dot COM report » Ezines & Newsletters

Simple Email Promotion And Internet Marketing Tips

dotCOMreport — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 19:56:23 +0000

If you are trying to build a business online, then it’s a safe assumption that you would like that business to make you money. After all, anything else is just a hobby. The good news is that there are many ways to earn money online, and there are also many ways to advertise your business. One of the most popular methods is email promotion internet marketing. It’s inexpensive, and even more importantly, it’s effective. Here are some things to keep in mind.

1. Building a list is the key to success. If you have spent any amount of time looking into email promotion internet marketing, then you have probably heard people say, “the money is in the list.” The reason so many people say it is because it’s true. In fact, it’s so important that everything that follows revolves around this tip.

2. Opt in once, market forever. Sending traffic to your website takes a lot of resources. It’s necessary, but email marketing simplifies things. Here’s how: once people are at your site, you encourage them to share their email address with you. Then it doesn’t matter if they ever come back to your site or not. Instead, you can then market to them whenever the need arises.

3. Always provide value. One of the most common questions about email promotion internet marketing is how often to send sales messages, and how often to send informational messages. There is a myth that you shouldn’t send too many sales messages, but that’s not true. As long as you are providing value with what you are selling, then you are good to go.

4. Spend time crafting compelling subject lines. The subject is what the people will see in their email inbox. If they don’t like it, if it doesn’t make them want to see what’s inside, then they will simply delete it…without ever opening it. And that means no sales. However, if you can at least get them to open your email, then you’ll get a chance to present your message to them.

5. Don’t be tricky. Yes, there are some subject lines that will give you a much higher open rate, but you should never use them to trick people into opening the message. If you do, they will open your email, but once they realize that you have tricked them (read: lied to them), they will unsubscribe. A simple way to put it is to always make sure that the body of the email message delivers on any promises you make in the subject line.

These are only a few tips to help you with your email promotion internet marketing efforts. There are plenty of other things you can do, but these are a good start. The worst thing you can do is wait to build an email list. With all of the things it has going for it, every minute you wait is another minute you will be leaving money on the table.

SEO Article Marketing Tips

dotCOMreport — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 21:35:56 +0000

Using SEO article marketing methods can do a lot to drive very targeted traffic to your website all for free. If you know how to do it right, you can really get a lot of benefit out of all the articles you write.

many people seem to think that you can either write for humans or you can write for the search engines. They don’t seem to understand that you can actually do it both ways with one article.

To get the most out of all your SEO article marketing efforts the first thing you have to do is find a good list of quality keywords associated with your niche website (fairly high searches with little competition).

Once you have your keyword list all you have to do is write quality articles around that keyword. As long as the articles you write are quality and provide good information that’s going to be half the battle.

Do not get stuck in the idea that you have to include your keyword in every sentence of your article. That is considered keyword stuffing and won’t do you any good.

Strive for no more than 3% keyword density. Put the keyword in your title, the first and last paragraph and a few other times throughout your article. That’s all you need.

The simplicity, yet effectiveness, of this methods is why it is so popular. By writing articles you will set yourself up as an expert in your niche. you can use your articles to provide a lot of helpful information to all you readers.

Online, it’s always best to give something of value before you expect to get anything. By giving your readers some good and helpful information and advice, you are building trust with them.

The other huge benefit of doing this, with the proper keywords, is that the search engines will reward you for your content with a high search engine ranking. This will give you a lot of organic traffic.

For example, if your niche is bird houses all you need to do is write some keyword optimized articles around the keyword “bird houses”. Then when someone does a search and types in the phrase “bird houses” your article may well be one of the first that shows up on the page! How is that for free traffic!

The same basic principle holds true for making blog posts. When you are adding content to your blog you simply follow these same basic steps. That way when someone does a search for your keywords they will see your blog post and subsequently land on your blog.

This provides you with a great opportunity to add an autoresponder to your blog and capture the visitors email address so you can contact them again.

Using this SEO article marketing method can really help you ramp up your website traffic and the best part? It’s all for free! Just be careful to not fall into the mind set that if one keyword in an article is good, ten must be better. Don’t try to stuff your article with keywords, a few well placed keywords is all you need.

Guide To Effective Ezine Advertising

dotCOMreport Editor — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 20:51:00 +0000

Ezine advertising can be a valuable way to advance your business or online service. Efficient use of Ezines took a hit when the dot com market crashed around the turn of the century. Along with email marketing, Ezines did not show the prior effectiveness that it once had in drawing interested people into an ad or website.

To get the most out of Ezine advertising, there are clear guidelines one needs to follow:

1. Your content needs to be useful and needs to draw attention from people around the world. Test your advertising campaign to ensure it is effective prior to full launch and get some sort of tracking system in place so that you can monitor it and see your results.

2. Your content phrasing should not try to enforce the issue of sale or your ad may be ignored and potential customers may move on to something else and relegate you to spam. Not your desired result.

3. Assemble your own customer list from people who showed an interest in your ads or website. You can use professional advertiser help to create effective ads, but do not count on names from someone elses list. It is you and your products that you want them to be interested in, not someone elses.

4. Use pictures in your ads and design your ads in a visually attractive way. A picture can be worth many words.

5. Your landing page is crucial as that is what customers first see when they are clicking through to you. Track those coming to the landing page and analyze the traffic so you can strengthen those actions which are attracting customers.

6. Take an outside perspective and ask yourself if you were a customer considering going to your site, what reason is there for you to click on the ad and move on. How do you then convert this interest into income?

7. Do not overdo it. If you have people who aren’t interested in your ad campaign, do not shove it in their face over and over again. They too may relegate you to spam.

Correctly followed, these guidelines will help you get the most out of your Ezine advertising campaign in a way that you will not be looked at as spam. Be creative and try to come up with new ideas so you are not sending the same thing out over and over again.

If you feel you need professional help by all means do so. Just figure it in with your resources and see if it is worth the potential return you might receive. The result you want is to drive enormous amounts of traffic to your site and those visitor will be interested in what you have to offer.

The Ups And Downs Of Newsletter Programs

dotCOMreport Editor — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:33:54 +0000

As a small business owner you may be searching for ways to increase visits to your site and ultimately, purchases from your business. To do this, you need to steadily put yourself in front of your past, current, and future customers.

A newsletter is a wonderful way to do this. You need to position yourself in front of people on at least a monthly basis. It’s even better if you can do your newsletter on a weekly basis.

There are numerous ways you can generate your newsletter. You can use your own email or you can use a free or paid program.

Free programs may have ads in your newsletter. You have no control over what ads will appear, so you risk having something that is in direct relation to what you offer or it may be something you wouldn’t want your readers to see or read. Research each program that you find to see which one fits your needs. Check the maximum number of newsletters you can send for free and see if there are a maximum number of subscribers you can have. Some programs will cap one or both of these for free users.

Paid newsletter programs have advantages over free programs in many ways. They offer more themes, ability to add pictures, and allow you to send out more newsletters. Most free programs won’t let you use themes and pictures or you are very limited as to what you can use. With paid programs you have a large range of options. Another benefit to using a paid program is it looks more professional.

When you create your newsletters, make sure that you are supplying your readers with high quality content that is useful and helpful. You don’t want to use your newsletter to continuously advertise your business and add nothing else to it. You can and should advertise your business and that’s important, but you don’t want to use your entire newsletter for this.

Your readers want to read a newsletters that will help them in some way. When you do this on a regular basis, you will grow your reader counts and you will keep your subscribers reading.

Businesses And Writers Benefit From Article Outsourcing

dotCOMreport Editor — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:52:27 +0000

As long as there have been connections between computers, ezines have been an effective method for businesses to distribute content online. Writing a recurrent ezine or newsletter can be a powerful marketing tool, but not every business owner has the time to produce regular content in-house. Freelance writers can produce articles for ezines, typically at no cost, as a means of establishing their own expertise in the field.

Given that these free web articles benefit the marketing of both the web writer and the business newsletter producer, article clearinghouse web sites are available to match ezines with articles. Writers are now able to post articles online at these sites, granting permission for their articles to be reproduced freely so long as the original authorship material remains intact. Ezine producers can then search these sites for relevant content to keep their clients and prospects engaged, and freelance web writers increase exposure to their work.

While searching the internet for relevant ezine content may be easier than writing it, some companies prefer to use a select number of regular, contributing article writers to guarantee a volume of well-written articles for each issue. Whether or not a regular writing relationship is paid or free depends upon the perceived value of the content provided for the ezine. Smaller businesses may be less willing to pay, but establishing a reputation through one or more smaller ezines will make breaking into a paid ezine article writing gig a much smoother process.

A solid way for any writer to prove his or her skill is by having published articles. Amassing a body of articles on a particular subject demonstrates a depth of knowledge that many customers paying for web writing will require. Ezine articles generally include a byline that links to the author’s web site, so the more widespread the distribution of the articles, the more exposure, and ideally credibility, the writer’s work will receive.

How To Craft Your Email Newsletter

dotCOMreport Editor — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:54:37 +0000

Even in the social media age, email newsletters remain highly relevant according to a recent survey. Nearly 79% of survey respondents reported that email newsletters were still relevant while 97% rated email newsletters as an important or very important source of business management advice.

When planning your newsletter, you should stick to a schedule. Of all the best practices, this is the one that counts. Regularity is more important than creativity. Try to set a schedule and get the newsletter out on time. The survey showed that readers preferred newsletters on a weekly (42%) and monthly (27%) frequency. Weekly newsletters must contain highly relevant, almost essential, content in order to retain readers.

Your newsletter should use a consistent sender and subject tag line. Make sure the sender is recognizable to your audience. The survey indicated what “who” a newsletter is from is more important than “what” the subject is. Try to keep the subject line short and compelling. Write one main article that provides the most information.

You should include your own personal touch in your newsletter. It’s also okay to use up to 25% of the newsletter for business promotion. Include links to other relevant information from all sources, including research reports and other information you drew on in writing your article. Adding relevant links to your website and offers will provide better tracking and conversion.

Design with email reading habits in mind and keep the overall design simple for easy readability. By putting highest value links near the top, you’ll make it easier for readers to take desired actions. Move images below the fold as readers with image blockers won’t see blocks in preview pane. Guide the reader’s eye by using design elements to make an email or newsletter easy to scan.

Design with the email preview pane in mind because most readers see an email in Outlook’s preview pane. Make sure the most important information displays there. Avoid clutter: you only have six seconds at most. Focus your message on what will compel a customer to read and take action.

Target The Right Audience Using Ezine Directories

dotCOMreport Editor — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:03:04 +0000

When you’re trying to attract traffic to your web content, there are plenty of options to evaluate. And it’s vital that you pick the ones that go well with the product/service you are offering and the target audience for that product/service. Using Ezines to promote your products is a fantastic way to hit the right audience because there is an Ezine for every niche possible. There are even Ezines about Ezines! If you want to save a lot of time doing your own research for the possible Ezines to fit your niche, you can use Ezine directories.

If you’re not familiar with Ezines, they are essentially a newsletter that is sent out to a subscriber list who has confirmed interest in receiving them. If you find one that matches what your business offers, you are guaranteed a legitimate audience to advertise to. The best way to reach this audience is by placing what is called an Ezine Solo Ad. This means that the producer of the Ezine will send out your text ad to his/her audience for a price. In order to find the right Ezines, you can go through Ezine directories and do a search for the keywords or keyword phrases that speak for your business to find a targeted Ezine that you can advertise in.

These are a few of the many directories that you can take a look at:

•   New-List offers a wide variety of all-purpose categories and thousands of thousands of specific newsletters to choose from within these categories.

•   Ezine Search allows you to type in the all-purpose category that pertains to your business, a description and some keywords. Once you’ve entered this information, you are taken to the results of your search and can get more information about what each Ezine offers, the size of its mailing list, the frequency of the mailings, etc.

•   Best Ezines has thousands of Ezines to spectacle by the side of with reviews and complete information about each Ezine including the target audience, frequency of the newsletter, tags and how many times the Ezine has been viewed.

•   Ezine Directory offers an impressive list of Ezines within a honest digit of topics but does not provide you with the details on each. In any case, it is permanently better to contact the publisher of an Ezine directly to verify statistics, price, etc. of the Ezine.

•   Jogena’s Ezine Directory offers both a listing of Ezines and a listing of e-books, which is a nice twist. This site is very well-done and offers a fantastic deal of information on both topics, in a way that is clear and simple to know.

•   The Directory of Ezines is really a paid service but well-worth the investment necessary. Not only does this site offer you an extremely meticulous profile of all the different Ezines, the owner, Charlie Page, really also offers you one on one consulting on how to use his service as well as other Ezines.

With any luck, these Ezine directories will hold some of the information you’re looking for!

Yesterday’s Media Can Coexist With Social Media

dotCOMreport Editor — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:58:34 +0000

As blogs and Twitter rise in popularity, there are many abandoning their email newsletters. However, newsletters are still a very effective tool in your marketing strategy. You should consider these suggestions on how to merge your newsletter into your social media strategy.

You should archive your newsletter. Your email newsletter should be part of your web content marketing strategy, and as such, it should be included on your website. Make sure you post your newsletter archive on your site, not that of your email provider. This content is great for SEO.

Incorporate blog or FaceBook content. Consider your newsletter one part of your brand building strategy. Think about how you can include content from your blog and other social networks in your newsletter and vice versa. Remember, this isn’t simply putting the same content in different places, but rather it is a way to summarize and continue the conversation.

Your approach when writing your newsletter should allow for making your newsletter easy to share on Twitter and Facebook.

Your newsletter is the perfect opportunity to invite your readers to interact with you, so they may want to connect with you on other social networks as well. Include the graphics for these social networks to call attention to them.

This is a good example of adapting the tried-and-true “old school” media with the up-and-coming social media that has reached the highest imaginable acceptance. Good luck.

E-zines Are A Valuable Tool For Your Business

dotCOMreport Editor — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:52:44 +0000

The E-zine has become a familiar weapon in the online marketer’s toolbox. When used correctly, it can assist you in connecting with your audience through a platform that is cheap, easily accessible and incredibly effective. Powerful media advertising and all the phenomenon of the Web 2.0 era may have claimed the spotlight, but an E-zine is still a dominant tool for businesses looking to prosper in the digital age of marketing.

Many people are using the internet for the research. For most, that experience starts and continues with email. The electronic mail system is obviously the easiest and most effective way to communicate online. Keen marketers realize this, understanding that while some users may not be familiar with blogs and RSS feeds, they are well versed in email communications. They use email E-zines to benefit from this market, catering to the less web-savvy by delivering information straight to their inbox. It allows businesses to appeal to their best customers by giving them what they want in a hassle-free manner.

One of the greatest things about E-zine publishing is that it offers a safe and consistent way to reach your target audience. People naturally opt-in to receive the publication, giving you the approval to send them more information related to your business. This factor alone significantly reduces the probability of spam complaints later down the line. Moreover, you have the luxury to target a large group of existing customers to build loyalty, or a smaller group of prospects who are interested in learning more. Subscribers can also opt-out by unsubscribing if they choose to no longer receive the content, which just goes to show that an email E-zine is so successful because it offers the power of choice. When providing important information, you will not have to worry as much about fleeing subscribers as people will be more inclined to stick around.

An E-zine offers an excellent way to reinforce your brand to readers. Even if your business is fully established, when corresponding via email, you still need a logo, slogan and other elements that sum up your brand on first glance. Publishing an E-zine gives you the opening to drive your brand home. If readers enjoy your content, their support alone could be a major contributor to the growth of your business. An E-zine can easily be forwarded to friends and associates who just may find it helpful and eventually sign up for your publication. At this point, your E-zine and strength of your brand are doing all the promoting for you.

By publishing an email E-zine, you are initiating the two-way dialogue consumers are seeking in these times of socially-driven communications. It’s your publication, so feel free to present your readers with questions and surveys to get their opinions and valuable feedback. You can then use this information to improve your approach to enhance product offerings or simply widen future issues. The interaction an E-zine makes possible allows you to show readers that you are interested in what they have to say and most importantly, that you appreciate their business.

Askmen’s A List Newsletter Shared Via Foursquare

dotCOMreport Editor — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:36:53 +0000

In a bid to strengthen its fast-growing newsletter ‘The A List’, AskMen.com has announced a partnership with location-based social network Foursquare. Content from the site’s local travel and entertainment themed newsletter will automatically be shared via Foursquare.

The A List publishes content for several markets, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Montreal, London and San Francisco. The newsletter was launched last summer as a challenger to hip, urban-male-targeted newsletters like Urban Daddy and Thrillist.

As the company looks to expand The A List internationally, the Foursquare pact will expose it to a large volume of new guys. The newsletter now reaches one million readers, as stated by AskMen.com VP and general manager, Ricardo Poupada.

“This is a way to connect a bit more locally,” he said. “It’s a real natural extension for us. And for Foursquare, it’s a great way to have tips from users alongside editorial content. It adds a little bit more to the experience.”

Presently, the Foursquare experience is concentrated on users alerting their social media group of friends about restaurants, bars, local events, and basically their whereabouts at a given moment. Users also receive ‘tips’ on trendy locales via the Foursquare app—which is where AskMen’s A List content will appear—based on where users are located.