4 - Newsletters and e-zines

4 - Newsletters and e-zines
Newsletters and electronic magazines (e-zines) are a great way to build up a customer base and a trusting relationship with people prepared to deal with you on a regular basis. This is the cornerstone of most successful businesses whether established online or offline.
Having a list of subscribers that you can regularly mail to puts you in the perfect position to bring related products or services to your customers attention. Whether you provide your own saleable products, electronic information or otherwise, or join partners as an affiliate and promote other merchants goods, the process of churning out a regular newsletter can seem suddenly more inviting.
Starting a newsletter or e-zine is also a good way to learn and improve your marketing skills. Public relations, effective advertising, producing useful information that people are actively seeking out, and building a subscriber list through opt-in subscription methods, are all essential skills required for making money online. Some successful e-zines are even produced and distributed without the need for a website. Building up a strong subscriber list can be achieved simply by advertising in the right places. An effective advert and a simple link to your mailing list subscription manager may be all that you need. Check out the ‘ListApp’ service at Server.com for more details about how to start your and run your own mailing list.
If you need inspiration to think up ideas or learn how other e-zines are proving to be popular, take a look at the two e-zine directories Ezine-universe and Ezine Search where the choice of subject matter is huge. If you see an opening for an untapped market then you could be on to a winner. Start building your subscriber list now! If you can reach thousands of people interested in a topic of information or a service that you can provide, then you could turn this to your advantage and make sales. Not only that, once your subscriber list has reached 5,000 or more you could easily make more money by including paid for advertising.
Getting people to subscribe to your newsletter or e-zine isn’t that difficult. All you need to do to get people to sign up is to entice them with a free offer for something you know they can’t resist. For example, a free e-book, or free software. Providing they perceive the offer as being valuable and able to save them money, you can’t fail to get a steady stream of new subscribers.
Fact: It’s a lot easier to make follow-up sales to existing customers who you have a good relationship with, than trying to sell to someone who has never dealt with you before. So build up trust by providing new subscribers with a first class service and you are far more likely to succeed in your new venture.