Moms Online Business Coach

Take a cruise around and surf the internet today and you will see a majority of the websites you visit will have a graphic or box in their sidebar that say “Join Our Newsletter”. Unfortunately, this is one of the pillars of online business that is often overlooked by new online entrepreneurs.

The idea of creating a first newsletter, or what can be referred to as an ezine, can be daunting to some… what do you write, how do you send it out, how often do you send it, how do you manage it with all the other tasks that are calling for your attention during the day?

The term ezine simply means an electronic magazine or newsletter that people can subscribe to, much like a print version. Technology has made this process fast and easy that with just a click of a button you can send your list a message or even pre-schedule announcements.

What do you send?

The best piece of advice I ever got was very simple

“Make It Them Centric”

Simply meaning, give them something useful that will directly and quickly benefit them.

A few tips:

• Always keep it informative and not just a sales pitch
• Add interactive bits like polls and surveys of the reader base
• Share product reviews and links to other informative sites for your readers
• give away freebies, like ebooks and eclasses as a free gift to your subscribers
• Keep an eye on industry related news and share and discuss it with your readers
• Add in sponsor ads with other like topic ezine publishers to grow your subscriber base and add another revenue stream

Spam Filters Are Your Enemy Too!

We all hate spam and like it or not, whether you call it a newsletter or an ezine, you could be considered a spammer!  If you find this as offensive as I do, then there are a couple steps you can take to safe guard your reputation.

First, it is highly recommended that you require a reader opt-in. This will prevent any backlash of the spamming laws because they, your subscriber, confirms that they want to receive updates from you and you are not randomly sending them unwanted mail.

Include your privacy policy and an easy opt-out option for them to unsubscribe at the bottom of all messages.

Most autoresponder services take care of this automatically for you. I personally use aweber because of another very important point of ezines…making sure they actually get to where they are supposed to go.

What good is putting any effort into an ezine if it never reaches the subscribers eyes? Email spam has made many isp’s spam trigger happy, and if you are using a free autoresponder..well, it’s a big risk if they think you are a spammer.

The monthly fee associated with a quality autoresponder, may seem like an extra business expense, but if you are serious about building your list and using it to increase sales- both front end and back end- you can make it pay for itself plus some in a very short time.

http://www.moms-business-coach.com/recommends/autoresponder