service appeals to people with hobbies.

Where are you going to find them? If you have a golfing shoes site it won't help you to promote your ezine in a baby shoes directory. On the other hand you might want to make a presence on a business site that attracts business executives as they frequently have a large population of golfers.  Think about exactly who might use your products or services and advertise in directories where you might find your most targeted audience.

What do they read?  Think about what people subscribing to your ezine would normally read. Fishing magazines, Entrepreneur magazines, Wall Street Journal, Beauty or Consumer guides?

What are their interests?  Does your newsletter offer enjoyment or is it business related or both? For example, if your business is travel related, think about what your viewers would be most interested in, places to eat, hotels, shopping, travel tips, tours, etc.?

What is their income level?  You don't want to promote your products to people that cannot afford or need them. For example, you wouldn't promote real estate to college students.

What is their Education and background? Are your readers already knowledgeable about your topic? Is your product or service geared toward beginners, intermediate or advanced audiences?

How are you going to keep their attention? Your biggest job will be to hang on to your subscribers. You won't do that by delivering stale, uninteresting information. Keep your newsletter or ezine light, meaning easy to read.  Use humor and show an attitude of caring. Give them a piece of who you are and why you do what you do. Make a monthly plan of your newsletters and what you expect to offer. Then in each newsletter offer a sizzling pre-view of what's to come in your next issue.  The idea is to keep your audience looking forward to your publication.

How to keep the creative juices flowing - What the heck do I write about?

If you look around your computer you could be surprised at all the things you have to write about or advise others on. If you're like me you have desktop icons galore and each one opens up to a new world of learning. If anything, you probably have an overload of information you could write about in your field of interest.

Check out your email in box. Did you receive any new information today or interesting articles that you can place in your newsletter? Go to online forums in the topic of your choice. Look around at the questions people are asking. Can you create a topic that might cover a specific question and provide a solution for it?

If you keep your eyes open, you'll find more information that you need to create an informative and interesting ezine.

An Ezine format to consider:

Offer a Tips List:  Always include some tips and strategies with regard to your products or services. No matter how trivial the information, it can be helpful. Do you have little tricks you use everyday or ideas that you've thought of that might help others. If so, get them out there. Your readers will thank you and they may even grow to count on you for creative ideas.

Reviews: Offer product reviews or provide a guest review of a product or service. This is excellent for anyone with affiliate products. Find someone who endorses a product you promote and see if they'll provide an in-depth positive review.

Questions and Answer: Include a question and answers section or better yet direct your viewers to your blog where they can post questions and answers to various topics. This helps keep your readers informed and helps build relationships. Also, keeping a page on your site of frequently asked questions is also an excellent way to keep down the level of repeated questions.

Article by a Guest columnist: Include an article by a guest columnist or industry expert. The article should include useful information regarding related to your products. For example, if you sell or promote tax software, include an article on the benefits of using tax software.

Classified Ads: Placing classified ads in your newsletter or ezine is a great way to generate revenue, however it's not recommended to charge for ads unless you have reached a subscription base of 1000 members. Patrons want to know that they are getting some bang for their buck and they prefer their reach to be substantial.

Contests: Conduction an occasional contest now and then is a great way to achieve reader interest. For example, you could poll your readers asking them to pose their most pressing question. Incentivize your viewers by proposing that if you use their question in your next newsletter you'll offer them something of value, a free ebook, $10 or whatever you deem appropriate. Just make sure you provide something of value in return for their effort.