Publishing an ezine perfect fit for copywriters
By: Kelly Robbins
Interested in starting an electronic newsletter (ezine) but not sure where to start? I don't have to tell you the many benefits to having your own ezine – you're reading this one so I know you acknowledge the value. You probably also know that it's a great way to keep in touch with prospects and existing clients, with their permission; that writing articles and gathering content for each issue not only helps you learn your trade better, but allows you to teach and educate your target audience. And (the best of all) if you plan right, you can condense several articles into a product you can later sell and create passive income streams.
I know you know all these things. But what is holding you back from getting started with your own ezine? We all hesitate at times when we contemplate starting seemingly large projects that loom largely ahead of us. Projects that may be new to us or that we have no clue where to start. They might be so new that we aren't even sure what questions to ask to make informed decisions.
Well, let me help you out with that.
Here are ten questions to ask both yourself and the company that you host with to make sure you get exactly what you want with your ezine.
- How easy is your system to use? Can I cut and paste articles, etc from word documents or do I need to know coding and html? Do I need someone to help me is what you are asking.
- Can I upload pictures and how easy is that to do? You may not want to load pictures of your family here, but as an example we loaded some balloons to celebrate my birthday a couple weeks ago. Little things like that are nice to be able to do sometimes.
- Do you want to send your ezine just with words (text) or html (like this one)? Can subscribers choose what kind they would like to receive?
- What kind of information will you ask subscribers for? Simply their email address and name or more?
- Can you archive old issues?
- Will you let potential subscribers see a sample issue before they subscribe?
- How will people sign up for your ezine? Does your hosting company have a database? Can people sign-up from your web site? Can you manually sign them up?
- Can you use auto responders? Auto responders allow you to send emails automatically in a predetermined order. For example, when people first sign up for my ezine, The Healthcare Marketing Connection, they receive a thank you email and a free gift a week later.
- Know why you want to produce an ezine. To build loyalty? To create a sense of community? Because you love to keep busy?
- How often can/should you publish? Some hosting companies put limits on how many days a week/month you can send mailings.
Hopefully some of these questions will put you in a place where starting your own ezine is not so intimidating. Sometimes it's a matter of knowing which questions to ask to get you more comfortable with the process.
If you'd like to learn more in-depth techniques for starting your own profit-making ezine, check out "how to start an ezine". It includes a one-hour audio of a teleclass Kelly taught and a comprehensive workbook to help you get started!
About the author
Kelly Robbins, founder of The Copywriting Institute, is the author of Powerful Interviewing Techniques for Healthcare Marketers and The Healthcare Copywriters Toolkit. Kelly Robbins is an award winning healthcare copywriter and marketing coach/consultant. Publisher of "The Copywriting Connection", Kelly helps writers and marketers learn to write phenomenal copy. Contact Kelly to receive her free report, "Six things every copywriter MUST know to make high profits in copywriting fast!" at www.TheCopywritingInstitute.com or 303-460-0285.
© 2008, The Copywriting Institute
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