Growing your Newsletter list

Having a newsletter or ezine is a great way to build your address list - But how do you do this? Well my guest blogger today will give you a few tips.

1. Send a Sample Copy

Send a sample copy to everyone in your database - clients, colleagues, and friends. Send out your first, or best, issue announcing your new ezine, and inviting them to sign up. Due to SPAM regulations, it's not a good idea to sign anyone up without their permission.

2. Sign-up Form

Have a prominent sign-up form near the top of your home page, and have a sign-up box on every page of your web site. People can enter into your web site at any page, so you want to capture them no matter where they land.

3. Signature Line

Promote your ezine in your signature line. Have a simple description of your newsletter topic and the benefit to readers in your email signature line that goes out at the bottom of all your emails. Include a *call to action* to subscribe to your ezine with a hot link that allows people to sign up directly.

4. Archive Back Issues

Offer a sample issue, or archive back issues at your web site. Many people want to see what they'll be getting before they sign up. They want to see your writing style and to know there will be value to them in subscribing. You might also have a sample issue available by autoresponder.

5. Tell a Friend

Encourage people to pass the word. Have a note in your ezine letting your readers know that you're building your subscriber list. Ask them to pass it along to friends and colleagues who might be interested in your topic. Provide an easy way for people who receive your ezine this way to sign up.

6. Business Cards

Tell people about your ezine on the front or back of your business cards. Let them know why and how they should subscribe. That way, everyone you meet can be potential subscriber.

If you're not currently doing all of the above to promote your ezine, commit to doing at least one thing this week to expand your subscriber base and the reach of your newsletter.

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Want to use this article on your website or your own ezine? You're welcome to, however we do require that you include the copyright and the following bio with live web site link. Please also notify us where the material will appear.

© by Jan Marie Dore of Femalepreneurs.com.
Jan Marie Dore mentors coaches, speakers, consultants and other solo-professional women to work fewer hours and make more money with online business
building strategies. Get your free 'Professional Women's Success
Kit' and other marketing resources at http://www.femalepreneurs.com/ezine

Using Articles to Drive Traffic to Your Site

Writing to Help Others Can Help You Brand Yourself.
by Billie A Williams ©2007
(Small Town Secrets - January 2008 - ISBN 978-1-59705-283-2 )http://www.wings-press.com

The internet is full of content starved web masters, newsletter publishers and ezine operators always looking for your articles if they will increase the publication’s value to its readers. This is a win win situation. As you help others, you help yourself. How, you might ask.

If you include a link in your signature line, a link back to your website people who see your name on articles time and again begin to trust and rely on your word. They’ll want to check out your web site to see what else you are about.

Spend some time looking around the various article directories. See what people are writing about. Can you contribute something similar? You know things that no one else knows because your words are colored by your experiences, your life. You are unique and therefore, anything you write will have your personality all over it. This is more or less branding you – like a Campbell soup label, no one needs to tell you who that is — a Pepsi label no one needs to tell you who that is. You become similar when people see your name and your articles they feel like they know you personally.

You don’t need to be a literary genius – if you wrote a book you have expertise – you had stick-to-it-ness. You started some how, you wrote pages and pages to finish a book length manuscript. People – your readers— want to know how you did that. Where did you get your idea, how did you keep at it in spite of rejections (and we all get those). Think of the tons of questions you had as a newbie to the writing craft. What did you want to know? Now you are the expert, you can help others by telling them what you know in an article.

Your web site (You do have one don’t you? You should if you are hoping for a career in writing.) is full of ideas to write about. If you have a bio page, go through it — what have you done, what do you do? Do you have a day job? There is a wealth of information on your own website. Use it to create articles.

What was your book about? How did you find that information to make it appear real? Are you an amateur detective? How did you get to be that, did you take courses where, how long did it take you? If you aren’t, where did you get your idea and how did you expand on it? If you talk of abuse, are you a victim, have you worked with victims in your other life? Who did your book cover, did you have input? How did you decide on what you wanted? What is the process you used to get from page one to “the end” and did you have a cover in mind before you started? Some people are visual, they see a picture and they have a story – is that you or how did you ‘see’ your cover and when?

As you can see there are a million questions readers and would-be-writers would love to know. You can use that to help them, help other publications as described above and help yourself. That sounds like a winning situation all the way around to me.

Feel free to use this article as long as you leave the writer’s resource box below intact. Thank you.
Billie A Williams Accidental Sleuths solve crimes with wit, wisdom and chutzpah
http://www.billiewilliams.com/
http://printedwords.blogspot.com/
writer’s group http://www.word-mage.com/