| The Top Ten
Mistakes Ezine Publishers Make
Why not learn from other publishers' mistakes?
As always, we're here to support you. If you need assistance
beginning or growing your own Ezine or Newsletter, feel free to contact
us.
1. Quantity vs. Quality
Many publishers become obsessed with getting as many subscribers as they
can. The Quality of your readership is much more important than the Quantity
of subscribers.
2. Anonymity
When you present “just the facts, nothing but the facts” in
your ezine, your readers will not get a sense of who YOU are. This is
a difficult environment to build relationships of trust in. Less trust
= less sales. Let yourself shine through in your ezine so that your readers
have the experience of getting to know who you are. Be your own Unique
Selling Point.
3. Snake Oil
Only represent products and services that you can truly stand behind and
endorse.
4. Scheduling by Sundials
Publish on time, when you say you are going to publish. Have you ever
gotten an ezine apologizing for not being on time after months of lag
time? Not a very professional approach!
5. Filler, It’s What’s for Dinner
Don’t just insert whatever content you can find as filler. It’s
better to publish a shorter issue of your ezine than to grab whatever
content you can simply to fill up space.
6. AdFest
Be particular and sparing in the amount of ads you run. Think 90% content
/ 10% promotion. If readers need to sift through ads to find your content,
they likely won’t read either of these.
7. Thin Ice
Don’t spread yourself too thin. Many publishers get excited and
try to publish multiple ezines. It’s better to do one ezine well,
than to do many half-heartedly because you over committed.
8. But There's Only 365 Days...
If you're just starting out, creating a daily ezine is not a good idea.
In fact, weekly may be too much. When you're first starting, you're all
excited about your ezine, but you're likely to find that you lose motivation
on the 100th day of your daily. Start with a monthly or bi-weekly. It's
a lot easier to increase frequency than to vanish.
9. Trust your Host
Many ezine hosting and management services are nothing but a slaughterhouse.
Because their big money comes from email marketers, they don’t give
content publishers a safe environment to host in. One spammer using your
host can get YOUR ezine blacklisted. Work with a host who caters to content
publishers, not email marketers.
10 It’s all For Matt
Before you send your ezine out, make certain that all formatting is correct.
I receive countless text ezines that have you have to scroll left and
right to read, and countless HTML ezines with broken images and links!
About The Author
Lisa Micklin is the co-founder of EZezine.com
and the moderator/hostess of the Ezine
Publishing Cafe.
|
