Marketing Your Articles and Newsletters
| Category: E-zines: Promotion | Date: 2003-06-05 |
In the last year I have learned more about marketing than I did in 2 years of classes. Im not sure if they have started yet but our higher learning institutions should have specialized courses just for marketing on the Internet, if not ezine publishing alone. Ezines 101, 102, 103 …
There is so much to learn and once started, so little time to learn it. I know from my own experiences that it is a constant struggle to keep up with the daily chores of maintaining my website and business, let alone finding new ways to market it. What I wanted to do here is make a small list of tips, tricks and URLs to help you along the way.
Your Articles
One of the simplest but most successful marketing procedures I use to get my Articles out to more ezine publishers (which I use to advertise my own newsletters) may be considered slow. But its a methodical and personal approach, and has more than once opened doors to professional friendships and alliances. The real question here is who wants to publish your article, how do you find them and contact them.
The answer of course is ezine publishers!
To avoid being accused of spam, it is safer that you contact publishers who are asking to be contacted in one way or another. Although as long as it is a legitimate request such as sending your articles -- and not a cesspool of advertising -- very few will object to the contact. To play it safe however I use five major source groups from which publishers have asked for contact or have contacted me first.
You have these five major groups:
1) Article Announcements
2) Ezine Announcements
3) Ad Swap Announcements
4) Newsletter Joining Contact
5) Archives and Databases
Article announcement ezines are a great source of exposure for your articles, as well as article databases and archives, like our "InfoZone Archives" at http://MakingProfit.com/articles/, which publish links to your pearls of wisdom in their ezines.
Keep all of your article submission information together. This way when you are sending it out to your publishers list, you can submit it to the databases and online announcement forms in one shot. Do it all at one time so there is no second guessing in terms of who got what, when, etc.
The ad swaps, article announcements and ezine announcements all have one thing in common: These are people requesting contact in one form or another. As I get these newsletters, I look through them for publishers who have the same subject matter as my articles and I write them a nice letter explaining that I read their post in, say, "List-Universe" or whatever newsletter I found them in. I ask them if they would be interested in receiving my articles for publication in their newsletter. I send along my latest article for viewing.
I have, to this date, never received a negative reply as I am not sending them a bunch of ads or trying to sell them Something, other than on the idea that my articles could help their newsletter. But, as luck would have it, every article has -- what? Thats right! -- a resource box.
The publisher knows this and does not consider this spamming, as its just a part of your article. So you are also getting that ad of yours out there in front of them, in such a casual way, that it is not really considered advertising to the publisher. I have had many publishers write back that they were not at this time interested in outside articles but their email address shows up on my subscriber list. Who knows? Maybe down the road theyll change their mind. But for now its nice to have them reading my newsletter, right? For me, that is my sole reason for writing the article in the first place.
Joining Contacts
There are so many fine newsletters out there that I could never even come close to reading all the ones I really like.But I sign up for new ones on a regular basis. The first thing I do after signing up is send off my article submission request letter. If its a good newsletter, I stay with it. If not I unsubscribe. But the key is that I made that contact.
Very few publishers operate on the ideals of "You must belong to my newsletter in order to send me your articles." If they do and I dont find their newsletter worthy of my attention and time, I unsubscribe and continue to send them my articles until requested to stop. Heres a quick tip: As with any newsletter, offer an unsubscribe procedure. If you are requested to stop, do yourself a favor and stop!
Cold Contact
If you feel that you can contact publishers safely, you can search the many ezine databases available on the web, such as eGroups.com or Topica.com, for ezines similar to your articles and contact them. Leave the advertising at home, besides the resource box at the end of the sample article.
Ezine archives are a never-ending source of publishers. Please be careful how you step and who you step on. Below at the end of this article is a list of places to help you get started.
Your Newsletter
First the subject and style of your newsletter.
The ideal of course is to find a subject that is under "mined" as far as newsletters go. My newsletters are in the highly competitive field of Internet marketing so I cannot say that I followed this bit of advice. But, if you can find a subject on which there are no major newsletters covering, all the better.
As that old marketing saying goes, "You dont have to reinvent the wheel to be successful." Its all in the way you market your newsletter. Dont try to please everybody. Keep your subject matter focused. If youre in marketing focus on marketing. How many marketers do you know that want to see grannys cookie recipe in their ebiz newsletter? Not me.
Create a special "Niche Format" that other newsletters in your field have not yet covered. Research the others and try to do what they have not done yet. Be creative and stick to your market group. After all, they are your bread and butter, so give them what they want and need.
Quick Tips For Your Newsletter
1. Discussion Groups
I left this out of the major groups above because I feel that it takes a certain amount of suave personality to be really successful in discussion groups. I, myself, picked Internet marketing because of the absence of immediate direct contact with other professionals. I am too easily tongue-tied and I feel that it behooves me to spend my valuable "marketing time" in other areas, where I have the time to properly word my replies and/or communication with others.
2. Offer Easy Sign Up On Your Website!
Small sign up box on every page and/or a pop-up on your leading page or pages. Make it tough to say no!
3. Joint Ventures
Get involved with other publishers. Start a mutually beneficial co-op. It could be by way of offering prizes every week or month, or by rotating the prize responsibility from one member to the next. Each member would be required to do his part in advertising the cooperative effort.
4. Subscriber Incentives
Offer free stuff, run contests, conduct giveaways or whatever -- give reasons to join your newsletter. Nothing entices subscribers more than by offering them something for nothing (but asking them to sign up for your newsletter in exchange).
5. Archive Your Newsletters
Archive your previous issues for those potential subscribers that research everything first and want to know what they are signing up for ahead of time. There are a lot out there!
6. Form or Join A Private Ezine Ring
This seems to be the latest rage. Similar to joint ventures, collect a co-op of other publishers that will agree to enter into a "private" ezine ring. I say private because one of the biggest problems with public webrings today is broken links and broken promises. By keeping it private, you stand a much better chance of keeping it clean and free of broken links.
7. Send This Issue To A Friend!
Never -- and I mean never -- send an issue out that doesnt request your subscriber to pass it along. You may even want to suggest some possible recipients that they could send it to. Word of mouth is a very powerful advertising tool!
8. Search Engines and Directories
If you dont have one already, set up a separate page on your website for your ezine, and make sure that your meta-tags are ready -- you can use our free meta-tag generator at http://216.147.104.180/tools/meta.shtml. Then submit it!
9. FFA Pages
Some say that FFA pages do not work. Im not here to tell you they do. But I will say that timing plays a big part in any traffic you may get from them. If you submit to FFAs on a regular basis, consider this: The three heaviest traffic times for FFAs are lunchtime, late afternoon and early evening.
If you submit to FFAs in the middle of the night, as do so many people, consider how long it will be there before thousands of others come in to replace your ad. Who, in what time zone, will be reading your ad? As the bulk of them I submit to are in the US, I base my submittal times on that. Whatever you do, dont use your normal email address or youll be bombed with more junk mail than youll know what to do with. Get a free email address online somewhere and use that.
10. Link Exchanging
Contact webmasters and ask to exchange links, buttons or banners. Many are as hungry for new eyes as you are and will be willing to exchange links with you. Tip: If available, watch your statistics for traffic from this site. If there is not enough to justify the link, remove it after a month.
11. Newsgroups
Of course posting to newsgroups can be helpful too. I feel posting to newsgroups follows the same basic theories of the FFA postings. There are so many so try to get yours in there during peak hours as to maximize your readership.
12. Ad Swaps
When youre sending out that article to all those publishers, be sure to ask about ad swap opportunities -- on the first contact and every contact after that! Use common sense. Dont be wasting your time and space for swaps with incompatible newsletters. I mean, how much business do you think your marketing ad will gain from, say, "Lassies Letters"?
Marketing Your Articles and Newsletters (conclusion)
13. Ezine Announcements
Searchem out and use them. Many publishers rely on these ezine announcement lists for content in their newsletters.
14. Last but Hardly Least, Marketing Marketing Marketing!
Folks, you have to get out there, in the trenches. Offer help whenever you can and even when you cant. Stay in contact as much as possible with people. Marketing is not a place for pedestals, its a place for peers. What do your peers think of you and your company? Try to answer all of those emails! Nothings worse than an unanswered question.
Heres a list of article and newsletter promotion sites:
http://209.53.3.96/newsletters/addnewsletter.asp
http://ezine-dir.hypermart.net
http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/submit.html
http://jlunz.databack.com/netresources/zines.htm
http://kerrisgifts.hypermart.net/adswaps.htm
http://magazines.yotta.com/
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
http://www.absoluteauthority.com/ezines/
http://www.arl.org/scomm/edir/template.html
http://www.bestezines.com
http://www.bestnewsletters.com
http://www.bizx.com/cgi-bin/miva?newsletter.mv
http://www.catalog.com/vivian/
http://www.coalliance.org/
http://www.cumuli.com/ezine/
http://www.disobey.com/low
http://www.edoc.com/jrl-bin/wilma
http://www.egroups.com
http://www.escribe.com/
http://www.e-target.com
http://www.etext.org/services.shtml
http://www.eyesmail.com/
http://www.ezinearticles.com/
http://www.ezinecenter.com/
http://www.ezinelibrary.com/
http://www.ezine-news.com
http://www.ezinesearch.com
http://www.ezineseek.com
http://www.ezinestoday.com
http://www.ezine-universe.com
http://www.ezineworld.com
http://www.e-zinez.com
http://www.globelists.com
http://www.HomeBasedProfit.com/ezineadswap.shtml
http://www.infobot.net
http://www.infojump.com/
http://www.inkpot.com
http://www.lifestylespub.com/cgi-bin/ezines.cgi?10616
http://www.linkfinder.com/submit.html
http://www.listbot.com
http://www.list-city.com
http://www.list-resources.com/
http://www.listsnet.com/
http://www.listtool.com/
http://www.list-universe.com
http://www.listworld.net
http://www.liszt.com
http://www.marketingwise.com/ezines.htm
http://www.meer.net/~johnl/e-zine-list
http://www.milomail.com/com/aannounce.html
http://www.needymeds.com/eAdsMart/index.html
http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml/
http://www.netagency.com/e-zine-builder.htm
http://www.netmastersolutions.com/ezines
http://www.netspace.org/cgi-bin/lwgate/request-add.html
http://www.netterweb.com/lp/ed_ezinedirectory.htm
http://www.new-list.com/
http://www.newsletteraccess.com/
http://www.newsletter-library.com/ven.htm
http://www.newslettersforfree.com
http://www.oblivion.net/zineworld
http://www.onelist.com
http://www.promotefree.com
http://www.sodamail.com/ezine/home.shtml
http://www.TechMailings.com/
http://www.theadvertisingplace.com/
http://www.tile.net/lists/addlist.html
http://www.time4profit.com/
http://www.topica.com
http://www.wealth101.com/ezineadswap.htm
http://www.webcom.com/impulse/list.html
http://www.webheadcentral.com/ezine.html
http://www.web-source.net/
http://www.writebusiness.com
http://www.zinecity.com/
http://www.zinerack.com/
Well, thats it! So have fun and good luck!
About the Author
Article submitted by "Wild" Bill Montgomery. Visit his site for thousands of "how-to" reports and software ... Free! Why play with puppies when the Big Dog rules? Get the best in marketing and business information. To subscribe and get your free report and software package, see MakingProfit.com or email at infozone-subscribe
:To contact see details below.
infozone-subscribe@makingprofit.com.
http://MakingProfit.com
There is so much to learn and once started, so little time to learn it. I know from my own experiences that it is a constant struggle to keep up with the daily chores of maintaining my website and business, let alone finding new ways to market it. What I wanted to do here is make a small list of tips, tricks and URLs to help you along the way.
Your Articles
One of the simplest but most successful marketing procedures I use to get my Articles out to more ezine publishers (which I use to advertise my own newsletters) may be considered slow. But its a methodical and personal approach, and has more than once opened doors to professional friendships and alliances. The real question here is who wants to publish your article, how do you find them and contact them.
The answer of course is ezine publishers!
To avoid being accused of spam, it is safer that you contact publishers who are asking to be contacted in one way or another. Although as long as it is a legitimate request such as sending your articles -- and not a cesspool of advertising -- very few will object to the contact. To play it safe however I use five major source groups from which publishers have asked for contact or have contacted me first.
You have these five major groups:
1) Article Announcements
2) Ezine Announcements
3) Ad Swap Announcements
4) Newsletter Joining Contact
5) Archives and Databases
Article announcement ezines are a great source of exposure for your articles, as well as article databases and archives, like our "InfoZone Archives" at http://MakingProfit.com/articles/, which publish links to your pearls of wisdom in their ezines.
Keep all of your article submission information together. This way when you are sending it out to your publishers list, you can submit it to the databases and online announcement forms in one shot. Do it all at one time so there is no second guessing in terms of who got what, when, etc.
The ad swaps, article announcements and ezine announcements all have one thing in common: These are people requesting contact in one form or another. As I get these newsletters, I look through them for publishers who have the same subject matter as my articles and I write them a nice letter explaining that I read their post in, say, "List-Universe" or whatever newsletter I found them in. I ask them if they would be interested in receiving my articles for publication in their newsletter. I send along my latest article for viewing.
I have, to this date, never received a negative reply as I am not sending them a bunch of ads or trying to sell them Something, other than on the idea that my articles could help their newsletter. But, as luck would have it, every article has -- what? Thats right! -- a resource box.
The publisher knows this and does not consider this spamming, as its just a part of your article. So you are also getting that ad of yours out there in front of them, in such a casual way, that it is not really considered advertising to the publisher. I have had many publishers write back that they were not at this time interested in outside articles but their email address shows up on my subscriber list. Who knows? Maybe down the road theyll change their mind. But for now its nice to have them reading my newsletter, right? For me, that is my sole reason for writing the article in the first place.
Joining Contacts
There are so many fine newsletters out there that I could never even come close to reading all the ones I really like.But I sign up for new ones on a regular basis. The first thing I do after signing up is send off my article submission request letter. If its a good newsletter, I stay with it. If not I unsubscribe. But the key is that I made that contact.
Very few publishers operate on the ideals of "You must belong to my newsletter in order to send me your articles." If they do and I dont find their newsletter worthy of my attention and time, I unsubscribe and continue to send them my articles until requested to stop. Heres a quick tip: As with any newsletter, offer an unsubscribe procedure. If you are requested to stop, do yourself a favor and stop!
Cold Contact
If you feel that you can contact publishers safely, you can search the many ezine databases available on the web, such as eGroups.com or Topica.com, for ezines similar to your articles and contact them. Leave the advertising at home, besides the resource box at the end of the sample article.
Ezine archives are a never-ending source of publishers. Please be careful how you step and who you step on. Below at the end of this article is a list of places to help you get started.
Your Newsletter
First the subject and style of your newsletter.
The ideal of course is to find a subject that is under "mined" as far as newsletters go. My newsletters are in the highly competitive field of Internet marketing so I cannot say that I followed this bit of advice. But, if you can find a subject on which there are no major newsletters covering, all the better.
As that old marketing saying goes, "You dont have to reinvent the wheel to be successful." Its all in the way you market your newsletter. Dont try to please everybody. Keep your subject matter focused. If youre in marketing focus on marketing. How many marketers do you know that want to see grannys cookie recipe in their ebiz newsletter? Not me.
Create a special "Niche Format" that other newsletters in your field have not yet covered. Research the others and try to do what they have not done yet. Be creative and stick to your market group. After all, they are your bread and butter, so give them what they want and need.
Quick Tips For Your Newsletter
1. Discussion Groups
I left this out of the major groups above because I feel that it takes a certain amount of suave personality to be really successful in discussion groups. I, myself, picked Internet marketing because of the absence of immediate direct contact with other professionals. I am too easily tongue-tied and I feel that it behooves me to spend my valuable "marketing time" in other areas, where I have the time to properly word my replies and/or communication with others.
2. Offer Easy Sign Up On Your Website!
Small sign up box on every page and/or a pop-up on your leading page or pages. Make it tough to say no!
3. Joint Ventures
Get involved with other publishers. Start a mutually beneficial co-op. It could be by way of offering prizes every week or month, or by rotating the prize responsibility from one member to the next. Each member would be required to do his part in advertising the cooperative effort.
4. Subscriber Incentives
Offer free stuff, run contests, conduct giveaways or whatever -- give reasons to join your newsletter. Nothing entices subscribers more than by offering them something for nothing (but asking them to sign up for your newsletter in exchange).
5. Archive Your Newsletters
Archive your previous issues for those potential subscribers that research everything first and want to know what they are signing up for ahead of time. There are a lot out there!
6. Form or Join A Private Ezine Ring
This seems to be the latest rage. Similar to joint ventures, collect a co-op of other publishers that will agree to enter into a "private" ezine ring. I say private because one of the biggest problems with public webrings today is broken links and broken promises. By keeping it private, you stand a much better chance of keeping it clean and free of broken links.
7. Send This Issue To A Friend!
Never -- and I mean never -- send an issue out that doesnt request your subscriber to pass it along. You may even want to suggest some possible recipients that they could send it to. Word of mouth is a very powerful advertising tool!
8. Search Engines and Directories
If you dont have one already, set up a separate page on your website for your ezine, and make sure that your meta-tags are ready -- you can use our free meta-tag generator at http://216.147.104.180/tools/meta.shtml. Then submit it!
9. FFA Pages
Some say that FFA pages do not work. Im not here to tell you they do. But I will say that timing plays a big part in any traffic you may get from them. If you submit to FFAs on a regular basis, consider this: The three heaviest traffic times for FFAs are lunchtime, late afternoon and early evening.
If you submit to FFAs in the middle of the night, as do so many people, consider how long it will be there before thousands of others come in to replace your ad. Who, in what time zone, will be reading your ad? As the bulk of them I submit to are in the US, I base my submittal times on that. Whatever you do, dont use your normal email address or youll be bombed with more junk mail than youll know what to do with. Get a free email address online somewhere and use that.
10. Link Exchanging
Contact webmasters and ask to exchange links, buttons or banners. Many are as hungry for new eyes as you are and will be willing to exchange links with you. Tip: If available, watch your statistics for traffic from this site. If there is not enough to justify the link, remove it after a month.
11. Newsgroups
Of course posting to newsgroups can be helpful too. I feel posting to newsgroups follows the same basic theories of the FFA postings. There are so many so try to get yours in there during peak hours as to maximize your readership.
12. Ad Swaps
When youre sending out that article to all those publishers, be sure to ask about ad swap opportunities -- on the first contact and every contact after that! Use common sense. Dont be wasting your time and space for swaps with incompatible newsletters. I mean, how much business do you think your marketing ad will gain from, say, "Lassies Letters"?
Marketing Your Articles and Newsletters (conclusion)
13. Ezine Announcements
Searchem out and use them. Many publishers rely on these ezine announcement lists for content in their newsletters.
14. Last but Hardly Least, Marketing Marketing Marketing!
Folks, you have to get out there, in the trenches. Offer help whenever you can and even when you cant. Stay in contact as much as possible with people. Marketing is not a place for pedestals, its a place for peers. What do your peers think of you and your company? Try to answer all of those emails! Nothings worse than an unanswered question.
Heres a list of article and newsletter promotion sites:
http://209.53.3.96/newsletters/addnewsletter.asp
http://ezine-dir.hypermart.net
http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/submit.html
http://jlunz.databack.com/netresources/zines.htm
http://kerrisgifts.hypermart.net/adswaps.htm
http://magazines.yotta.com/
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
http://www.absoluteauthority.com/ezines/
http://www.arl.org/scomm/edir/template.html
http://www.bestezines.com
http://www.bestnewsletters.com
http://www.bizx.com/cgi-bin/miva?newsletter.mv
http://www.catalog.com/vivian/
http://www.coalliance.org/
http://www.cumuli.com/ezine/
http://www.disobey.com/low
http://www.edoc.com/jrl-bin/wilma
http://www.egroups.com
http://www.escribe.com/
http://www.e-target.com
http://www.etext.org/services.shtml
http://www.eyesmail.com/
http://www.ezinearticles.com/
http://www.ezinecenter.com/
http://www.ezinelibrary.com/
http://www.ezine-news.com
http://www.ezinesearch.com
http://www.ezineseek.com
http://www.ezinestoday.com
http://www.ezine-universe.com
http://www.ezineworld.com
http://www.e-zinez.com
http://www.globelists.com
http://www.HomeBasedProfit.com/ezineadswap.shtml
http://www.infobot.net
http://www.infojump.com/
http://www.inkpot.com
http://www.lifestylespub.com/cgi-bin/ezines.cgi?10616
http://www.linkfinder.com/submit.html
http://www.listbot.com
http://www.list-city.com
http://www.list-resources.com/
http://www.listsnet.com/
http://www.listtool.com/
http://www.list-universe.com
http://www.listworld.net
http://www.liszt.com
http://www.marketingwise.com/ezines.htm
http://www.meer.net/~johnl/e-zine-list
http://www.milomail.com/com/aannounce.html
http://www.needymeds.com/eAdsMart/index.html
http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml/
http://www.netagency.com/e-zine-builder.htm
http://www.netmastersolutions.com/ezines
http://www.netspace.org/cgi-bin/lwgate/request-add.html
http://www.netterweb.com/lp/ed_ezinedirectory.htm
http://www.new-list.com/
http://www.newsletteraccess.com/
http://www.newsletter-library.com/ven.htm
http://www.newslettersforfree.com
http://www.oblivion.net/zineworld
http://www.onelist.com
http://www.promotefree.com
http://www.sodamail.com/ezine/home.shtml
http://www.TechMailings.com/
http://www.theadvertisingplace.com/
http://www.tile.net/lists/addlist.html
http://www.time4profit.com/
http://www.topica.com
http://www.wealth101.com/ezineadswap.htm
http://www.webcom.com/impulse/list.html
http://www.webheadcentral.com/ezine.html
http://www.web-source.net/
http://www.writebusiness.com
http://www.zinecity.com/
http://www.zinerack.com/
Well, thats it! So have fun and good luck!
About the Author
Article submitted by "Wild" Bill Montgomery. Visit his site for thousands of "how-to" reports and software ... Free! Why play with puppies when the Big Dog rules? Get the best in marketing and business information. To subscribe and get your free report and software package, see MakingProfit.com or email at infozone-subscribe
:To contact see details below.
infozone-subscribe@makingprofit.com.
http://MakingProfit.com
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