Publishing Your Own Ezine, Part 4, Writing For An Online Audience

You are most familiar with print publications such as your local dailies or some magazines. Some of these you may be following religiously, what with their timely and highly informative articles as well as the news and tips they provide.

Naturally, you will want to achieve the same with your own eZine.

Doing such haphazardly will prove to be fatal. Why? It’s because there are distinct differences between print publications and online materials. Primary of these differences is the manner by which content is written. You simply cannot write for an online audience the way you would for print publications. They are two very different markets.

Online materials are read from monitors. They are not like print publications which can be taken to the bathroom, the bedroom or the public transportation system to be read. Reading from monitors can be stressful in the long run, will tire out the user, especially when he is tasked to read something from his screen. This is what you will want to avoid. If they get tired, they’ll give up reading, and they won’t be able to receive your business message.

Writing for an online audience entails a unique set of rules:

1. Keep your sentences short. People will be reading from their monitors. Their eyes will get tired easily. Allow their eyesight to rest by keeping your sentences short so that they can easily be read.
   
2. Keep your paragraphs short. Same reasons as number one. Additionally, you will want your readers to feel a certain sense of accomplishment for reading your piece. This can be achieved by presenting short paragraphs so that they’d know that they have read a lot of what you have to say.
   
3. Avoid using technical jargons. You will be writing for a wide array of people with various reading comprehension levels. As such, you will want to pull them into your piece by making your works easier to understand. Jargons – especially highly technical ones - will only confuse people. So keep your words simple. The rule of the thumb is this: write as if you’re writing for a 12 year old. This is so because the average reading comprehension level is likened to that possessed by someone of such an age.
   
4. Use bulleting and numbering as much as possible. This will make it easier for your readers to scan your copy. Even if they decide to skip some parts, bulleted and numbered items will not escape their attention, and you will still be able to convey your business message.
   
5. Avoid using all caps, not even in titles. All caps is a form of digital shouting, and you wouldn’t want to give your readers that impression. This is a form of net etiquette that has been in existence in years. Its principles apply in eZines as well.
   
6. If you need to emphasize some phrases, use quotation marks. Since you cannot italic certain words or place them in bold fonts, quotation marks will suffice as replacements.
   
7. Find the right tone appropriate for your audience. You can’t be too serious when your market is demanding something amusing. And you can’t be too relaxed when your market is demanding something formal. Know your market, and write correspondingly. This way, you’d be able to relate with them better, which is the purpose of an eZine in the first place.
   

Again, writing for an online audience is very much different from writing for print publication. You have to adjust accordingly to please your target market and to better your chances of achieving your industrial goals.

Publishing Your Own Ezine, Part 3, Reasons Why You Should Publish An Ezine

An eZine isn't only good to capture leads as well as repeat visitors. It isn't only good for establishing great relationships with your prospects. If that were the case, then eZines can easily be replaced by other marketing tactics.

But eZines are on a class of their own. They are one of the most potent marketing strategies in existence. Part of this lies in their amazing ability to keep in touch with potential customers/visitors, of course. But a great part of it lies in their sheer flexibility. Indeed, eZines are capable of satisfying many marketing purposes that can bring in some direct and indirect income for your enterprise.

There are so many things you can accomplish with your eZine, basically because your eZine is capable of so many things. It's not just a means of conveying information. It can be bigger than that. And its benefits will surely stack up as time goes by and your digital publication will grow in reputation.

Let's take a look at some of the reasons why YOU should publish your own eZine.

1. An eZine can immediately brand you as an expert in your field. An eZine conveys information, information that will be attributed to come from you, the publisher. This is an excellent way of building your reputation. People will easily think that if you have the balls to publish an eZine, you have the knowledge and the skills to back it up.
   
2. An eZine can help provide a boost for your sales. This is a given. Statistics show that at an average, people buy after the 12th contact. How do you contact them? This is a purpose served by the mailing list, as powered by your eZine.
   
3. An eZine can become your leverage. Want to enter a joint venture with established players in the field? The first thing they will study is the size of your mailing list. If you have a quality and well-marketed eZine, your mailing list is sure to grow and you can use this as a bargaining point. Joint ventures are a "what's in it for me" proposition. You have to show your prospective partners that you’re a worthy addition to their team by presenting a mailing list with a lot of subscribers and an amazing response rate.
   
4. An eZine can become a revenue-generating system by itself. Once your mailing list grows, you can sell ad space on your eZine. A lot of online businessmen are constantly on the lookout for eZines with huge readerships where they can promote their own products and services.
   
5. An eZine can even require payment for subscription. Once your eZine gains a lot of prominence and credibility in the industry, you can start charging subscription rates. A lot of the big name internet marketing superstars today have paid subscriptions, and such is doing wonders for their profit rate.
   
6. An eZine can advertise your other ventures. Even if your activities are beyond internet marketing, you can always mention the same in the issues you distribute. Ezines can grow so big that the advertising mileage they can provide has tremendous potentials. It's always a great way of reaching more people, and it's fast considering the speed of digital delivery. Furthermore, you won’t have to spend that much on advertising cost, since it’s YOUR eZine.
   

There are other benefits in publishing your own eZine, but the reasons above are at the top of the list. The bottom line is this: there is no reason – no reason at all – why you should refrain from publishing your own eZine. If there’s one tactic that will change the course of your online business, it's this.

Publishing Your Own Ezine, Part 2: Choosing The Right Autoresponder Service

Publishing your own eZine is one of the most powerful tactics you can employ for your strategic online positioning. Gold is in your mailing list, they say, and one of the best ways to build up your mailing list is by offering your prospects something they'll find difficult to refuse: the information they need. And this information is best conveyed through a digital magazine format that is an eZine.

But publishing your own eZine is not as easy as writing and formatting an electronic newsletter. That is the easy part, quite actually. The process of placing the right gears in the right places to ensure an automated system that will allow you to milk your mailing list for a long, long time with minimal labor on your part is the first goal you should aim for.

And the heart of a highly efficient mailing list is an excellent autoresponder service.

What Is An Autoresponder Service?

If you’re going to send an email to 5 or even 10 people, then manually doing the same won't be a problem. But if you're going to send an email to hundreds, if not thousands, of recipients, then such will be a laborious task that will take a day or two to accomplish.

Since you're expected to build up your mailing list to as many subscribers as possible, you don't have the luxury of manually sending out issues of your eZine.

The solution? You have to enroll with an autoresponder service.

Not just any kind of autoresponder service, mind you, but the best one you can ever find. The reason for this is simple. An autoresponder service is your business partner. Since your mailing list will play an integral role in determining the degree of success you can gain in this industry, and since an autoresponder service will make your mailing list possible, you need to join the best one available.

An autoresponder service automates the entire process. It picks up the contact details of your prospects, stores them in a database, and allows you to pre-load and pre-schedule the delivery of your messages. This way, it is possible to have a year's worth of messages ready for delivery even before you start accepting subscribers.

Things To Look For In An Autoresponder Service

An excellent autoresponder service should have the following characteristics:

• Allows you to create as many mailing groups as you want. You'd need to transfer subscribers from one to group to another depending on how well they respond and how much they have purchased from your enterprise.
  
• Allows you to personalize your messages automatically by using the details submitted by your subscribers. People respond more when they are referred to by their given names.
  
• Has excellent customer care service. You wouldn't want to be bogged down by technical difficulties in the middle of a very important campaign.
  
• Will protect you against spam complaints. Spam complaints are sometimes unavoidable despite your best efforts to avoid the same. Your autoresponder service should be able to protect you at times like this so as not to jeopardize your email marketing strategies.
  

Price Or Features, Which Is Which?

Often, I've been asked which is more important in choosing an autoresponder service: its applicable fees or its abundance of features. The ideal answer is: both.

But it can't be helped that the more powerful and reliable services come at a steeper price. We get what we pay for, after all.

In choosing an autoresponder service, the features should take precedence. An autoresponder service is one of the primary investments you can make for your online business, and it should never be compromised least your success in this field will be jeopardized.

My autoresponder of choice is GetResponse. I can create as many mailing lists as I want, can copy subscribers to and from those lists, and can set up as many autoresponders as I want for the list. I have one client who has over 400 autoresponders attached to one subscription list.

Contact me if you have any questions about autoresponders. They are a great tool for automating your subscription process.

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Creating Your Own Informational Product

If you have been dabbling with internet marketing for some time now, you're most probably aware of the fact that information products are one of the easiest and most profitable things that your could sell online. Information products may be eBooks, special reports or articles which you could offer for a price.

Preparing information products is quite easy, at least in theory. All you need are two things:

1. Information; and
   
2. Writing skills
   

Information is the hottest commodity in the World Wide Web. This is why the Internet is called the information superhighway. If you'd be able to provide the right kind of information, you will never run out of potential customers. This is especially true if you manage to find a hungry market where the demand for such information would be immense.

Writing an eBook is very similar to writing a special report. An eBook is work composed of approximately 30 or more pages. Anything shorter would be considered as a special report. Here are some simple steps you could take to come up with an information product of this type:

1. Select a topic from the niche you have previously chosen. This topic must correspond to a particular aspect of the niche, something that people would want to know about. For example, in our running example of dog grooming, supposing you choose the niche of shih tzu dog grooming, a good topic to write about is "how to select perfect grooming kits for your shih tzu."
   
2. Prepare an outline for your work. It should be as organized as possible. Start with the most basic concepts, and gradually proceed to the more advanced ones.
   
3. Do your research! This is very important. If you're offering something in exchange for your prospective customers' hard-earned money, you should give them something valuable. A well-researched work is what they deserve.
   
4. Fill up your outline with the necessary information. If you have a great outline, this shouldn't be a problem. All you have to do is to write about what you have researched and include them in the specific portions allotted by the said outline.
   
5. This is very important: avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism could ruin you. You need to learn how to respect intellectual property rights when you're doing business online. There are no ifs and buts about it. You need to come up with an original work to sell.
   
6. Once you have finished the draft of your eBook or special report, have it proofread for errors. Make corresponding corrections.
   
7. Once you have your error-free manuscript, you would need to come up with an attractive and attention-grabbing eCover for your work. People always say that no one should judge a book by its cover. This is rarely practiced however. Many books, and many eBooks, are sold on the basis of their covers alone. Invest on a good eCover to boost your sales.
   
8. Then you would have to convert your work into .pdf format. Being in .pdf format would allow more people to read your eBook, as a variety of computer platforms recognize this file type.
   

Once you have completed these steps, you'll own an information product that is ready to be sold!

But what if you are not possessed of writing skills, or you simply don't have the time to write? Does this mean that you can't come up with your own information product? Most definitely not, of course, as there are many ways to skin the cat, in a manner of speaking. For starters, you could always try outsourcing, or contracting the services of an outside party to help you prepare the information products you have in mind. Another option is to make good use of private label rights, better known as PLR in the industry today. Products sold with PLR would allow the purchaser to alter their contents and even name themselves as the author of the works.

There is no excuse why you couldn't come up with your own information product. If the internet promises to be your ride to a good life, then an information product, quite surely, is your ticket to hop aboard that freight train.

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