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Here are tips gleaned from roughly 5 years spent
building up an ezine list. I've also incorporated comments
and tips from Jenna Glatzer, who successfully built her
list up to 75,000 at her excellent site, www.absolutewrite.com
1. Free Stuff. Pick genuinely useful free 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 free 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 eachother’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.
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 ebook/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 ebook. I’ve
gotten hundreds of new readers this way, and much traffic
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 free. 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
traffic. 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.
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.
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 free.)
I think I could actually go on and on here. 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.
Copyright 2004 Suzanne Falter-Barns
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About The Author
Suzanne Falter-Barns’ website, The Self Help
Salon (www.selfhelpsalon.com)
offers tips and tools that help you build your
platform and get known as an expert in your field.
Sign up for her free ezine, Expert Status, and
receive her free report, “25 Top Self Help
Literary Agents
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