Six Steps to Launching a Successful Ezine

You get them every day in your inbox, but did you know that in just a few easy steps you can launch your own ezine or email newsletter?

Plan It Out

• Frequency Decide how often you want to publish your ezine. Will it be weekly? Bimonthly? Monthly? Be sure you choose a schedule to which you can stick.
• Design Will your ezine be plain text or have a design?
• Type Will your ezine take the form of a newsletter offering simple tips? Will you write the articles yourself or invite guests to submit their own content to your ezine? Will you offer your own products, affiliate products or resources in each issue?
• TimelineWhen is your estimated launch date?

Create Content

Rather than racing to come up with new content for each issue, it helps if you come up with several articles in advance so either you or your VA can simply plug the content into the template. Having a lot of content prepared in advance means you can schedule several newsletters in advance and not have to worry about how to fill them.

Choose a Provider

Choose an email service provider that offers the features you need to publish your ezine. Two I recommend are Constant Contact and Aweber. Both offer pre-designed templates, which are handy if you're not design savvy or do not wish to hire a graphic designer to create your template. In addition, both allow you to create and schedule your content in advance, view statistics about emails you send out, and offer easy-to-use opt-in forms to add to your website or anywhere you choose to grow your list. Both services are available for a low monthly rate and offer free trials so there is no risk to you.

Stay Consistent

Once you launch your ezine it's important to maintain consistency. If you start out sending your ezine on Tuesdays at 2 p.m., then your readers will come to expect to receive it at that time. This is where scheduling in advance comes in handy. You can schedule them all to go out at precisely the date and time you choose so you won't have to remember to be at the computer at exactly that moment.

Keep It Simple

It’s important not to overwhelm your reader with too much “stuff.” While having quality content is great, too much of a good thing is not. Your readers are very busy and probably have only a moment or two to scan for something that grabs their attention. They don’t want to sit and read a two-page article. Ideally you want to keep your articles between 500 and 700 words. You should also be careful not to include too many links into your newsletter for a couple of reasons. First, doing so can alert spam filters that the email might be spam, and then it may never even reach your subscriber. Readers also may find it tedious to have to click on several links to learn more about something, so it’s usually best to keep your links to a minimum.

Don’t waste your readers' time with a lot of fluff just to sell them something. When I’m taking the time to read a newsletter, I want to learn something or be inspired, not be pitched to the whole time. It’s fine to have a resource section or a featured product in your ezine, but don’t try to trick your reader by disguising your sales pitch as a newsletter.

Don’t Abuse Your List

When people subscribe to your newsletter they don’t necessarily want to hear from you every day. I’ve subscribed to many ezines in the past thinking I was going to get what I subscribed for, but instead I received emails every day about the person’s latest seminar or call or special offer. That’s when I tend to unsubscribe. If you overwhelm your reader with too much information too frequently, they'll lose interest and you will lose credibility (and subscribers).

Follow these simple steps and you’ll be on your way to a successful ezine in no time!