Is Your Ezine A Wealth of Information or A Sales Trap?
Karon Thackston

Ask successful ezine publishers what draws subscribers to their ezines, and you'll be told one very important thing. Content, content, content. However, many would-be ezine publishers focus more on selling than they do on valuable information. They turn their attention toward making money instead of building relationships. If you follow suit, that practice will surely be the death of your ezine, my friend.

"What? Ezines are supposed to be this wonderful marketing tool. They are supposed to help me get more sales. What do you mean that selling will be the death of my ezine?"

Exactly what I said. Think of it this way. When you subscribe to a paper magazine, what are you paying your hard-earned money for? You don't want to get a copy of "Forbes" or "Glamour" only to find 90% ads and only one article in the entire issue, do you? Certainly not! Neither do your ezine subscribers. even if your 'zine is free.

They subscribed to your ezine because they believed they would get a wealth of information. Instead, they're likely to feel they've fallen into a sales trap.

Don't get me wrong. Ezines are a wonderful sales tool. They can help to build your business. They do bring in more clients. But they only do this if presented in a professional manner that shows you care about providing a quality publication, and not just promoting products or services that will make you money.

Trust is a big part of ezine success. Your subscribers trust you to provide content that will help them in some way. If you choose not to, they will most likely unsubscribe. If you choose to give them what they want however, you can get set to reap the rewards.

Take the time to find out the concerns, needs, and wants of your subscribers. Then offer them solutions through your content. You can do this through articles you write yourself, or by researching articles written by others. Make the content prevalent. don't make your readers have to dig to find it.

Once you have your content in place then turn your focus to advertising. Many ezines I've seen are simply overloaded with ads. You must read through five or six ads before you ever get to any real information. That's way too much! Yes, for your advertiser's benefit, you'll want to have the ad placed above the articles. That's understandable. But only place one ad in each spot. not three or four. Again. put your subscribers' needs first.

When you take every effort to produce a publication that readers will value, you will increase your chances of getting referral subscriptions, building trust, creating valuable relationships, making more sales, and boosting your own credibility. Then, and only then, will your sales come rolling in.

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