Producing
Effective Ezines
by Tash Hughes
of Word
Constructions
Many businesses
with an on line presence now offer an ezine from their
site. Sometimes the ezine is free to everyone, some are
only for members and some are part of a paid membership
or subscription.
Regardless of
how you distribute an ezine, some basic factors are the
same.
One very
important consideration is to only send an ezine to
people after gaining their permission – never send
it out unsolicited as that forms spam. Apart from any
potential legal ramifications, spam annoys people and is
more likely to lose clients than gain them.
Some important
decisions to be made before producing the ezine include
the frequency and style of the ezine. Will your ezine
contain advertisements from other businesses? Will it be
in the body of the email or just contain a link to your
site? Who will write all the content – you or will you
accept other contributions?
Once you have
set a timeline for ezine production, such as
fortnightly, monthly or quarterly, it is imperative that
you stick to it. Any readers who are interested will
notice if it is late, especially if it is consistently
late, and it will reduce your credibility. If unsure
about coping with workload, even after business
increases, it is better to have a less frequent ezine;
it certainly looks better to increase the frequency
rather than decrease it.
Each ezine you
send will need a title or subject line. Having your
business or ezine name as the subject is good for
branding, but it is a little boring and doesn’t help
subscribers archive your ezines. If each ezine has a
subject heading relevant to its content, anyone can
quickly re-access the edition of interest. Of course, a
workable solution is to have the subject as “my
business: child safety” for branding and usability.
Make sure that
your content is aimed at your audience and that it stays
relevant – unless people have signed up to a personal
ezine, they won’t want to know about your interests
aside from your business.
Using outside
advertisers is relevant if your business is a referral
service or directory, but otherwise choose the
advertisers carefully to compliment your ezine and not
overwhelm it.
Ezines are more
likely to build customer relations that result in
immediate sales increases. Keeping this in mind, don’t
make your ezine a series of ads for your products and
services – give them some information and the occasional
promotional incentive instead.
Asking for
feedback and including short surveys are means of
ensuring the ezine and/or business are servicing the
audience.
Tash Hughes is
the owner of
Word Constructions and is available to solve all
your business writing problems! From letters to
policies, newsletters to web content, Word Constructions
writes all business documents to your style and
satisfaction.
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