99% of all ezines are not "being a reporter" on current events;
that is the first and most important thing to understand.
This means that you don't have to be publishing your ezine one
day before the "deadline" of when you've decided you'll be
sending it out, and going into a great tizzy over the whole
thing.
Most ezines are highly topical and related to a business, a
market or futher products and services of one kind or the other,
and their function is to keep customers in touch, as well as to
convert interested parties into customers.
This gives you a constantly "rolling" Audience of old hands and
newbies, and an ebb and flow of subscribers and unsubscribers.
There are certain evergreen topics in any context that you can
always write about, and write about over and over again, from
many different angles, and it will always be interesting and
well received.
This is the key to successful ezine publishing.
It's not so much about "news," but about enjoyable content - and
that can be as old as the hills, including a 2000 year old quote
from a Roman senator; if it is interesting to your target
audience, it is applicable, and it can become an ezine article.
With that understood, the production of an ezine can change, and
it can become far more manageable.
Tip 1: Prepare a number of issues in advance so you have at
least 3-6 in hand and ready to go, all the time. That's what
columnists do so they don't go mad and explode from the stress
of constantly trying to beat deadlines.
Tip 2: An ezine does NOT need more than ONE GOOD ARTICLE, tip,
suggestion, etc. In this day and age, people do not sit around
with email as though it was the Times Magazine. Too long and too
much content, and they'll put it aside for later, and later
never comes as you well know with your own email.
Tip 3: As you're the publisher, you can have a flexible
schedule. Base your ezine on something manageable, weekly,
bi-monthly, but be flexible within this to suit yourself and
take things like public holidays, major events in your market
like the SuperBowl or the Olympics into consideration.
Tip 4: You can have a "news space" in your ezine which you can
fill with news, or leave blank and just send out the prepared
column you have already waiting to go. You don't always have to
have some amazing news item in every newsletter, that's way too
stressful (and probably even too much for your Audience!)
Tip 5: Make it as easy for yourself as possible! Don't go mad
over mail merging or complicated html formatting if it's a
challenge - it isn't necessary. There are people having
fantastically successful newslists and ezines who stalwardly
send in plain text, without any bells and whistles, but the
content is good and it's appreciated all around.
Tip 6: Remember your floating Audience and go back to basics
every third newsletter. Advanced subscribers never mind going
over the basics again, and it's essential for the new
subscribers. So this may be YOUR ezine No. 266, but how many
people were even there for the first 100?
Tip 7: If you are planning to have a commercial newsletter that
carries advertisements, include advertisements right from the
start and as a matter of course. It is the easiest thing to add
a short advertisement for a book on
http://Amazon.com with your own
affiliate link in the "ad space section," even if you have only
3 subscribers at present. Then, it is there, and later, when you
have 3 million subscribers, you can rent out a space that
already exists without disturbing your recipients or changing
the format.
Tip 8: On that topic, pick a format and stick with it. That
makes it MUCH easier to prepare and send newsletters on a
regular basis and takes the stress right out of it. Something
like: Personal greeting - Advert - Article - News - Advert, for
example. That way, you just need to fill in each one and that's
easy. Customers also LIKE a format they can trust and it
relieves THEIR stress, just the same.
To sum up: Make it easy for yourself with pre-prepared, ready to
go, ready formatted ezines that just need a "season's greeting"
or a short topical comment to make them right up to date. Have a
number of them in hand so you can take a holiday when you want
to; keep it short and sweet and stick to a simple formula.
That's what the professionals do and if you do the same, you'll
find having a top quality, interesting email newsletter or ezine
that goes out on time, a breeze.
(c) Silvia Hartmann 2006
Categories
