Now that you have some prospects to talk to you need to establish a method of communicating with them that promotes trust and reliance, Ezines are a great vehicle for that. To be effective you must go beyond the initial steps that most companies take by throwing together something and thinking they are ahead of the game because they are sending an Ezine at all. That was true ten years ago, but today you will only be successful at annoying people when they realize they have another piece of “junk” in their inbox.
We will cover all the different purposes of an Ezine and how you can accomplish those motives by using different formats and angles. We will cover the basics of how to name your Ezine and decide how frequently and on what days you should send it. You will discover how getting a little personal help can strengthen the bond between you and your reader. Then we will discuss spam, what it is and how to avoid becoming entangled in it. Next you will learn how you can categorize your Ezine contacts to get optimum results, how to use personalization and ideas for special promotions.
The bottom line is there’s a lot more to creating and running an Ezine than just writing a short message and pressing send. Some people spend their entire careers teaching people how to create effective Ezines. Fortunately, you don’t need to struggle with your Ezine the strategies in this article we will help you get off to a good start and the feedback you get will allow you to systematically test different approaches until you have cultivated it into a strong asset.
Purpose of an Ezine
The most fundamental purpose of an Ezine is to build relationships with prospects. This is done both by asking the reader questions and by providing valuable and entertaining content as well as the occasional glimpse of your personal life.
Some of the tasks of Ezine correspondence are:
• Help your prospect make progress toward their goal
• To deliver links for downloadable products
• Establish you as an expert
• Keep you and your brand front of mind
• Serve as an enticement to collect contact info
• Follow up with clients after a purchase
• Get people to your sales page
There are several different types of Ezine messages, including contests, tips and articles.
Contests
A contest could be based on getting the correct/best answers to a quiz, or your clients’ or prospects’ submissions. They could submit video, or text entries focused on why they should get the prize. Then you can use the submissions for more “testimonial” content or narrow down to the finalist and then let the subscribers pick the winner.
Weekly or Daily Tips
Your Ezine can regularly provide a valuable tip that your prospect/client can use to build their business/career. There’s no need to make the message long; two or three paragraphs explaining your recommendation and how to implement it is enough.
Article Series
Sequential articles explaining how to do something or revealing different ways to approach a single challenge are great topics for an Ezine. Each article can reveal one of the steps, or ways to reach the end result. The following are title formats that work well:
• How to…
• # Steps To…
• # Ways to…
• Top 10…
• # Strategies for…
• # Things that Will NOT…
News
You can use your Ezine to keep your readers notified of important industry news or how mainstream news may impact them personally. Google alerts can make this easier by keeping you abreast on current events. When you set it up make sure to create alert specifications detailed enough that you are not overwhelmed with irrelevant information. Then report the news with your personal insights, to your subscribers.
Interviews
Interviews are not only an interesting way to share information but also a great way to create new content. You never know exactly where a conversation will go between two people and that’s what makes it interesting. You can hold interviews with:
• Industry celebrities
• Experts in related fields – this is a great way to get fresh, pertinent information
• Experts with more authority and name recognition than you; just association with them can elevate your status
• Clients sharing their success stories
• Question and answer series with practically anyone in your industry, from an expert to a newbie
• Product review – this is one way of providing valuable information and getting an interview with someone who may have not otherwise met with you
Personal Information
You can include some entertaining stories about family, friends, pets, hobbies, successes and travel. Or you could occasionally include humor, opinions or recipes in your Ezine. Always find a way to link the personal information back to relevant work topic so it is relative to the piece as a whole.
For example, you could use a story about a recent trip and then talk about how your business has made travel like this possible for you. Or share a family recipe and explain that due to your business success you are able to spend more time with family creating some of your family’s favorite traditional meals.
Be yourself. You may be nervous that this will offend some people or they will simply be turned off by you, and you are right that a few undoubtedly will. Those who dislike you probably would have left soon anyway, and those who stay will like you more for being genuine. Eventually revealing more of who you are just accelerates the process.
I like to think of it as weeding out the group so you can find your long-term clients faster. There is a quote by playwright and lecturer Raymond Hull, “He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.” You have to stay true to yourself even if it means loosing a few clients, because it’s necessary to preserving yourself.
Special Events
You can also include special messages for holidays, anniversaries and birthdays. These can be more of a personal nature or you can relate them to your industry. Having a birthday? Talk about how aging impacts your business? Is Christmas approaching? How does the business environment change in your industry around the holidays?
Now that you have a lot of ideas for the style and format of your Ezine we will cover exactly how to set up your Ezine. See Implementing a New Ezine Newsletter for Part 2 of 2