The Online Business Plank Owner

This is the last post for this series.  Yeah!!  Our topic is writing an ezine.

An ezine is an effective method of building an opt-in list. Most ezines are offered as a free subscription. An ezine is like a newsletter that is distributed online. Once you have a list, you can send promotions to your list. You can use various methods of driving traffic to a website where people can opt-in to subscribe to your ezine.

The best ezines, ones that get opened and read, offer how-to-tips in small chunks that are practical and easy to implement.  Ezine should include helpful articles and links to worthy news. Try relating your articles to current events which will improve readership.

Here are some things that make an article ideal for an ezine. These tips come from Bly’s colleague, Ilise Benun of www.artofselfpromotion.com.

1. Pass on useful information.
2. Pay attention to questions, problems, and ideas that come up as you interact with your customers.
3. Capture any lessons into a quick tip that you can share in email, conversations, or in your ezine.
4. Use the problem or situation as an introduction to your tip.
5. Give the solution in action oriented steps.
6. Describe the result or benefit of the tips; give URLs for helpful tools.
7. Provide tips readers can use without having to do any work. For example, phrases they can use as it, boilerplate templates, checklist, etc.
8. List web sites and other resources readers can use. Include the links.
9. Put your best tip first. Some people won’t read the whole article.

Remember that your subscribers includes people who have opted into you ezine but have not purchased anything, and people who get your ezine because they have bought something from you. You have to keep their needs and perspective in mind even if you use the same ezine.

For readers who are not customers yet, make sure the ezine has good content, include an ad in each issue for your product (Bly recommends a minimum of 100 words), and send a solo email ad to this list for your product.

For your customers, give them news updates, recommendations, and ideas for using your product. You can also highlight product upgrades, accessories, or other related items. And you can give them discounts on other purchases.

The bottom line is to make sure you are providing valuable content.

Finally! We are at the end of this copywriting journey! I encourage you to continue your own copywriting journey. There is tons more to know. Some other resources you may want to check out are:

- Hypnotic Writing by Joe Vitale. I’ve already read this book and actually like it more than The Copywriter’s Handbook.  In my opinion, The Handbook is more “technical” or “science” and Hypnotic Writing is more about the “art.” And you need both the art and the science. Hypnotic Writing also has a great list of other copywriting resources.

- The Copywriters Adweek Handbook by Joe Sugarman. He wrote the famous sun blocker direct response mail campaign. This book is next on my list of copywriting books to read.

- The Robert Collier Letter by Robert Collier. I haven’t read this one yet either. But from what I understand, this is an advanced resource. Although it was printed in 1930, it’s still very valuable. You might want to save this one for last.

If interested, the rest of The Copywriter’s Handbook talks about getting a job as a copywriter, which wasn’t the intent of this blog series. But check out the book if you want to know more.

I hope you have learned a lot and that you now have a good foundation for developing your copywriting skills.

We’ll see again on some other posts.

Yoli