EMail Marketing

How to produce a successful ezine.

EMail marketing is one of the most successful methods for promoting your affiliate programs.

An e-zine is nothing more than an electronic magazine or newsletter that is usually sent to your list on a weekly or monthly basis.

Your list is a group of subscribers who have visited your website and have signed-up for your FREE newsletter or E-zine and have then confirmed their subscription by responding to a confirmation e-mail. But, whoa you say....That's too much work....I can't write a newsletter, I've no experience doing anything like that and, what would I write about anyway?

Well, you wouldn't have to write everything yourself, you could go to the Google search engine and type in free articles and there you are, content that will make you and the search engines happy. But be sure that you conform to the copyright requirements that are presented by the authors.

Now, one of the most important aspects of sending out your e-zine is that your list is a double opt-in list. Your contacts have signed-up for your newsletter via a subscribe box on your web page or from an ad you may have run in another's e-zine and they have then confirmed their subscription via your auto responder. Yes, auto responder, that's the thing that sends out your confirmation messages automatically, records your sign-ups automatically and basically handles all of your e-zine mailing requirements automatically.

Refer to the auto responder page of this website for info on this subject.

USE DOUBLE OPT-IN LISTS ONLY

This process is referred to as a double opt-in list. Why a double opt-in? Because if you don't get the double opt-in, you may be accused of spamming and that is a real no-no in the email marketing business.

On January 1, 2004, the CAN-SPAM Act, went into effect in the US. This law puts specific requirements on senders of commercial email, including providing a valid physical postal address and honoring unsubscribe requests within a specific time frame. The downside of the law is that it pre-empts stronger state laws and places enforcement in the hands of the FTC, state Attorney's General and ISPs.

I highly recommend you visit the spam con-marketing pagefor the proper way to market by email. They define best common practices that improve ROI while respecting recipient rights and desires.

USE AN E-ZINE TEMPLATE...

Yes, Virginia, there are templates for everything, including e-zines. Let's take a look at an overview of what a template is and how we use it. A template is a pre-designed page that lays out the various parts of an e-zine such as the Table of Contents, Nameplate, Masthead, Section Titles, Subscription Management information and Contact Info.

In your Table of Contents you can't refer to page numbers so be sure your table of contents matches the sequence of articles.

TABLE OF CONTENTS- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -Featured Article Product Review; Subscribe/Unsubscribe information - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

NAMEPLATE

The Nameplate should include your e-zine's name, tag line, dateline and volume or issue number. It's the first part of your e-zine and it belongs at the top of the e-zine.  It should look something like this:

The e-zine name and tag line goes here
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Vol. 1, No. 1
January. 2004
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The "Vol.1" indicates the age of the e-zine and the "No.1" indicates the first issue of the year.

MASTHEAD

The Masthead contains information about subscriptions, advertising and copyright, in addition to the name, address and phone number of the publisher. Usually in e-zines the masthead is split in two parts, with the publisher info in the top part and the subscription, advertising, copyright and signature file in the bottom part:

Vol. 1, No. 1 January, 2004
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Your Name, Editor, email address

This newsletter is distributed by subscription only. If you wish to un-subscribe, you can find instructions at the end of this newsletter.
- - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The remaining parts of the masthead; Copyright, subscription info, advertising info and signature should be in the same location of each issue.

Copyright:  The copyright notice should contain the following elements:
1. The symbol © or the word Copyright.  (To produce the © symbol on your keyboard, hold down the alt key and enter 0169 into your numerical keypad on the right side of the keyboard.  For HTML, XML, etc. go to this page.)
2.   The year the work was first published.

3.   The name of the owner of copyright.
-- - - - --- - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
      Copyright © 2004 Owner's Name

Remember, your e-zine is a marketing tool, so encourage readers to send it to their friends.  Just be sure you make note that it should be sent "in it's entirety".

SUBSCRIBE AND UN-SUBSCRIBE

The Can-SPAM Act requires you make it easy for people to remove their names from your mailing list.  Include un-subscribe instructions in each issue.  An un-subscribe would read something like this:

If you wish to cancel your subscription, simply click on the link below:
http://www.whateveraddress.com

SIGNATURE FILE

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Yours Truly,

Bud Hunt
http://www.1affiliatebestonlinesite.com

(You could put an ad in here or maybe a reference to one of
your affiliate programs)

email address: support@yourURLhere.com
Your name, Editor
Your address
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Remember, this template should be reproduced in the same manner for each e-zine.  The overall elements being in the same order for each issue.

Now, I have just presented one method of producing an e-zine but if you don't care for this method, alter or change it to suit yourself.  It's your e-zine, it reflects your thoughts and ideas so you can produce it in any way you wish.  I would just suggest that if you use a particular format, that you continue with that format.

Good luck with your writing!