Ten Tips for Ezine Success

Articles, products, ebooks and books are great credibility builders. When your prospects read your insights, their perception of your value often increases significantly.

As you consider starting an ezine or are already publishing one, have you ever thought “I’m not a great writer and I don’t know what to say.” I thought the same thing when I began my coaching business. Now, I make a large percentage of my income on my writing and it attracts ideal clients to me. Who knew!

Writing is a gateway skill — a tool that, if honed, can make you wildly successful. So, if you are willing to improve your skills while you write, develop an ezine now for your niche market. It may attract more people to hire you than any other method of marketing. And this little effort now will pay you well later.

How can you make your ezine work for you? The trick is to treat your ezine like a long term asset for your coaching business.

The Ten Tips

For someone to open your ezine and read it through, the topic has to be perceived as valuable, brief and easy to read. For your ezine to be an effective marketing tool, you must do more than write it and blast it out to your list now and then.

Here’s how easy it is to make your ezine the fastest credibility builder and sales vehicle you have:

1. Be Consistent
Give your ezine a congruent look and format and post each edition to go out on the same day and time of the week. This one arrives at inboxes Monday at 4:00am ET. If you find it difficult to be consistent, make it a priority to get on track. The most effective ezines are delivered like clockwork. Weekly or bi-weekly editions are best for marketing. Don’t bother with less than once per month.

2. Stay Brief and Relevant
Include only one short article of 300 - 800 words. Make the topic bite-sized, timely and useful to your niche market.

3. Craft a Compelling Title
The title should make your prospects want to read it. Include the date and topic title on the subject line to increase open rates.

4. Connect with Your Readers
Show them that you understand what’s important to them. Think like a blogger and use very short stories about yourself as an intro to the topic. Then, connect it to the top challenges and desires of your niche market. Be authoritative while also relational. Avoid passive language.

5. Make it Easy to Read
Write short paragraphs with clever bolded subheadings. Use bullet points and numbered lists. Italicize or bold key phrases or sentences. Have it proofread with a test delivery before you publish.

6. Make it Easy to Act
Every ezine should have a call to action — a tip to apply or a next step to engage with you, the author. Make it simple to buy or enroll in a product or program. Include an easy Send a Copy to A Friend method so your list can grow with the help of your subscribers.

7. Market often!
If you only market once in a blue moon to your list, it will be a shock to your readers when it happens. It’s better to market something — a product, a teleseminar, or sample session — in at least one edition per month. Link to full details on your website.

8. Make Marketing Relevant
Make sure the topic of the article relates to what you’re selling so you lead your readers to take action.

9. Analyze Each Edition
Learn something new from every ezine you send. Monitor and improve open and click through rates. Use an email campaign company to manage your list. Aweber has a proven high deliverability rates, lots of simple educational tools, and costs $19.95 per month!

10. Never spam anyone!
Use a double opt-in system. Your homegrown list is always going to convert better than a purchased or borrowed list because the subscribers are pre-qualified. Provide an easy unsubscribe link (any reputable campaign company should have this built into the form).

And here is a bonus tip: Plan to re-use your articles by posting them in ezine directories, blogs, and other newsletters for your niche market. Make sure you have a compelling by line and bio with your website address and a copyright notice on each article. Then, repurpose your writing again into products.