Guaranteed Ways
to Build Up Your Ezine List
Copyright © 2004 Suzanne Falter-Barns
Here are tips gleaned from roughly 5 years spent building up an
ezine list. I've also incorporated comments and tips from Jenna
Glatzer, who successfully built her list up to 75,000 at her
excellent site, www.absolutewrite.com
1. Free Stuff. Pick genuinely useful free stuff that you know your
audience wants and needs. For instance, my brand new ezine, Expert
Status, attracted 600 readers in just a few weeks by offering a
report, “25 Top Self Help Literary Agents”. The practical
freebie works. Jenna Glatzer offers two free ebooks/reports to
subscribers on agents who are receptive to new writers, and on
writer’s markets.She notes: “Before I did that, my subscriber
numbers were in the hundreds, not thousands.
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2. Put a
subscribe box on every page of the site. This has worked for
both Jenna and me. Mine is parked in the left hand column of
the site. Experts advise putting a simple sign up box (with
freebie mentioned) in the top left hand corner, as that’s
where the eye naturally travels first. |
A simple sign up box
that requests only email address works best.
3. Ad swaps. Exchange plugs for your ezine with another website,
to run in eachother’s ezines. Be sure to mention those freebies!
Doing this on a regular basis with a rotating selection of web
partners will keep your subscription page busy.
4. Cross-registration. I’ve found subscribers by having a plug
for my ezine on the thank you page of a comparable (but not
directly competitive) website. This offer is made to folks who
just signed up for an ezine, and are therefore deemed ‘in the
mood for more.’ Offer a swap with your site, and try not to list
more than about two other ezines. Also, make a point of including
only really good, reliable publications that reach your target
market.
5. Give away a bonus for other sites to use, based on your ezine.
A popular web marketing technique is the special one or two-day
promo that offers big bonus lists when you buy a certain product
on those particular days. (I cover this promo technique in more
detail in my ebook/binder, Get Known Now; How to Build Your
Platform as a Self Help Expert.) So collect some of your best
ezine essays, pack ‘em up in a downloadable PDF-based e-book,
and offer it as a bonus these sites can use in their special
promos. Don’t forget juicy descriptive copy about your ezine,
and a subscribe link at the end of your ebook. I’ve gotten
hundreds of new readers this way, and much traffic to my site.
6. Announce ezine ‘events’ on PRweb.com and other PR sites.
There’s an entire world of web-based press release distribution
services out there, some of which are low cost or even free. So
use them. But be sure to only plant press releases that are truly
newsworthy, and thus likely to get press attention. Even if the
media don’t use your words this time, they’ll hopefully file
you as an expert for future use.
7. Use discussion boards or groups. These are sites frequented by
gangs of people interested in the same thing. Avoid the
unmoderated sites, because they’re likely to be spam targets
that generate little bonafide traffic. Boards found on member
sites are the best. Don’t spam the board with your subscribe
message. Instead, offer some genuinely helpful info. Then sign off
with a signature line that includes ezine and subscribe info. You
can find some of these groups at groups.yahoo.com, topica.com,
mail-list.com, and listfool.com for starters.
8. Sponsor other people’s contests. Jenna Glatzer gives away
products like her paid newsletter, Absolute Markets Premium
Newsletter, to writers’ groups, contests, and conferences that
request it, regardless of size. I’ve tried this too, to good
effect. Simply run an announcement in your ezine that you’d be
happy to sponsor comparable events. Ask them to provide a URL for
an event description so you know it’s legit. Then offer up your
gifts, and ask for a plug for your ezine and for them to talk up
your dazzling freebie, as well. Jenna notes that groups she
sponsors “often send out ads for us to their lists … just as a
thank you.”
9. Run quality content. There’s no substitute for heartfelt
writing plus solid information about a subject that matters. Jenna
writes: ‘The main reason our list stays so big is our ‘letter
from the editor’ … Each week, I chronicle my writing life and
my triumphs and failures … when an article is killed, when I’m
having trouble finishing a book … And I share personal things,
too, like when my grandfather died…. People write: ‘ I feel
like I know you so well.’ And I think that’s why they stay on
the list, even when their mailbox fills up with dozens of other
writer’s newsletters.
10. Allow reprints. Allow any newsletter that wants to reprint
your articles do so. I like to have an email requesting
permission, so I can enter their info into a big database I use to
track where I can send more articles in the future. I end each
article with the line: You may reprint this article in your own
ezine or website. Simply send an email requesting permission to
EMAIL ADDRESS. Please be sure to include our full bio box at the
end.
11. Create a survey or contest. This would be one of those
newsworthy ‘ezine events’ I mentioned above in point # 6. Make
it a fun, relevant question that you could really develop a good,
newsy story from. I did a survey asking people what they fought
with their spouse/partner/boy or girlfriend about. The results
made for the kind of reading offline media enjoy running short,
100-word pieces about (fillers.) I made sure to attribute the
survey to my ezine, The Joy Letter, with a mention of the site’s
basic URL. You can get the technology to run your own survey and
collect responses at surveymonkey.com (for a fee) or bravenet.com
(for free.)
I think I could actually go on and on here. The possibilities seem
to be endless. If you try even half of these techniques on a
regular basis, you’ll find your subscriber rates double and even
triple. Here’s to building your list … the foundation that
much of your traffic and success rely on.
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Suzanne Falter-Barns’ website, The Self Help Salon (www.selfhelpsalon.com)
offers tips and tools that help you build your platform and get
known as an expert in your field. Sign up for her free ezine,
Expert Status, and receive her free report, “25 Top Self Help
Literary Agents
