6 Reasons You Should Publish Your Own E-zine
by James Palmer
Whether you haven’t considered it, or you’ve thought about it and haven’t made up your mind, publishing your own electronic newsletter is a great marketing strategy. Below are 6 reasons why:
Following up with every one of your current clients—plus potential clients—can be an exhausting, time-consuming task. Besides, what do you say to them in an non-salesy, unobtrusive way? An e-zine makes it cheap and easy to stay in touch, and gives you a legitimate reason for contacting them each and every week or month. Just send them an article you wrote that ads a lot of value to their business, and they’ll think of you instead of someone they just heard about the next time they need a coach, speaker, consultant, copywriter, etc.
Putting out an e-zine every month is very simple—once you have your mechanism in place. And you can add a viral marketing component to it. Just give your readers permission to pass it on to their friends. If it’s a great article, they’ll want to share it with their friends, family and colleagues, which will mean more subscribers for you.
Don’t just tell everyone how great you are, show them with an article that talks about some problem, and draw on your expertise to solve it.
By showing off your skills, you will attract more and better clients, as well as turn interested prospects into paying customers. Over time, your e-zine will help build your know, like and trust factor, showing people that you really know your stuff. You’ll become a trusted advisor they will turn to again and again.
How many websites have you happened upon, liked what you saw and wanted to go back, but can’t remember the name or URL? If you don’t have an e-zine sign-up form on your website, the same thing is happening to you. Offering an e-zine gives your prospects a reason to give you permission to get in touch with them again and again, allowing them to get to know you while you make offers to them over time. After all, it takes an average of 7 to 10 contacts with a person before they will do business with you.
If you created and sent out a print newsletter, it would cost you thousands of dollars per year in paper, printing and postage, but an electronic newsletter is essentially free, costing you only time. But once you’ve rolled out your first one, every issue after that can be put together a lot more quickly, because you’ve already got your template in place. All you need to do is write the articles, or hire someone to do it for you, if that’s your thing. You can even invite guest authors.
And there you have it! 6 reasons you should publish your own e-zine. So what are you waiting for? Get going!
James Palmer is a freelance copywriter who creates Websites, press releases, sales letters, and other print and online marketing materials that help large companies, coaches, and entrepreneurs communicate their business in a way that is easily understood by their target audience. He is co-author of the books Networking Like a Pro! and How to Overachieve W/O Overcommitting, and author of the e-book Social Networking 101: How to Market Yourself and Your Business Using Social Networks and Media. For more articles like this one, sign up for his free monthly newsletter by going here.