How to format your Ezine…

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One of the most important decisions an Ezine owner will have to make is how to format and manage a given Ezine. The formatting alone can have a significant impact on how the success of the Ezine.

Currently, there are two ways in which to format an Ezine: HTML and text. There are both disadvantages and advantages to each of these different formats. The major advantage of using an HTML format is that you can then view email-opening statistics. This will help you determine how powerful certain headlines are – and will help you to determine how active your current list is; and if there is any way you can improve the activity.

The major problem with HTML for your E-zine’s format is that emails in HTML format are often much harder to get through email filters. In many cases, they are flagged as spam, which means that less emails will actually get through, which not only will affect your statistics, but will also decrease the amount of revenue you generate with a given mailing.

The major advantage of text format Ezines is the exact opposite of that of HTML format E-zines: you can tune them very carefully to make them have virtually no chance of being flagged as spam by email filters.

Of course, the major trade-off is that you cannot check the statistics on text-based emails, so you won’t know how many people are even opening them; however, you can get a rough idea based on how many people click through to your most wanted response page.

Alternatively, you can create two separate formats for your emails: text and HTML; and then let your subscribers decide which they would prefer to receive. Just use your HTML group as a testing group for different subject lines.

“Build your opt-in subscriber list with every web page!”

Turning every web page into a subscriber list builder is always a better strategy than relying on a number of different sales or opt-in pages.

Instead, work on getting as many visitors as possible to convert to subscribers – and then, from there, get them to consider buying.

If your page generates a lot of natural search engine traffic, but it ends up on various content pages, consider adding sidebar opt-in forms; and opt-in forms that act as page breaks.

Wherever possible include your ListHero squeeze box because of the viral marketing power and leverage it gives you.
Of course, you’ll want to spend time determining which method is actually the most effective for your given site. For instance, do sidebar opt-in forms work better than top square opt-in forms? Or are you simply better off altogether by using text link advertisements to your actual opt-in page?

Another way in which you can begin turning every web page into a lead collector is to create a javascript hover-over or fly-in. These are different variations of “pop-up,” which are actually a moving part of the page, rather than a separate page altogether.

You can create free pop-in and exit grabber windows here…

http://popinbuilder.icoder.com

If you decide to go the hover-over or fly-in route, you will want to make these opt-in forms as non-invasive as possible. If people suspect this is related to its hated cousin, the pop-up, they’ll click off of your site before they even get the chance to read the form and consider opting-in.

If you use an autoresponder service like Aweber, they will actually allow you to design these forms within your account. This includes sidebar forms, full page forms, squeeze page forms, and hover-over and fly-in forms.

The best way in which to determine what will really work for you is by testing. You may even want to consider using multiple forms on the page, such as a sidebar form and a fly-in form.

This can considerably increase your conversion rates – and subsequently turn every page into a turbo powered list building machine.

The Importance of Double Opt-in for Your Ezine…

One facet of Ezine marketing often overlooked is the importance of using double opt-ins for your Ezine, rather than single opt-ins. So what’s the difference between the two?…

“Single opt-ins” are subscribers who opt-in on a form on your website and immediately are enrolled in your Ezine’s normal mailing process.

While this makes it much easier for subscribers to begin receiving your E-zine, it is also considerably more prone to abuse.

For instance, you have a competitor who wants to put you out of business, all they have to do is scrape a list of email addresses from various places around the Internet – and then begin filling them into your opt-in form.

Since subscribers do not have to go through a confirmation process, they will immediately begin receiving your Ezine.

After 2-3 issues, there’s a good chance that many of them will report your Ezine as spam, since they have no interest in reading it and since they actually didn’t sign up for it in the first place.

Now, while this sounds frightening as an E-zine owner, this case is often considerably over-stated. This rarely happens. And, if someone is out to get you this bad, there’s a good chance they’ll find a different way to do it – to destroy your business or at least attempt to do so.

Now, the alternative isn’t great, either, but it is clearly the better option.

“Double opt-ins” are subscribers that are required to fill their details into an opt-in form and then confirm that they opted-in from their email address. If they don’t confirm it, then they won’t actually receive your Ezine, which means there’s a much smaller chance you will get reported for spam.

However, there is a downside to this alternative: if you don’t carefully explain to your customer that they will be receiving this confirmation page, they might think it is spam and delete it.

In fact, you may find that as many as 1/3 of your subscribers will not double opt-in.

In the end, however, this may be a gain, rather than a loss. If someone isn’t web-savvy enough to differentiate an opt-in email from spam, there’s a chance they might end up reporting your E-zine as spam sometime in the future, rather than simply opting out.

“Do You Have Content For Your E-zine or Newsletter?”

If you don’t have content for your E-zine or newsletter then what value are you offering to your subscribers?

Content is king. We have heard this term often enough, but the problem with people is that they try to take the easy way out. They don’t take this principle seriously enough that is why the Internet at times is full of unwanted junk and spam sites.

Too many people are obsessed with getting traffic, getting their sites optimized for Search Engine (SEO) and flashing their affiliate links all over the Internet through ‘spam’ comments and worthless self-promotion. This is only a short term solution and you can’t get long term results at all.

Did you know that good content gets ranked on search engines like Google because they now read the WHOLE web page and use it to generate matches? This is very important. As long as you write a lot more ORIGINAL content, you have a higher chance of getting ranked on the search engine.

Basically, you don’t have to worry too much about traffic if your content is good. Your target audiences are humans, people who read and understand your work, not search engine spiders. In the Web 2.0 generation now, HUMANS represent the web and they are the ones who teach the web how to think.

Similarly, if you have good content, other websites may link to your content and this will bring in even more visitors to your site. Links to your pages will also boost your PAGE RANK on Google and we all know how valuable a high page rank means to the webmaster in terms of search listing…

People hate reading an E-book without good content anyway therefore you must realize the importance of gathering content in advance.

The main reason for having good content remains, and it is an unchangeable fact – that it will make your website popular with your visitors and will give it a good chance of surviving and doing well.

When you get content in advance, you have many options. You can estimate the trends of the time and sort through what is considered obsolete information and what is considered flaming HOT in the market.

The next thing you can do is to divide your content into readable chunks. You don’t want to dump all your information into one e-mail. That is very, very bad because you will confuse the reader and they will most likely have little interest in waiting for the next installment.

It is very important for you to put yourself in the shoes of your subscriber because they probably don’t know the subject or the topic as well as you do (that is why they have subscribed to your E-zine in the first place).

Bear in mind, good content doesn’t always need to be in the form of writing, pictures, audio interviews and YouTube videos are all good sources of content and you can be sure that using a combination of these will guarantee good readership.

What Type of Content should you be giving?

When choosing what type of content you want to publish on your E-zine on, you must consider some important success factors that can determine the flow and goal of your E-zine.

First you must consider the format that you want to publish for your E-zine. Publishers today use any one or more of these 3 most commonly used E-zine formats:

•    Text E-zine
•    HTML E-zine
•    PDF E-zine

Each of these formats has its pros and cons and ultimately, it is up to you how you want to use them for your advantage.

If you decide to use text E-zine, make sure your E-zines are short and concise. Don’t try and put too many words in a text E-zine or newsletter because an e-mail should be short and sweet. Don’t try and be long winded and try and sell your subscribers something over the Internet – it is very ineffective.

The good thing about a text E-zine is that you don’t have to spend too much time compiling e-reports or edit HTML to get people to read what you are trying to tell them. Remember, always use text E-zine to pre-sell an idea or a product. Lead them to your webpage or your sales letter to do the job. All you need to do is worry about the text.

The bad thing about text is that you can’t put any pictures and unless your headline is a really powerful headline, it would be very hard to increase your open rate (the ratio between those who open the e-mail you sent to them and those who don’t)

HTML E-zine format requires a certain degree of HTML skills on your part, you can add more refined features to your E-zine issues, making them more appealing to your subscriber eyes.

This will definitely increase your readership value, something that text E-zines do not have because you can’t insert pictures into your e-mails (actually you can but pictures will cause e-mails to wind up in the spam folder if the file size is too large).

Even if you are not good at HTML, you can always use blogs. Blogs allow you to create the content without worrying about the form (in other words all the technical stuff). All you need to do is set your blog template and you can start blogging away.

What you can do is to use a combination of e-mails to lead your subscribers to your blogs or websites. You can decorate your E-zine format, change your fonts, include pictures, and more.

The last format I will discuss about is a format that is rarely used by others – it is the PDF E-zine. Publishing your E-zine in PDF format can consume a lot of time and effort on your part but it increases the perceived value of your E-zine by a lot!

Once you are done with all the formats, then you can decide what type of content you are going to put in regards to the format you have chosen.

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How To Bribe Your Subscribers…

A bribe (a.k.a. a bonus) is something you offer to new subscribers when they opt in to your mailing list. This bonus could be something like a special report to an audio interview or video tutorial. Basically a bonus could be anything digital that you think would benefit your subscribers greatly.

Whether you decide to give one or not, is entirely up to you. There is no hard and fast rule as to whether you should offer a bonus for subscribing or not because there are many different types of niches out there and it will be hard to determine what bonuses to give and whether giving one at all will help you and your subscribers.

Take for example:

Suppose you are building a niche around the network marketing industry.

What kind of bonus can you give that will entice someone to stay on your mailing list?

A free report on how to generate more leads?

How to sponsor more downlines?

A training call on how to prospect over the phone?

Maybe even a video with a personal message from you on how to help them grow their business?

These are powerful examples that will entice people to opt in to your list while you try and position yourself as an expert in their eyes.

How about teaching them how to make money through investments?

This could be a tricky topic because what stocks to invest in usually fluctuates over time. It is no point putting a special report telling people what stocks to buy if it is going to be obsolete after a period of time.

Unless you are giving tips on the CONCEPT of investing and the mindset and attitude of an investor (unchangeable principles), it would be rather pointless to create a special report on a niche that fluctuates a lot.

How about the dating niche? Dating niches are always full of tips on the Internet. However this niche requires you to give tips that are really practical because you are dealing with the feelings of humans. What makes your bonus so compelling that you would gain the attention of your would-be subscribers?

How about house cleaning tips? Do you think it is better to put those tips in your up-front bonuses or within your newsletter or E-zine?

Either way, these are important issues to think about that only you would know whether offering a bonus is feasible or not. Building your business requires planning and once you plan which is the most feasible route, you must act on it.

Bear in mind one thing; never offer your best information upfront unless you have something really good installed for your subscribers. You would want to save your best information for your flagship product and not to put them as a bonus.

Make anything you offer for free as a bonus (or a bribe) incomplete …with the complete information being in your paid for product.

If you give everything away, you will have nothing left and the subscriber usually doesn’t appreciate it as much because they were given away ‘free’. Customers usually value something they paid money for. So make sure you know how to structure your products well to bring in the right crowd.

7 Quick Steps To Setting up Your Website and Autoresponder

Step 1: Decide on a theme

Stick to a single theme, or a group of related themes. Don’t mix and match everything and try to be as targeted to ONE niche as you can. You can pick up a free ebook here called Niche Fortunes Exposed, it reveals the secrets to making a fortune from Niche Marketing.

Click here for your free Niche marketing ebook

Step 2: Match your theme with your chosen domain name

Make sure you keep it short, simple to remember and include the keywords.

One of the best places to buy a domain name from is fromGoDaddy.com

Step 3: Brand your website

Make sure your website stands out from the crowd. The average person sees an average website and browses off somewhere else.

You can get free website templates from oswd.org

Step 4: Optimize your theme for Google search

Make sure your title for your website is a keyword that will get ranked easily on Google and people will want to search for it.
Here’s an excellent keyword research tool that tells you what keyword phrases people are using it’s called SEOBook.

Step 5: Further optimize your articles or blog posts for Google search

Do the same for the articles you are writing on your website or blog post if the website you have created is a blog. As long as you have content lying around, Google’s spiders will pick it up and lead traffic to your website. You can get huge volumes of free website content to use on your website and in your ezine from any of these websites:

http://GoArticles.com
http://Ezinearticles.com
http://www.ArticleCity.com
http://www.IdeaMarketers.com

Bear in mind, it’s important that you use articles and information that contain your relevant keywords.

Step 6: Selling Products on Your Site

Make sure you have a killer sales letter ready. Your main product you plan to sell should be there once your subscribers have gone through enough pre-selling in the E-zine so that they are ready to purchase your product.

Here’s a product that’ll virtually write your sales letter for you. You can also use this same software to write a highly effective squeeze page. Bare in mind that even though your newsletter, ezine or ecourse is free you still need to sell it to your subscribers to persuade them to subscribe. The better you are at persuading them the more subscribers you’ll get.

Click here for instant sales letter writing software

Step 7: Advertising

Get as many people to subscribe to your newsletter as possible, even if it means using Google AdWords to bring in traffic.

Here’s an excellent free AdWords ecourse.

Now when it comes to the autoresponder, make sure you read the manual or the help file and really sit down and try and understand every single feature of it. Different autoresponders have very different features and you owe it to yourself to know it inside out because it will make or break your E-zine.

Click here for my recommended professional autoresponder

Once you have completed the sign up process, load one email address into the autoresponders mailing list. That would definitely be your OWN e-mail address.

Make sure you put yourself in the shoes of a common reader. You don’t want to screw up and have all your subscribers read all your mistakes like mailing the E-course out of the proper sequence or having the formatting come out wrongly. You have to work with it, until you know your autoresponder service inside and out!

I know this may take a little time, but believe me; it is far worth it than setting up your E-zine with all the costly mistakes. Doing so may also help you to tweak your autoresponder so you will gain and retain more and more subscribers!

Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog by entering your email address in the box in the top right hand corner of the page. When a new post is ready you’ll be one of the first to know …go do this now

How To Start an Ezine…

This may sound like a no-brainer but you need to have a very CLEAR intention why you need to setup an Ezine.

Many start an Internet business without knowing what or why they are heading into it (like holding a small candle walking around in a dark room). Therefore the most important tool you will need more than any machine or software – is the sheer desire to succeed at all costs.

The next thing you will definitely need is a business plan. Knowing the reason why isn’t enough. Your business plan will be your blueprint that you will use to build your business around it.

Remember, those who fail to plan, plan to fail. If you don’t have an idea what sort of market you are going to target, for example, a hot hungry market where people are willing to part with their money for your product and services, your E-zine would be pointless.

After you have your business plan cleared out, you need to have the basic computer tools that you will need to start off the right foot.

You will need a domain name, web hosting, a good autoresponder and list management software.

In addition to that, you need content.

So that means lots and lots of content to get started.

Why is relevant content important?

Because you need to spend hours of research when you start out on your first E-zine campaign.

You must have content that you can use to play around with, tweak your Ezine and cross reference with or else you don’t stand a chance against the competition outside.

Learn to separate your content into manageable chunks. Don’t try and dump all your content in one e-mail – it is quite stupid because people generally hate reading long e-mails and the purpose of the e-mail is to pre-sell, not SELL!

With a domain name and web hosting, you are ready to start your website. Decide the theme for your website that provides a synergy that works well with your business plan, then you need to get to work immediately.

Leverage The Power of E-zine Marketing!

How much does it cost to send an e-mail? Literally nothing! Compared to direct mailing, you are saving hundreds even thousands of dollars mailing free samples to people’s houses. But the greatest value you will every find in E-zine marketing is this:

The power of leverage!

Unlike e-mail marketing (although both are closely related), you need to sit down and assign each e-mail manually, (not to every single subscriber – that would be suicidal! But to use your autoresponder each time you want to send out a unique mail), an E-zine is something you plan way ahead of time.

Your sequential autoresponder sends out e-mails even when you are not sitting in front of the computer in a pre-set sequence. That is one of the main differences between e-mail marketing and E-zine marketing.

The power of leveraging is even stronger when it comes to E-zine publishing – you don’t have to send the e-mail manually when a new subscriber opts in to your mailing list.

E-zines can be constructed as an E-course

Another powerful feature of E-zines is the fact that you can structure your sequential autoresponder to look like a powerful E-course. That is one feature that has earned many Internet marketers thousands of dollars.

You can write your own E-course – for example: sales strategies for newbies E-course (5 part E-course daily) or how to arrange the perfect date (8 part E-course emailed to you every three days to give you time to try out your newly learnt techniques on your date assuming you have a few girlfriends or boyfriends!)

Used as a Pre-sell tool

Another powerful feature of E-courses is the fact that you can build a strong relationship with a new prospect and educate them about the product that you are trying to sell to them. The E-course can be used as a pre-sell and it is very effective to get the job done. People who are pre-sold do not need much convincing when you pitch your sales letter to them.

Customization

You can easily customize your E-course. Just do the editing to your e-mails. You don’t have to deal with any website or HTML at all if you want to amend the contents featured in your E-zine. You don’t need to be a technical genius in order to operate your own E-zine.

Short and to the point

Not everybody has the time all day to read long articles. An E-course a day or every three days is enough food for a busy person – especially other Internet marketers who are already making money online.

Other marketers would rather get the gist of what you are selling to them and make their purchases immediately if they feel that your product will help them save time or make more money.

You will discover many other advantages when you actually sit down and customize your own E-zine.

Before setting up your ListHero account I highly recommend you get your e-zine planned out first, miss this vital step and you miss out on the power of ListHero.

Take a look at the navigation on the right side of this page and scroll down until you come to the section called “recent posts”. There you’ll find all the information needed to get the very most out of your ListHero account. 

How To Plan Your E-zine’s Theme…

The first thing to do is to decide on which niche market to focus on

When choosing a topic or a theme to publish your E-zine on, you must consider some important success factors that can determine how successful your E-zine will be.

Firstly, you must focus on a relevant, in-demand topic. Topic-wise, you will do well to cater to a starving market that will always want content on that topic. This topic doesn’t necessarily need to be a generic topic.

Sometimes a niche topic with very few customers can turn out to be very good quality customers that will happily part with their money to buy the products (plus there are less competition in highly specific niches, you just need to search for it.)

Try to focus on writing non-time sensitive topics. In other words, topics such as relationships and dating are timeless compared to a topic such as ‘Web 2.0’ because the web is constantly changing and you won’t know when ‘Web 3.0’ will be out any moment.

Information regarding the Internet changes every 18 months so what may seem like hot news will become yesterday’s news within the blink of an eye.

Timeless Niches

Religion and love are niches that have been on Earth long before the Internet even came into existence. You can talk about those niche markets and they will never change. You can also try the food niche (There will always be people around who need to eat food therefore there will always be chefs around cooking for anyone with a stomach to fill)

Do a search on Google or Overture keyword search to find hot markets.

Niche Potential Analysis

If you used Good Keywords to mine for keyword phrases, you will get an idea how many times this keyword was searched during the past month.

The next thing you need to do take this number and start comparing them with other search engine traffic. It is like matching the demand with the supply to see if there are too many people fishing in the same pond.

Start by taking the keyword phrases and search them on Google (in “quotes”) to conduct this test.

You don’t even need to be an expert in those niches or used their products before. Have you ever seen an excellent salesman sell women’s shoes to other women before? He doesn’t need to wear them to sell them (unless he is a weird cross-dresser).

Click here for a controversial top-secret report that reveals the secrets to making a fortune from Niche Marketing…

Try and find out what sort of affiliate programs are there for that special niche as well and try and structure your E-zine around it. If you are lucky enough to find the right niche with high demand and low supply, that means you are on the right track.

Your E-zine Publishing Success Mindset

What is the most important success mindset you will need?

Is it the motivation to get rich? Is it the goal to become the most famous person on the Internet? How about trying to corner the Internet marketing niche blocking everyone from sharing the pie with you?

Regardless of your goals (no matter how noble or how twisted it may be), there is one very important principle you must never forget…

If you read the book ‘how to win friends and influence people’ by Dale Carnagie, you will find that no one cares how much you know unless they know how much you care!

This is a principle that touches deep at the core of each and every human being. It doesn’t change when you go online!

Because the person on the other side of YOUR newsletter is a human being who reads your newsletter because he or she is thinking, “What’s in it for ME?” If your newsletter doesn’t cater to their needs they will unsubscribe from your newsletter as quickly as they switch channels from a lousy television show.

You have to put yourselves in the shoes of your subscribers – What’s in it for them?

The more you give, the more you will get back. Therefore, you must start by giving away free information that is actually HELPFUL for your subscribers. Try giving them a special report or information that will help them SAVE MONEY, SAVE TIME, MAKE MONEY or SAVE EFFORT.

Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them. There are thousands of E-zines available on the Internet. As a matter of fact, there are people online who probably subscribe to 10-30 of these E-zines and are receiving 10 e-mails from all these people AT ONCE!

What makes your newsletter or ezine different from the rest? People will only open your e-mail once you have gained their trust and established your credibility.

Once more success mindset you must always adopt besides helping others is to rule your business based on creating value. It might sound the same like what I’ve mentioned above, but look at it this way:

A good business is a business that provides value for others to the point that they are willing to pay ANY amount for it.

Good value benefits MANY parties at once:

• The merchant – you make money and gain satisfaction of course
• The subscriber – you educate them and help them
• Your suppliers – these are probably your ghostwriters or graphic designers. The ones who do the grunt work and help you build your business. When your products create value, you create more opportunities for THEM and they grow together with you.
• Your subscribers’ customers – it helps your subscribers to help them
• Your COMPETITORS – yes you help them but in a way that benefits YOU because YOU become the benchmark that they will have to match up to and your raving fans will worship you for being No.1

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