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Newletters are also knows as e-zines or e-newsletters
E-zines are periodically published documents containing a specific subject that is of interest to its subscribers. E-newsletters are, ideally, only sent out to people who "opted-in" to receive the newsletter.
Most marketers are advised to publish their own newsltetters as part of their marketing arsenal. It makes sense for three reasons:
 Newsletters are one of the most effective ways to build your own opt-in list. (People who explicitly agree to receive marketing materials or other information from you through their email).
It is a great way to keep in contact with your customers. It is said that it takes an average of 7 contacts before you can close an online sale. Newsletters provide this means of contact in an unobtrusive way. For prospective customers, it is a way to build a relationship that will hopefully transform into a sale. For existing customers, it is a platform to keep them updated of new development in your business, and hopefully offer them new products and services.
It is a good way to build your credibility as an expert in your field. Again, this credibility will hopefully result in a business benefit.
It is a potential way to generate income. You can use your e-zine to accept ads from other businesses or to run your own affiliate ads. The first point (accepting ads) only becomes viable once you have established a sustained readership and following.
I am of course, talking about for-business-only newsletter. There are people who publish newsletters without aspirations of material gain. But that is beyond this site's scope.
Despite the obvious benefit of running a newsletter, not everyone should rush and issue one because a good newsletter, to be effective, must be sustainable.
Should you charge people for your newsletter so you can get some income from all your trouble? Unfortunately, getting people to pay you for your newsletter is going to be very challenging. Remember, this is the land of the Free!
In any case, you may consider charging people for your newsletter if, and only if:
What you have to offer is extremely valuable and not available elsewhere. Note that we
can now possibly find every piece of information in the Internet, so make sure that what
you have to publish is really valuable.
Your business belong to a very niche business where expertise is rare, and thus people
will be willing to pay.
You have unique or rare credentials that people in your business respect and be willing
to pay for.
Aside from these, a better option is to offer a free newsletter. I do not mean to dishearten you but as you know by now, the Internet people are a spoiled lot. Since there are so many free newsletters available, it is now a challange to get people to subscribe to a free newsletter.
Each industry or business will require different contents but the following should give you an idea of what to include:
Industry news and updates
Business news
Latest developments on your products or services
Informative articles related to your business, whether written by you
or an expert in the business.
A Q & A Section. In this section, you can feature your responses to the questions
sent in by your customers or subscribers
Special offers or promotions
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Sources of Contents for a Newsletter
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As with your website, the ideal source of content for your newsletter is you. However, there are other sources of contents that you can draw from. Please visit these sections for reference:
How to find and develop content for your site, Part 2
How to find and develop content for your site, Part 3
If you have subscribed to an e-newsletter before, you know that they usually come in 2 formats: Text ot html
Text is favored by some publishers because it is easier to prepare and guaranteed to be delivered.
HTML on the other hand has its own fans because it is visually more appealing.
Some e-zine publishers offer viewers the option to view the newsletter in either text or html.
How often you publish or e-zine depends on your business. If your business or industry has a lot of developments, you can publish on a weekly basis. Otherwise, a monthly ezine is deemed by many as just appropriate.
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How to promote your e-zine
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How you promote your ezine depends on whether it is your stand-alone product or it's one of the tools you use to promote a main website.
If it is a stand-alone product, you can promote it as if you would a website. In that case, you may any of the marketing methods described in Guide to Internet Marketing.
If it is one of the methods you use to promote a main website, the following guidelines will be helpful:
Have a prominent sign-up page for your e-zine.
Promote your e-zine as if it is a product you are selling. Meaning, emphasize on the
benefits of subscribing to your newsletter. What would they get from subscribing to
your e-zine.
Which newsletter would you subscribe to?
Have a subscription link on every page of your site.
Include your newslettter offer in every marketing material that you send out
Include an invitation link to subscribe to your newsletter in yur signature file.
Have an archive of your past issues in your website. Your prospective subscribers may
want to check out you had to offer in the past.
Submit your newsletter to the following sites:
New List
Best e-zines
e-zine Marketing
Jogena
List City
The e-zine Directory
Get Published
The Flying Inkpot Zine Scene
Newsletter Access
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Two Points:
KISS
Remember the timeless KISS Principle (Keep it Simple, Stupid!). Your newsletter must be short and concise. Most people do not have the time to read through volumes of articles. Two to three articles plus a short announcement is considered just appropriate.
Opt-in, Opt-out
You must always include an unsubsribe clause at the end of your newsletter. Ensure that once they unsubscribe, they are removed from your list. Otherwise, you could be guilty of spamming.
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How to manage your e-zine subscribers
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If you have only a few subscribers, you can manage the task manually. However, as your list grows, you need to automate the entire process. Otherwise, your entire time is just spent adding/removing/sending newsletters.
There are alternative to managing your mail list.
1. Use an online hosted service
There are numerous list management service. These are just a few you can explore to give you an idea of what is available.
Listcast
Topica
Listserv
Great Circle/Majordomo
Cool List
Mail List
Esosoft
2. Use a subscription automation software
If you'd like to have greater control over your list, I suggest that you get your own list management software. For this, I recommend Mailloop. It is a very powerful software that can handle your mailing campaigns, newsletter and autoresponders. It's very easy to use and loaded with a lot of features. To learn more, click here.
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