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Guaranteed
Ways to Build Up Your Ezine List
© 2005 by Suzanne
Falter-Barns
Want your ezine list to catch
fire and really start to fill up?
Jenna Glatzer took her own list from the
hundreds all the way to
75,000 in 7 years by simple, steady marketing,
and using many of
these techniques. (Jenna bought only 4000 0pt-in
names along the
way.) Hëre are some tips we provided, and some
I've pulled from
my own experience, building my list for The Joy
Letter to 17,000
over five years.
1. Free Stuff. Pick genuinely useful
fr.ee stuff that
you know
your audience wants and needs. For instance, my
brand new ezine,
Expert Status, attracted 600 readers in just a
few weeks by
offering a report, "25 Top Self Help Literary
Agents". The
practical freebie works. Jenna Glatzer offers
two fr.ee
ebooks/reports to subscribers on agents who are
receptive to new
writers, and on writer's markets. She notes:
"Before I did that,
my subscriber numbers were in the hundreds, not
thousands.
2. Put a subscribe box on every page of the
site. This
has worked for both Jenna and me. Mine is parked
in the left hand
column of the site. Experts advise putting a
simple sign up box
(with freebie mentioned) in the top left hand
corner, as that's
where the eye naturally travels first. A simple
sign up box that
requests only email address works best.
3. Ad swaps. Exchange plugs for your
ezine with another
website, to run in each other's ezines. Be sure
to mention those
freebies! Doing this on a regular basis with a
rotating selection
of web partners will keep your subscription page
busy.
Get a fr^ee business profile like this in the
Adlandpro Community |
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Kenneth's General Info |
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1221 Friends
Member since 1/17/2005 |
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Gender |
Male |
Age |
45 |
Location |
El Paso, Tx, United States |
Interests |
My family, music, drums, computers, sound and recording |
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Company |
Your Own Internet Business Today |
URL |
View Your Own Internet Business Today's web site |
Industry |
Home business, ecommerce, advertising, ebooks, information, internet |
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4. Cross-registration. I've found subscribers by
having
a plug for my ezine on the thank you page of a comparable
(but
not directly competitive) website. This offer is made to
folks
who just signed up for an ezine, and are therefore deemed
'in the
mood for more.' Offer a swap with your site, and try not to
list
more than about two other ezines. Also, make a point of
including
only really good, reliable publications that reach your
target
market.
5. Give away a bonus for other sites to use, based on
your ezine. A popular web marketing technique is the special
one
or two-day promo that offers big bonus lists when you buy a
certain product on those particular days. (I cover this
promo
technique in more detail in my e-book/binder, Get Known Now;
How
to Build Your Platform as a Self Help Expert.) So collect
some of
your best ezine essays, pack 'em up in a downloadable
PDF-based
e-book, and offer it as a bonus these sites can use in their
special promos. Don't forget juicy descriptive copy about
your
ezine, and a subscribe link at the end of your e-book.
I've
gotten hundreds of new readers this way, and much tra.ffic
to my
site.
6. Announce ezine 'events' on PRweb.com and other PR
sites. There's an entire world of web-based press
release
distribution services out there, some of which are low cost
or
even fr.ee. So use them. But be sure to only plant press
releases
that are truly newsworthy, and thus likely to get press
attention. Even if the media don't use your words this time,
they'll hopefully file you as an expert for future use.
7. Use discussion boards or groups. These are sites
frequented by gangs of people interested in the same thing.
Avoid
the unmoderated sites, because they're likely to be spam
targets
that generate little bonafide traf/fic. Boards found on
member
sites are the best. Don't spam the board with your subscribe
message. Instead, offer some genuinely helpful info. Then
sign
off with a signature line that includes ezine and subscribe
info.
You can find some of these groups at groups.yahoo.com,
topica.com, mail-list.com, and listfool.com for starters.
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8. Sponsor other people's contests. Jenna Glatzer
gives
away products like her paid newsletter, Absolute Markets
Premium
Newsletter, to writers' groups, contests, and conferences
that
request it, regardless of size. I've tried this too, to good
effect. Simply run an announcement in your ezine that you'd
be
happy to sponsor comparable events. Ask them to provide a
URL for
an event description so you know it's legit. Then offer up
your
gifts, and ask for a plug for your ezine and for them to
talk up
your dazzling freebie, as well. Jenna notes that groups she
sponsors "often send out ads for us to their lists "just as
a
thank you."
9. Run quality content. There's no substitute for
heartfelt writing plus solid information about a subject
that
matters. Jenna writes: 'The main reason our list stays so
big is
our 'letter from the editor' Each week, I chronicle my
writing
life and my triumphs and failures when an article is killed,
when
I'm having trouble finishing a book. And I share personal
things,
too, like when my grandfather died. People write: 'I feel
like I
know you so well.' And I think that's why they stay on the
list,
even when their mailbox fills up with dozens of other
writer's
newsletters.
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10. Allow reprints. Allow any newsletter that
wants to
reprint your articles do so. I like to have an email
requesting
permission, so I can enter their info into a big database I
use
to track where I can send more articles in the future. I end
each
article with the line: You may reprint this article in your
own
ezine or website. Simply send an email requesting permission
to
EMAIL ADDRESS. Please be sure to include our full bio box at
the
end.
11. Create a survey or contest. This would be one of
those newsworthy 'ezine events' I mentioned above in point #
6.
Make it a fun, relevant question that you could really
develop a
good, newsy story from. I did a survey asking people what
they
fought with their spouse/partner/boy or girlfriend about.
The
results made for the kind of reading offline media enjoy
running
short, 100-word pieces about (fillers.) I made sure to
attribute
the survey to my ezine, The Joy Letter, with a mention of
the
site's basic URL. You can get the technology to run your own
survey and collect responses at surveymonkey.com (for a fee)
or
bravenet.com (for fr.ee.)
I think I could actually go on and on hëre. The
possibilities
seem to be endless. If you try even half of these techniques
on a
regular basis, you'll find your subscriber rates double and
even
triple. Here's to building your list the foundation that
much of
your traffic and success rely on.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Suzanne Falter-Barns' website at
www.getknownnow.com
offers tips and
tools that help you build your platform and get
known as an
expert in your field. Sign up for her fr.ee
ezine, Expert Status,
and receive her free report, "25 Top Self Help
Literary Agents." |
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